Thompson and Plato call for WTCC/BTCC to avoid clashing calendars

[Kicking-back]

Jason Plato and James Thompson want to race in both the BTCC and WTCC next year - and are calling on the series to produce calendars with no clashes.

Bring it on!

[Rich R]

it would be great if that happened, especially if thompson could bring some more of his wtcc friends along as well.

[Andrew Gunnell]

Who would they race for? Because what will happen with contacts as they can't race of two different teams. Will Plato race with Seat in the WTCC and Thompson in the BTCC with Alfa?

[Kicking-back]

They want to race the same car in both, yes.

[Dani Filth]

it would be good for BTCC . Alfa in BTCC . maybe 2 cars ..

[Les]

personally I would love the calendars not to clash but I certainly dont want to see the same drivers grabbing the best seats in both - there are a lot of drivers who would dearly love to race in either. It seems greedy to me.

[Sodemo]

The trouble is more or less every other racing series arranges itself around the F1 schedule, to avoid clashes with that behemoth.

I don't think there are enough weekends in the year to fit F1, WTCC, and BTCC all on seperate weekends...?

[Alfa Fan]

I would say the incentive of having Thommo and Priaulx racing in the series + some others from the WTCC (Huff and Rydell maybe?) should be bigger than the damage done by clashing with F1.

ITV could show BTCC Race 1+2 highlights at the end of any European GP and still have time to show Race 3 live anyway?

[Sodemo]

I think you misunderstood me Alfa Fan.
TOCA isn't worried about the TV footage being on the same day as F1, rather that the spectators that would be at trackside might rather stay at home for the F1 on TV.

[Kicking-back]

You could easily have BTCC rounds on the same day as Grands Prix like USA, Canada, Brazil, Japan though.

[BootsOntheSide]

ITV would never dedicate an entire 4-5 hours of an afternoon to motor racing (and, before any of you rant about how awful they are, neither would the BBC) because motor racing fans are only a small chunk of the people they want to watch their shows and thus give potential for advertising revenue.

Would people be able to get home from the track in time to watch the evening races? It might be okay for people who live very near to the track, but not for most fans. Of the races KB mentions only the US and Canada usually overlap with the F1 season anyway.

The odd BTCC and WTCC clash is probably a neccessity, because avoiding F1 has to be the priority. Even a series as big worldwide as MotoGP is scheduled around it.

[touringlegend]

I guessed it would be mentioned before I even looked in here - the TV deal.

In the longer term wouldn't it be better to give WTCC drivers and teams the chance to compete in the BTCC, by perhaps sacrificing a lot of the live tv, if needed ? The pulling power of WTCC teams and drivers racing in Britain would be massive, I feel.


Now it's down to TOCA and the FIA WTCC organisers to give us fans what we really do want to see.

[redshoes]

More to the point how many teams actually want to do both BTCC and WTCC, or even are in a position to do both?

Any Alfa BTCC team would need to be paid for by the local importer (Alfa Romeo GB) and they are probably not in a position to do that. As they don't contribute to the WTCC program there's nothing to stop them entering the BTCC already, other than lack of budget.

BMW UK are unlikely to want to run both BTCC and WTCC programs, and I can't see BMW Germany or BMW Italy/Spain finding much benefit in running in Britain.

Ford only barely support the WTCC team as it is, so are unlikely to stump up the cash for a BTCC team as well.

Chevrolet? In direct competition to fellow GM brand Vauxhall? Not likely.

Which leaves us with SEAT, who already do both.

A nice idea for sure bu I can't see it's actually going to make that much difference.

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

Even if no team is currently singing the praises of the idea I don't see what harm it would do for Toca and the WTCC to organise non-conflicting weekends. It might be the catalyst that is needed for a few teams to contest a couple of British rounds if the schedule is down in black and white rather than rumour.

[racer69]

Back in the old days of the ETCC (say early to mid 80s) drivers would drive dual programs, taking in rounds of either the BTCC or DTM on their off weekends from the ETCC. (eg...Soper running some BTCC rounds in 1988)

I'm not sure no clashes would make much of a difference, there are already a few non-clashes this year, and only Plato is doing double duty at some WTCC rounds. If drivers wanted to do this bad enough they'd be doing it this year.

[Andy Metcalf]

Going back to the initial point about BTCC and WTCC clashing, I think that it is possible to have fewer rounds on the same date, but to seperate them all might be a logistical nightmare.

[redshoes]

I'm not suggesting it's necessarily a bad idea (far from it), just that you need to consider the logistics involved and actually what you will end up achieving.

Now we've gone down the road of the great god of live TV coverage there's a few extra rules to consider, namely no Bank Holiday Monday races and no clashes with F1. Despite Monster's earlier suggestion I'm convinced the lack of clashes is more down to TV coverage that punters at the gate. Remember it wasn't that many years ago that we not only had BTCC races on F1 weekends but even a BTCC race at Donington on the same weekend as the British GP at Silverstone.

I don't follow F1 politics that closely but I believe we are looking at 17-19 races next year. WTCC will be just as keen to avoid F1 meetings so block out a further 10 weekends. Simple maths will tell you that the only way to fit in 10 BTCC meetings without any clashes means starting the season in March and ending in November, which will never happen. If you accept some clashes with the non-European F1 weekends it might be just about possible to schedule BTCC and WTCC together but it would be a huge amount of work, and as I've said before, for little or no gain.

That said TOCA and the FIA do need to work together when it comes to scheduling the British WTCC round. The last thing we want is a repeat of the farcical situation a few years ago where we had ETCC at Silverstone on the same weekend as BTCC at Thruxton.

[BootsOntheSide]

Agreed Redshoes - avoiding a clash for the British round is essential, and perhaps arrange the biggest BTCC races (Donington/Brands/Silverstone) on non-WTCC weekends, in the hope of attracting a few 'Wild Cards' from guys like Priaulx and Thompsons, would be worthwhile, but otherwise I think the pain outweighs the gain, and avoiding the F1 juggernaut is a much bigger deal.

[Alfa Fan]

I think clashing with F1 could become a good idea. The races could be scheduled around the GP, so for example, ITV could show the first race live before the GP, the second race delayed at the end of the GP and then race three live. I think that would attract even more people to the coverage of the BTCC.

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

The problem with that is ITV would have to schedule a huge amount of time on Sunday afternoon to motorsport, something they'll always be reluctant to do.

[maximus]

Originally Posted by Les

personally I would love the calendars not to clash but I certainly dont want to see the same drivers grabbing the best seats in both - there are a lot of drivers who would dearly love to race in either. It seems greedy to me.

That never Stopped Mario Andretti doing just that in the 70's with Indy car and F1 though!

[luke]

It would make sence and I hope it would happen, then everyone is a winner. And I would love to see Plato stay in British Touring cars next year, although it looks like he'll be in the World series, but then hopefully the rounds will not clash, so then we can get Plato, Thompson, Priaulx and maybe even Huff taking part again which would be great, and maybe attract new manufactures to the British series then everyones a winner.

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

Exactly, wouldn't it be great if Thompson showed up in his Alfa just for one or two rounds?

[touringlegend]

Too right it would.

Alfa Romeo UK could pay for the team to send over 1 car and the nescessary back up, does anyone have an idea of how much that would cost ?

[Craig]

Originally Posted by BootsOntheSide

Agreed Redshoes - avoiding a clash for the British round is essential, and perhaps arrange the biggest BTCC races (Donington/Brands/Silverstone) on non-WTCC weekends, in the hope of attracting a few 'Wild Cards' from guys like Priaulx and Thompsons, would be worthwhile, but otherwise I think the pain outweighs the gain, and avoiding the F1 juggernaut is a much bigger deal.

Or, how about killing two birds with one stone, the WTCC and BTCC on the same card... it's happened before.