Six of the best teams the UK’s premier motor racing series has to offer will go head-to-head in a spectacular shootout marking 60 years of the British Touring Car Championship at the Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard.
2018 FOS shootout to celebrate 60 years of the BTCC
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Previously held in 2016, when 2013 champion Andrew Jordan took the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST to top honours, the Pirtek-backed tin-top ace will be back, now with his West Surrey Racing BMW 125i M-Sport, to try and reclaim his crown and to take bragging rights into the second half of the BTCC campaign.
“We were quickest by a fair chunk in 2016,” Jordan told GRR. “I think there was only one run where we weren’t quickest. People always think I have loads of track knowledge, but that was the first time I’d ever taken on the Hill...
"It’s a really challenging course. You can walk it and think it looks okay, but it’s totally different when driving. I’ve got rear-wheel-drive this time, so it’ll be interesting to see what that’s like. I’m expecting to challenge for the win and will be mega to go two out of two.”
Looking to dethrone Jordan will be three-time BTCC champion, Matt Neal. Neal was the closest contender to Jordan in 2016, finishing just eight tenths of a second behind GRR’s resident track tester. While Jordan has the rear-wheel-drive BMW now up his sleeve, Neal comes to Goodwood with the brand-new Honda Civic Type-R FK8, which has already seen success in the British championship. Neal took the new-shaped Civic’s first victory at Thruxton in May, promptly dedicating the performance to our dear friend Henry Hope-Frost.
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Power Maxed Racing will also be returning to the Goodwood Hill, although will be hoping for a more successful trip than in 2016, when Emmerdale star Kelvin Fletcher found the hay at Molecomb. In '18 the team will look to either of their race-winning duo of Josh Cook or Senna Proctor to take the Vauxhall Astra to a much better result.
The final returnee from the 2016 event will be Adam Morgan in his family-run Mercedes-Benz A-Class. Currently leading the championship after Thruxton, Morgan was just over two seconds slower than Jordan the last time the BTCC descended on the Festival of Speed. Morgan has enjoyed a strong turn of form in 2018 and will be hoping to turn that form into Goodwood success.
FOS will also welcome two new challengers in 2018 – including the reigning Independents’ Champion, Tom Ingram, who arrives with his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis. Ingram took third in the overall championship in 2017 and has already visited the top step of the podium twice this season.
Finally, the hugely popular Rob Austin will campaign the brand-new HMS Racing Alfa Romeo Giulietta, which scored a podium result in the very first meeting of 2018.
Alongside the BTCC shootout, the Festival will be celebrating the BTCC’s diamond jubilee with a class of some of the most iconic saloon cars to grace British motor circuits. Legends such as the Alfa Romeo 155, Mini Cooper S, Volvo 850 Estate and the car which took Jack Sears to championship glory in 1958, the Austin A105, will all be in action across the weekend.
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