2021 Touring Car Discussion Thread - TCR, BTCC, etc.Touring Cars 

A red flag affected qualifying session at Croft, sees Aidan Moffat take his 1st career BTCC pole in his Infiniti, narrowly pipping Jake Hill's Focus in P2, and Turkington in P3. Elsewhere, title contender Ingram lacked pace as his Hyundai struggled with 66kg of ballast, so he lines up 21st. Butcher suffered mechanical woes that caused the 1st red flag and thus set no time.

Croft Qualifying BTCC 2021.png


Forecast says rain is immanent for tomorrow, which will no doubt throw an additional spanner into the works.
 
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An intense and at times chaotic BTCC afternoon sees Aiden Moffat and Jake Hill pick up their first wins of 2021 at Croft. True to his title as the 'King of Croft', Colin Turkington completes a solid weekend with a lights-to-flag victory, his 13th at the Yorkshire circuit, from reverse-grid pole in Race 3.

Just eight points separate 2nd to 5th in the Drivers' Championship (Hill, Turkington, Cook and Ingram) with three meetings to go. Ash Sutton maintains a 29-point advantage at the top of the standings.
 
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After the completion of another 2-session qualifying format, this time at Silverstone, Butcher takes pole in the top 10 shootout. His Speedworks Corolla pipped Ingrams Hyundai in P2, with Moffat continuing his good form to line up P3 in his Infiniti.

Elsewhere, 2nd in the championship Jake Hill struggled with success ballast not only missing out on the shootout, but only managed 22nd. Andy Jordan continued testing of the Speedworks-ran TOCA Hybrid car, on it's "guest" outing this weekend, putting laps in throughout the session. But with focus purely on development, he will start all 3 races tomorrow from the pit-lane, so as not to interfere with the championship runners.

 
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Qualifying for the penultimate round of this years BTCC at Donnington, again adopted the two session format. Title protagonists Hill and Ingram narrowly missed out on the top ten shootout by mere hundredths, both their cars struggling to carry the success ballast (57kg and 66kg respectively). Both will start 12th and 13th respectively for race 1 tomorrow. Whereas championship leader Sutton was comfortably through with 75kg's onboard. Of the 29 cars, the top 27 were covered by less than 1s...

For the second session, a 10min top 10 shootout again decided the grid. Shedden managed to grab pole in his Team Dynamics Civic, breaking the qualifying lap record in the process. The PMR Astra's continued their good showing from Silverstone, with Dan Lloyd going an excellent 2nd, and Plato put in a time good enough for a seasons best 3rd.

 
Gordon Shedden dominates Race 1 from Dan Lloyd and Rory Butcher, but is forced to settle for second in Race 2 following Tom Ingram's storming drive from 11th. Despite dropping from 4th to 11th in the second encounter following a spin, Colin Turkington inherits Race 3 pole.

UPDATE: In a somewhat downbeat development, Shedden and Ingram swap places following a time penalty for the Ginsters Hyundai. Reason given is contact made by Ingram before his pass at the final chicane, but I don't remember seeing anything major from the replays that were shown live. Can anyone else enlighten me on this decision?

UPDATE 2: Never mind, Ingram's front bumper was right up behind Shedden before he committed to the inside. Still don't think it looked that much different to other manoeuvres made at Coppice so far this afternoon....
 
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What a poor show by stewards over the last 24 hours. Both Corvettes punted 1st place in both classes in IMSA and got away with it, Gasly penalised for a textbook 1st corner incident, and now this.
 
Colin Turkington equals Andy Rouse's win tally with his 60th in Race 3. A trouble-free run even with an early safety car period, with Jake Hill and Aiden Moffat completing the podium.

Mathematically, five drivers remain in contention for the Driver's title, but unless anything disastrous happens at Brands, Ash Sutton is looking more likely to secure a second-consecutive crown for the Infiniti....
 
Final qualifying session, for final round of this years BTCC at Brands GP, saw Senna Proctor take pole in his BTC racing Civic Type R, narrowly pipping teammate Josh Cook by 0.011s. Thus making it a BTC 1-2. Rowbottom 3rd and Shedden 4th, made it a Honda lock-out in the top 4. Championship protagonists Turkington and Sutton had a solid session to go 6th and 8th respectively. Hill lines up 11th in his Focus, and Ingram 13th in his Hyundai, both with a bit of work to do if they're to catch Championship leader Sutton tomorrow.

The single 30min session was a fast one, with 12 cars going under the old qualifying lap record, with the cooler conditions playing nicely to car performance.



It's Suttons championship to lose really, he's put on a Turkington-esque performance throughout the year with his consistency, managing his championship lead to put him in this position. But with all title contenders lining within reach of each other on the grid for race 1 tomorrow, it should make for 3 interesting races.
 
Touring Mars
BTCC finale and the US GP on afterwards.

I reckon today is going to be a good day...


Shaun The Sheep Movie Ok GIF
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I should hope so! Anything can happen in BTCC as we all know, but barring any disasters I feel that the Driver's title will be Sutton's to lose.

T-minus 15 minutes to Race 1 start....
 
Josh Cook makes it two from two, with a controlled performance in race 2. Main focus was on Sutton, who managed to secure his 3rd overall (and the Independents) title with a race to spare. A solid 4th for Turkington wasn't enough to take the title to race 3. Lloyd was an excellent 2nd in his PMR Astra, and Shedden bagged another P3.



Frantic start to race 2 with that incident at Surtees, Ingram recovered well after being caught up there. Fair play to Sutton, been the man to beat all year really. Ultra consistent this year after refining his approach. In many ways beating Turks at his own points-mean-prizes type approach. Impressive to think Ash has 3 titles already after just 6 years in the BTCC, especially at a relatively young age...

Final race of 2021 should be a great watch, not only with reverse grid (as always), but now the title is sorted they're free to go at it for the finale.
 
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Congratulations to Ash Sutton for sowing up the main and Independent Driver's titles once again. At the end of the day, consistency was key and he always seemed to get the most out of the Infiniti on full ballast weight, so props to him and Laser Tools Racing on their success!

For a while, I thought Lloyd was going to get an Ingram-style penalty since the replays showed that he was right behind Proctor before Druids. Still, another brilliant weekend so far in the Power Maxed Vauxhall following his performances at Silverstone and Donington.

Speaking of Ingram, as unfortunate as he was getting disrupted by that Lap 1 skirmish, he still survived and was able to claw back some ground alongside Hill. Regardless of where he ends up in the overall standings, that shouldn't take away too much from what has been an exceptional second season for the Excelr8 Hyundai.

Less than 25 minutes to go before the start procedure for Race 3, with Stephen Jelley inheriting reverse-grid pole.
 
I remember when Infiniti was a factory-backed entry supporting paras injured in service, but couldn't manage to get two cars out for the first two races, toured round at the back in almost every event, then one of their mechanics made violent threats on Twitter, and they pulled out shortly after...

Now they've withdrawn from the market entirely, but have a double-double-championship-winning car :lol:
 
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Putting the cherry on top of his sweet championship sundae, Ash Sutton takes home the final BTCC win of 2021 from Dan Rowbottom and a hard-charging Tom Ingram. Disaster for Colin Turkington as he picks up terminal suspension damage on Lap 1, but he somehow manages to hang on to the runner-up spot in the overall standings. Thanks to his earlier victories, Josh Cook leapfrogs both Jake Hill and Tingram to take third in the championship - a superb comeback after a difficult season last year for the BTC Racing squad.



Hard to believe that this was the final race with pure internal combustion power, the Swindon engine and success ballast, and what a cracker it was. Still plenty of mystery surrounding the M-Sport units and mandatory hybrid systems, so there's a good chance things could be turned on their heads once again come the start of next season....
 
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Gutted for my guy - Turks. Just didn’t seem to be at the races not just at BH but all season long and could not compete with Ash Sutton and all he can do and is. Could not do anything at all about him. I mean even an Ash on his worst day it seems can be streets ahead of the rest. Infinity by name and nature. That car can, it seems to me, produce power and speed not capable in the others. And he has a level of skill and race craft no other driver could achieve.

That said another terrific season. I feel so bad for the F1 fans who have begrudgingly accepted almost that, like in other sports, because there is one or two top guys who do better than everyone else, perform better than everyone else, win more than everyone else, then they should have free reign to dominate it. I’ve told F1 fans on another board surely it will be better if we never knew who was going to win from one week to the next and the top drivers had genuine competition from others down the field who are “plucky” and they all scoffed at the idea.

This idea has been the bedrock of the BTCC for years and today. The smaller Independent teams making it hard for the top drivers. Teams like BTC Racing. Drivers like Josh Cook. These teams have grown as a result to be a top team. All they needed was parity and a chance to compete with the best.

I can’t wait to see 2022.
 
Diehardracer
Gutted for my guy - Turks. Just didn’t seem to be at the races not just at BH but all season long and could not compete with Ash Sutton and all he can do and is. Could not do anything at all about him. I mean even an Ash on his worst day it seems can be streets ahead of the rest. Infinity by name and nature. That car can, it seems to me, produce power and speed not capable in the others. And he has a level of skill and race craft no other driver could achieve.

That said another terrific season. I feel so bad for the F1 fans who have begrudgingly accepted almost that, like in other sports, because there is one or two top guys who do better than everyone else, perform better than everyone else, win more than everyone else, then they should have free reign to dominate it. I’ve told F1 fans on another board surely it will be better if we never knew who was going to win from one week to the next and the top drivers had genuine competition from others down the field who are “plucky” and they all scoffed at the idea.

This idea has been the bedrock of the BTCC for years and today. The smaller Independent teams making it hard for the top drivers. Teams like BTC Racing. Drivers like Josh Cook. These teams have grown as a result to be a top team. All they needed was parity and a chance to compete with the best.

I can’t wait to see 2022.
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The gains the Infinitis have are not purely down to speed - they run the exact same Swindon control engine as those of the BTC Hondas, Toyotas, Hyundais and a number of other Independent runners who also scored Top 5 finishes throughout the season. It especially helps that the current Q50 chassis handles wet conditions and heavy ballast exceptionally well, which plays a massive difference with Sutton not only driving, but also having played a hands-on role in developing the Laser Tools builds.
 
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