BTCC Future direction of the BTCC package
This theme has been seeping into many of the recent BTCC race threads so I thought it would be worthy of having it's own topic.
On paper the championship is in good health. The grid is bigger than I, and I think others perhaps, expected six months ago. The standard of drivers is strong too, with perhaps only three or four "no-hopers" rounding out the field. But despite this there seems to be a general impression that the series, and the whole package itself, has become a bit flat. A platform (NGTC) that has been in place for the best part of 15 years, and sure there's been changes here and there (Hybrid coming and going, etc.), but fundamentally the cars have a similar look and feel as they did a decade ago. Contrast that to the difference between BTCC in 2005 and 2015, and then certainly the differences between 1995 and 2005, then this becomes very apparent.
New cars come and go, but beyond outliers like the RWD BMW and the strange Subaru that was quickly dropped, none of it really has any fundamental impact on the racing. The front of the field today is dominated by the quickest drivers with the best engineers, to the extent that I think you could put any of the top 5 in the championship in any of the cars on the grid and they'd still be competing right at the front. Whilst there is still a bit of circuit-to-circuit variation, it feels less so than a decade past.
It all just feels very homogenised currently, lacking some of the dynamics of eras gone by, like Super 2000 for example, where you had the longer wheel-based Vauxhall's very competitive at circuits like Thruxton, RWD BMW's having an advantage at Croft and Knockhill and then the shorter SEAT's going very well at Brands and Donington. Maybe some of those perceptions aren't even supported by the data, but I'm sure it used to feel more varied circuit-to-circuit.
Another big change I have noticed increasingly over the last decade is how much more “professional” the drivers are. This isn't just a BTCC change, it's the same in Formula One where most of them appear to be best pals off the track. Now it's always been the case that most of the rivalries in the past were played-up to be more than they actually were, with 95% of the drivers generally getting on well off the circuit, but on-circuit the BTCC has a history of rivalries that just seems to be lacking in the modern era: Rouse and Soper, Cleland and Soper, Cleland and half the grid at various points, Reid and Rydell, Reid and half the grid at various points, Plato and Muller, Plato and the entire grid for large parts of his career. The BTCC's transformation in the 90s and 00s was built on the larger-than-life soap opera on- and off-track. Today's drivers personalities seem to the extend to the longest list of sponsors that can be rattled off to Louise Goodman in the 90 seconds they get after the race.
Outside of the BTCC itself, the support package has been diminishing over recent years and this year has to be an all-time low. Two decades ago we had multiple manufacturer backed series, with so many entrants in one case (2007 Clio Cup) that some had to be sent home after qualifying races. Grids rammed full with great variety, a range of single-seaters with future F1 stars like Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton, some sports cars (Porsche, Lotus and Ginetta all represented over the years) and up-coming touring car drivers (SEATs, Clios, Fiestas, Vectra SRI Challenge amongst others). The action in the tin-top based supports often used to eclipse the BTCC itself. This year in particular seems to be a nadir for supporting action to the BTCC, with low calibre series with club-level drivers and so many sub-classes in some that almost everyone's a podium finisher in one thing or another.
I appreciate a lot of these problems aren't entirely specific to the BTCC, but as the leading series for four-wheel racing in the UK by a giant chasm, it's perhaps where solutions need to be found first. For the paying spectator at the track, many of the non-BTCC races are an opportunity to go for a walk round the circuit or get a snack rather than excitement at least some of them used to provide. (Let's be clear, Formula Renault and the Porsche's have always filled that role of being pretty dull for the trackside spectator).
I didn't really intend for this to be the better part of a thousand words long and I imagine it's turned bit rambly, but I'm interested in what others think might be solutions to some of these problems.
For me:
On paper the championship is in good health. The grid is bigger than I, and I think others perhaps, expected six months ago. The standard of drivers is strong too, with perhaps only three or four "no-hopers" rounding out the field. But despite this there seems to be a general impression that the series, and the whole package itself, has become a bit flat. A platform (NGTC) that has been in place for the best part of 15 years, and sure there's been changes here and there (Hybrid coming and going, etc.), but fundamentally the cars have a similar look and feel as they did a decade ago. Contrast that to the difference between BTCC in 2005 and 2015, and then certainly the differences between 1995 and 2005, then this becomes very apparent.
New cars come and go, but beyond outliers like the RWD BMW and the strange Subaru that was quickly dropped, none of it really has any fundamental impact on the racing. The front of the field today is dominated by the quickest drivers with the best engineers, to the extent that I think you could put any of the top 5 in the championship in any of the cars on the grid and they'd still be competing right at the front. Whilst there is still a bit of circuit-to-circuit variation, it feels less so than a decade past.
It all just feels very homogenised currently, lacking some of the dynamics of eras gone by, like Super 2000 for example, where you had the longer wheel-based Vauxhall's very competitive at circuits like Thruxton, RWD BMW's having an advantage at Croft and Knockhill and then the shorter SEAT's going very well at Brands and Donington. Maybe some of those perceptions aren't even supported by the data, but I'm sure it used to feel more varied circuit-to-circuit.
Another big change I have noticed increasingly over the last decade is how much more “professional” the drivers are. This isn't just a BTCC change, it's the same in Formula One where most of them appear to be best pals off the track. Now it's always been the case that most of the rivalries in the past were played-up to be more than they actually were, with 95% of the drivers generally getting on well off the circuit, but on-circuit the BTCC has a history of rivalries that just seems to be lacking in the modern era: Rouse and Soper, Cleland and Soper, Cleland and half the grid at various points, Reid and Rydell, Reid and half the grid at various points, Plato and Muller, Plato and the entire grid for large parts of his career. The BTCC's transformation in the 90s and 00s was built on the larger-than-life soap opera on- and off-track. Today's drivers personalities seem to the extend to the longest list of sponsors that can be rattled off to Louise Goodman in the 90 seconds they get after the race.
Outside of the BTCC itself, the support package has been diminishing over recent years and this year has to be an all-time low. Two decades ago we had multiple manufacturer backed series, with so many entrants in one case (2007 Clio Cup) that some had to be sent home after qualifying races. Grids rammed full with great variety, a range of single-seaters with future F1 stars like Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton, some sports cars (Porsche, Lotus and Ginetta all represented over the years) and up-coming touring car drivers (SEATs, Clios, Fiestas, Vectra SRI Challenge amongst others). The action in the tin-top based supports often used to eclipse the BTCC itself. This year in particular seems to be a nadir for supporting action to the BTCC, with low calibre series with club-level drivers and so many sub-classes in some that almost everyone's a podium finisher in one thing or another.
I appreciate a lot of these problems aren't entirely specific to the BTCC, but as the leading series for four-wheel racing in the UK by a giant chasm, it's perhaps where solutions need to be found first. For the paying spectator at the track, many of the non-BTCC races are an opportunity to go for a walk round the circuit or get a snack rather than excitement at least some of them used to provide. (Let's be clear, Formula Renault and the Porsche's have always filled that role of being pretty dull for the trackside spectator).
I didn't really intend for this to be the better part of a thousand words long and I imagine it's turned bit rambly, but I'm interested in what others think might be solutions to some of these problems.
For me:
- The BTCC needs to decide it's next direction soon, whether to go down the increasingly silhouette-format, in which case they might as well go all the way and make it a spec-series with different bodywork (would help reduce budgets a bit) or to go back to basics and more inline with what the BTCC originated as, racing cars on the Sunday that the punter could buy on the Monday.
- The support package needs a complete overhaul, with priority placed on bringing in series that are entertaining for the crowds at the track and the viewers on TV. Ideally we'd get away from everything being one-make and have something like the National Saloon Car Championship make a come-back but I fear that's not really feasible.