Famous Five: The BTCC's top race winners who haven't won a championship

And it promises to be as competitive as ever, thanks to a grid of more than 30 cars representing 11 brands (Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Mercedes, MG, Subaru, Toyota, Vauxhall and Volkswagen) and 16 previous race winners set to trade paint on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit.

Among the top names gunning for the 2017 title are five previous champions and one man who sits right up there in the race-victory roll of honour but who’s never clinched the title.

After a rummage around in the series’ statistical archive, we’ve uncovered the five drivers in its long history with the most wins and no title. Rest assured, one of the men who appears here will be all out to remove himself from the list for 2018.

Jeff Allam – 16 wins

Surrey-based motor trader Allam, whose name and face is familiar to the modern-day BTCC fraternity thanks to his involvement in driving standards with series organiser TOCA, began winning in the late-1970s in the weapon of choice, the Ford Capri, and was still doing so in the early 1990s with the works Vauxhall squad as team-mate to the inimitable John Cleland. The closest Allam came to a BTCC title was in 1983, when he finished runner-up to Andy Rouse.

Wins

1978 – 1 (Ford Capri)

1979 – 2 (Ford Capri)

1980 – 1 (Ford Capri)

1981 – 3 (Ford Capri)

1982 – 4 (Ford Capri)

1983 – 2 (Ford Capri)

1986 – 1 (Rover Vitesse)

1992 – 2 (Vauxhall Cavalier)

Stuart Graham – 19 wins

Pint-sized former motorcycle racer and Isle of Man TT winner Stuart Graham, son of inaugural 500cc World Champion Les Graham, made the switch to four wheels in the 1970s and proved equally as adept, particularly at the wheel of the mighty Brut 33 Camaro V8 muscle car. He won eight races in the green machine in both 1974 and 1975, with third in the first year his best placing in the points race. He topped up his victory tally in a Ford Capri in the late-1970s.

Wins

1974 – 8 (Chevrolet Camaro)

1975 – 8 (Chevrolet Camaro)

1977 – 2 (Ford Capri)

1979 – 1 (Ford Capri)

Brian Muir – 22 wins

The only non-Brit in this list, Australian Brian ‘Yogi’ Muir arrived on the UK scene in 1966 having secured third in his native Touring Car series the previous season. He was immediately a winner, during the series’ final visit to Goodwood in April ’66 aboard a thunderous Ford Galaxie. He took 15 more victories in American V8 brutes over the next five years, finishing runner-up to countryman Frank Gardner in ’68. During sporadic appearances across the 1970s he won six more races in Ford Capri and BMW CSL machinery. 

Wins

1966 – 1 (Ford Galaxie)

1968 – 6 (Ford Falcon)

1970 – 3 (Chevrolet Camaro)

1971 – 6 (Chevrolet Camaro

1972 – 2 (Ford Capri)

1973 – 2 (BMW 3.0 CSL)

1978 – 1 (Ford Capri)

1979 – 1 (Ford Capri)

Gordon Spice – 28 wins

Later renowned as Mr Capri, Gordon Spice first tasted BTCC success in a Mini, winning the up-to-1300cc race at Crystal Palace in 1969, and dead-heating with Chris Craft’s Ford Escort for another win at Mallory Park later that year. In the second half of the 1970s, he racked up plenty of victories in Ford’s dominant 3-litre Capri and twice finished third in the final reckoning – in 1976 and 1980. Now 76, he was spotted at the recent 75^th Members’ Meeting ogling the Gerry Marshall Trophy Capris, some of them in Gordon Spice Racing liveries.

Wins

1969 – 2 (Mini Cooper)

1976 – 4 (Ford Capri)

1977 – 2 (Ford Capri)

1978 – 7 (Ford Capri)

1979 – 6 (Ford Capri)

1980 – 6 (Ford Capri)

1982 – 1 (Ford Capri)

Mat Jackson – 30 wins

And finally, the most successful British Touring Car Championship racer without a title is current Motorbase Ford Focus star Mat Jackson. The Midlander, a successful graduate of the one-make tin-top formulae, first stood atop a BTCC podium in a BMW 320i at Oulton Park in 2007 and has gone on to win races for Chevrolet and Ford, with a best points-table finish of second in 2008 thanks to five wins in his BMW 320i. Expect him to be running right at the front again in 2017…

Wins

2007 – 2 (BMW 320i)

2008 – 5 (BMW 320i)

2009 – 4 (Chevrolet Lacetti)

2010 – 1 (BMW 320i)

2011 – 4 (Ford Focus)

2012 – 3 (Ford Focus)

2014 – 2 (Ford Focus)

2015 – 4 (Ford Focus)

2016 – 5 (Ford Focus)

Images courtesy of LAT