[BTCC] Round Three, Brands Hatch Indy 26-27 Jun, Races 7,8&9

[crmalcolm]

The BTCC heads to Brands Hatch next, for the first visit of two this season. Typically used for opening rounds in recent years, the Indy circuit hosts the third meeting of 2021.


Brands has been a popular circuit for BTCC/BSCC meetings hosting no less than eight rounds and twelve championship races in the inaugural season. Given the association with series, it seems fitting that one of the class winners in the very first BSCC race was Jack Sears, with John Sprinzel the other class winner. That same day, Tommy Sopwith was also a class winner, and the two were tied at the end of the very first finals day, again at Brands Hatch before the shootout.
The layout back then would be very familiar to those racing this season, although with different corner names to those currently used. The design utilising the natural amphitheatre to create a layout that offers great viewing opportunities and significant elevation changes to challenge all types of racer.


The grid seems to have settled down after some early season shuffles and following a run for Jess Hawkins last time out, Andy Neate is due to step back into the Ford Focus.

The first time we saw NGTC machines running as constructor entries on the Indy circuit, the race wins were taken by Collard in a BMW, Neal in a Civic and Plato in an MG. The results were shared between RWD and FWD cars, and across a range of manufacturers. There appeared to be no specific advantage to any particular setup.

The most recent visit was in 2020 for finals day, which saw the first two race podiums shared between Cammish’s Honda, Sutton’s Infiniti and Ingram’s Corolla. Ingram also took a second place in the third race, with Butcher and Hill also claiming podium slots. Sutton took the title when all of the results were in, and he comes into this weekend bearing the #1 on his car and carrying the most ballast being in the lead of the championship. The likes of Butcher, Plato and Shedden will be hoping the ballast levels have a real impact and Sutton, Ingram and Turkington are not able to post a good qualifying time. The short circuit should mean that qualifying is tight, and fractions of a second could make a significant difference.


Qualifying is expected to be on the ITV Hub at www.itv.com/btcc, with the Sunday coverage on ITV4. The full timetable will be made available at - https://www.barc.net/event/toca-race...ds-hatch-indy/



Early weather forecast shows that Saturday is forecast to be 25deg with a 0% chance of rain and sunny.


Sunday 23deg with a 0% chance of rain and sunny.


The form table for the last 6 races at this layout shows the top five contenders ranked:

Position	Name	Points
1	Rory BUTCHER	73
2	Ash SUTTON	71
3	Tom INGRAM	69
4	Josh COOK	66
5	Jake HILL	64

[crmalcolm]

Live coverage details:

ITV3 - Freeview:10 - Sky:119 - Virgin:117 - BT:10 - Freesat:115
Sun 27 Jun
11:00am-6:25pm (7 hours 25 minutes)

** Note - ITV has coverage listed as ITV3, series links might not work [Tour de France is on ITV4] **

[Mike Harte]

Thanks for that, CRM, because my box didn't catch it but now set.

[S griffin]

Looking forward to this one, let’s hope the weather is better than it was at the end of last year here or today for that matter!

[CarfanLUFC]

Looking forward to this, always love Brands, probably my favourite UK track.

I actually enjoyed Snetterton, I know it wasn't the usual rough and tumble and the races weren't classics but actually really enjoyed it.

[mark_l]

Interesting qualifying session. I don't think Team Dynamics will have it all their own way in the first race tomorrow.

Andy Neate managed to be within the magic 1sec of Pole but qualified lower than he usually does. Maybe the break didn't do him any good.

Plato seems to be having a non-descript season so far, must be disappointed to be 17th on the grid.

[BTCC frog]

Wow! What a fantastic qualifying session from Dan Rowbottom. After only five points in 2019, I didn't expect much from him this season, but so far he has been absolutely brilliant, and possibly even an improvement on the 2020 version of Matt Neal. Great stuff!

[BTCC frog]

All four of the second drivers to the four best in the BTCC were very impressive today, actually. Rowbottom 1st, Oliphant 4th, Moffat 5th, Smiley 8th.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by mark_l

Plato seems to be having a non-descript season so far, must be disappointed to be 17th on the grid.

To me - this has been the biggest surprise so far this season. He looked like he could challenge for wins at Thruxton - but now seems to have dropped off the pace.

Is he a bit ring-rusty, or has he lost a bit of his edge? It will be interesting to see if he can move forward at a track that he usually goes well at. The car/driver package seems a long way back from where it was last time at Brands (albeit that was GP layout).

[porsche962fan]

Turkinton also way more back than expected

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

Turkinton also way more back than expected

I think part of Turkington's pace can be attributed to carrying ballast.

[porsche962fan]

but guys heavier than him are far more up the grid

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

but guys heavier than him are far more up the grid

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

part of Turkington's pace

You're right, there are guys heavier than him further up the grid - two of them:
Ingram is a whole 0.125secs ahead, and Sutton is 0.087s ahead.

There are also fifteen drivers lighter than him who are further down the grid, including Chilton, Morgan, Plato and Butcher.

[Evantra]

What is going on at Ciceley!! Think Shedden will go through to take the win tomorrow and probably Sutton for race 2.

I liked the aerial shots quite a lot, when they were low enough.

[Evantra]

Originally Posted by mark_l

Andy Neate managed to be within the magic 1sec of Pole but qualified lower than he usually does. Maybe the break didn't do him any good.

Plato seems to be having a non-descript season so far, must be disappointed to be 17th on the grid.

Hamilton the only one outside the second, and last once again...

Power steering issues for Plato, and Butcher, apparently.

[Sodemo]

Plato hasn’t really been performing at the front since his days at BMR. Not sure why that is.

Turks in the BMW doesn’t seem to go well at Brands although other RWD cars are further up the front.

[Matt K]

I believe this is going to be quite a tough season for Turks - BMW doesn't seem to go well when heavy and apart from the win at Snett I can't remember any really strong performance by him so far this year. Yes, it's still early days and in BTCC being unimpressive but solid on worse days absolutely can win you a title (Turks manages that really well) but having such a rival as Sutton will mean that he'd have to work even harder. Ingram seems like he may pose a threat, Hill as well, who knows, maybe Shedden will finally overturn his bad run from first two rounds. Competition is really strong and I can't see Turkington being a favourite - not at the moment at least.

[hen henths]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Think Shedden will go through to take the win tomorrow and probably Sutton for race 2.

You're probably right. I'll go out on a limb and guess Cook or Hill for race 3.

[BTCC frog]

Tom Oliphant - 48.184s (4th)
Colin Turkington - 48.457s (14th)

Both of these two WSR drivers did almost exactly the same laptime multiple times, but couldn't go any faster. This suggests to me that both were absolutely at the limit of what the car could do.

https://www.motorsport.com/btcc/news...612302/?nrt=30

We don't know for sure that the cars had the same setup, and obviously different cars carry the ballast differently, but I still think it allows us to make the very decent estimate that, around Brands Hatch Indy, 57kg of ballast makes the difference of just over a quarter of a second.

[BTCC frog]

So, using this estimate:
9kg - 0.043s (Shedden)
15kg - 0.072s (Jackson)
21kg - 0.101s (Plato)
27kg - 0.129s (Jelley)
33kg - 0.158s (Butcher)
39kg - 0.187s (Hill)
48kg - 0.230s (Cook)
57kg - 0.273s (Turkington)
66kg - 0.316s (Ingram)
75kg - 0.359s (Sutton)


So, adjusted qualifying times for the ballast:
1 Jake HILL (GBR)?MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square?-0.082s
2 Ashley SUTTON (GBR)?Laser Tools Racing -0.063s
3 Tom INGRAM (GBR)?Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com -0.058s
4 Gordon SHEDDEN (GBR)?Halfords Racing with Cataclean?-0.038s
5 Daniel ROWBOTTOM (GBR)?Halfords Racing with Cataclean 48.074s
6 Josh COOK (GBR)?BTC Racing?+0.103s
7 Tom OLIPHANT (GBR)?Team BMW?+0.110s
8 Colin TURKINGTON (GBR)?Team BMW?+0.110s
9 Stephen JELLEY (GBR)?Team BMW?+0.225s
10 Aiden MOFFAT (GBR)?Laser Tools Racing?+0.244s
11 Rory BUTCHER (GBR)?Toyota Gazoo Racing UK?+0.274s
12 Chris SMILEY (GBR)?Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com?+0.298s
13 Jason PLATO (GBR)?Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing?+0.347s
14 Jack GOFF (GBR)?Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct?+0.354s
15 Daniel LLOYD (GBR)?Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing?+0.357s
16 Senna PROCTOR(GBR)?BTC Racing?+0.359s
17 Sam OSBORNE (GBR)?Racing with Wera & Photon Group?+0.419s
18 Ollie JACKSON (GBR)?MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square?+0.471s
19 Carl BOARDLEY (GBR)?Laser Tools Racing?+0.506s
20 Árón TAYLOR-SMITH (IRL)?Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions?+0.603s
21 Adam MORGAN (GBR)?Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport?+0.606s
22 Glynn GEDDIE (GBR) Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct?+0.653s
23 Jade EDWARDS (GBR)?PHSC with BTC Racing?+0.682s
24 Tom CHILTON (GBR)?Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport?+0.811s
25 Rick PARFITT (GBR)?EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com?+0.829s
26 Sam SMELT (GBR)?Toyota Gazoo Racing UK?+0.835s
27 Jack BUTEL (GBR)?EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com?+0.908s
28 Andy NEATE (GBR)?Racing with Wera & Photon Group?+0.910s
29 Nicolas HAMILTON (GBR)?ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading?+1.251s

[S griffin]

Very good session yesterday. Well done Rowbo, great lap. Let's see what he can do from pole. Flash will be happy to be up there and this time he keeps his place on the grid. Now he should be able to show what he can do, just needs a trouble free weekend.

Colin a bit down, but he won't be worried, he should be able to get through.

[mark_l]

I really can't see Plato getting his 100th win this season, unless the reverse grid is very kind to him.

[GT6]

oh well not there again but will hear the cars if the wind is in the right direction and looking forward to 3 good races. Appears to be raining there but no rain here in maidstone.

[Evantra]

Shedden punting Ingram and Moffat out the way... ridiculous.

Parfitt seems to be taking someone out every other race.

[Heavyd123]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Shedden punting Ingram and Moffat out the way... ridiculous.

Parfitt seems to be taking someone out every other race.

I thought the same about shedden. No doubt he’ll get away with it….
Who turned turkington around?