From the pitwall: A BTCC title battle through a team boss’s eyes

With any BTCC title battle, the focus is inevitably on the gladiators behind the wheel in their quest for glory. But for a team boss, the bid to become a champion is no less dramatic.

SEAT Sport brought a lot of colour to the BTCC when they joined in 2004, and over the next four years the likes of Jason Plato, Rob Huff, James Thompson and Darren Turner brought them plenty of race wins and success.

SEAT took the manufacturer’s title in 2006 and the teams’ championship in 2007, and came agonisingly close to a drivers’ title with Plato in the same year, losing out to Vauxhall’s Fabrizio Giovanardi by just three points.

A constant on the pitwall during that time was the then SEAT UK motorsport manager Scott Dennis.

Ahead of this year’s season finale, TouringCarTimes caught up with Scott to find out how a BTCC championship battle looks through a team boss’s eyes.

The end of the 2007 season was a suitably dramatic conclusion to one of the all-time classic BTCC seasons. Plato and Giovanardi had been going at it hammer and tongs over nine rounds, and the stage was set perfectly.

Both SEAT and Vauxhall enlisted the help of World Touring Car Championship regulars to support their drivers, with Tom Coronel driving the Leon and Alain Menu the Vectra.

But for Dennis, the weekend was set on a different path following a call from Plato a few days before: ‘Mate, I’ve had a bit of an accident…’

While filming for Fifth Gear, Plato suffered burns to his hands and face after the Caparo T1 he was driving burst into flames. Nevertheless, he turned in an outstanding performance all weekend, and fell heartbreakingly short of the title.

“The weekend was shaped by Jason’s accident in the Caparo, and we were thinking we were on the back foot anyway,” said Dennis

“But you can’t approach the race weekend any differently than you do on the first weekend, whether you are in the championship hunt or not. If you do anything differently that weekend, then you haven’t been doing it right for the nine before.

“We had a nurse on site, as his burns were still very raw. But we operated exactly how we did at the nine rounds before, to give Jason a chance to compete.”

History will tell you that Plato and SEAT fell just short of glory. But what was the feeling for the team boss in the aftermath of that race?

Dennis said: “At Thruxton, you don’t have a garage, so I just went outside and sat on a toolbox and pondered what could have been. Jason’s 50 points behind going into this weekend, but when it’s three or four points, you think ‘where did we lose those points in the other 27 races?’

“But I think we held our heads very high. We brought a little bit of colour and excitement to it, and it was great to be involved.”

Dennis said the mantra of approaching every weekend in the same way applied to him in the battle that day at Thruxton.

He said: “You’re sat on the pitwall with the team manager and the two race engineers, and their approach is more important than mine, as they are in direct contact with the drivers.

“When the engineers had to pass messages to the drivers, they needed to be clear and calm. But you know you have no control over what is going on.

“You have to remember you are the face of the brand, when you have a microphone or camera put in your face. There were times where the drivers made mistakes and behind the scenes they admitted it, but you can’t pass on that criticism.”

The 2007 season wasn’t the only one where SEAT were in with a chance of glory. The previous season, 2006, was a high watermark, as the team beat Vauxhall to the coveted manufacturers’ crown.

Dennis said this was another highlight for him.

“To win a driver’s championship is great for the driver, but the manufacturers was a huge deal for us. We were trying to promote SEAT as a sporty brand, and the car we were using on track looked like the car you could drive on the road,” he said.

From their early days in the BTCC, it was clear that SEAT wanted to do things a bit differently – right down to a celebrated April Fool’s Day gag, where they claimed to have pioneered the world’s first remote-controlled touring car for Dennis to compete with.

“We tried to be pioneering in our own way. We weren’t a traditional BTCC team. We adopted the yellow because it was SEAT Sport’s colours, but also because we wanted to stand out,” said Dennis.

“It was great everywhere, except at Croft, because you got covered in flies!

“We approached it in a slightly different way, which was one of the reasons we employed Jason. For us, it was not all about winning. It was about being perceived as being fun, and being something people wanted to be associated with.

“When we first worked with RML, they had been working with Nissan. They had so much success that they never got any TV coverage – but we knew we would. For us, competing well was as important as winning.”

He may have been out of the championship for a few years, but Dennis is still keeping an eye on his former charge’s progress.

Assessing Plato’s chances ahead of the weekend, Dennis said: “Jason knows the championship is probably out of his reach, unless Colin has a disaster. Colin has been consistent throughout the season, and that what you need to win championships.

“Jason will be going out there for wins, to get his wins tally up. He’ll be hoping to qualify well, win a couple of races and get MG the manufacturers’ championship.”

SEAT left the BTCC at the end of the 2008 season, as the economic crisis began to bite, and working life now has a very different feel for Dennis.

He has been able to commit full-time to photography, a pursuit he’s been interested in since around the age of 10.

He said: “I’ve always had an interest but not always had a lot of time.

“My pictures are a bit like Marmite. I like to do things which are a bit different, and I challenge myself to be more creative with my pictures.”

For more information on Scott’s latest endeavours, visit Scott Dennis Photography.