Six key things to watch for at the 2021 BTCC finale

Can Ashley Sutton hold his nerve?

Laser Tools Racing’s Ashley Sutton has been the man to beat in the British Touring Car Championship over the last couple of years, and going into the season finale with a 32-point lead is almost unheard of in the modern BTCC era. That doesn’t mean it’ll all be plain sailing for the double champion, though, as final weekend gremlins are not uncommon for those at the top of the standings. Andrew Jordan’s 2013 dramas still sit in the memory of many a BTCC fan, and more recently Colin Turkington versus Dan Cammish in 2019, when Turkington arrived with a 16-point advantage but only took the title when Cammish slid into the gravel with just one and a half laps left of the season.

While you can never say never in the BTCC, the chances of a similar final race drama in 2021 seems remote, with Sutton only needing to outscore Colin Turkington by 12 points and Tom Ingram by just six in order to secure the title by the end of the first race of the day. It is unlikely the championship will be settled by the chequered flag in race one, but it would almost seem quite surprising if we head into the 30th and final race of the year without Sutton already stamping his name in the history books as a three-time champion.

Can Colin Turkington pull off final-round heroics?

It appears an incredibly outside bet, but if there’s one thing BTCC fans should know from previous years, it’s to never count out Colin Turkington. Even when it looked like the championship was going the way of Honda’s Dan Cammish in 2019, Turkington was in the right place at the right time to pick up the pieces and win his fourth BTCC crown when the Honda careened into the barriers at Hawthorn’s.

Turkington is one of only two drivers to have won the BTCC on four occasions, tied with the great Andy Rouse, and if anyone is going to be able to turn round such a large points deficit in a weekend, it’s Turkington. The BMW man took a win the last time the BTCC attacked the Grand Prix circuit, and finished in the top five in all three races, so he knows the car can take him to where he needs to go. It’ll all boil down to what happens to Sutton in those first two races of the day.

Can Toyota continue its run of form?

When Toyota Gazoo Racing UK unveiled its team for 2021, complete with full corporate livery and second entry, it was a signal of intent from the Japanese manufacturer that it was serious about its presence in the BTCC. The move meant series front-runner Tom Ingram and his Ginsters backing had to hop across the grid to the Excelr8 squad, a decision many BTCC fans questioned at the time, but late season form recently displayed by Toyota’s new team leader Rory Butcher has finally began to answer some of the critics.

Over the last six races, Butcher’s Corolla has won twice, finished on the podium a further two times and taken a fourth place, only finishing the other down in 13th, an impressive run of form after the first half of 2021 spent hanging around the upper-midfield. While Ingram is up and still in mathematical contention in the title hunt, Toyota shouldn’t be disappointed with its choice. If Butcher can maintain his pace from Silverstone and Donington, the team will go into the winter as one of the real teams to watch in 2022, when we could witness the first BTCC championship for Toyota since Chris Hodgetts way back in 1987.

Is Shedden back, or was Donington a flash in the pan?

One of the biggest talking points in the lead up to the 2021 season was the all-new line-up at Team Dynamics, in its first season as an independent entry since 2009. Out went BTCC stalwart Matt Neal and, more shockingly, regular front-runner Dan Cammish, and in came the returning Gordon Shedden, a three-time champion, alongside Daniel Rowbottom.

Rowbottom has impressed his doubters with solid results all season, but it was the returning Shedden who everyone was watching. A disappointing start to the year saw him in the barriers at Thruxton on the very first lap of the season, but some solid, if not outstanding results in the summer dragged him back up into the top ten in the points. It wasn’t until Donington Park where we finally got a glimpse of the three-time champion we all remember – controlling both the first and second races from the front and putting in a pair of clinical drives to remind everyone why he was so formidable in the mid-2010s. Shedden has regularly enjoyed his visits to the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit, only failing to reach the podium on three weekends at the circuit in his near-20-year BTCC career, so he will certainly be one to watch this weekend.

From Goodwood to Brands Hatch

One of the standout drives from last weekend’s 78th Members’ Meeting came from a current star of the BTCC in a very unfamiliar car to what he usually calls the office. Jumping in Ric Wood’s Gitanes-coloured Ford Capri in the Gerry Marshall Trophy, Jake Hill took on Jack Tetley (the man who came up with the race itself) in his much more powerful Chevrolet Camaro. Tetley would take the spoils in the heat, but it would be roles reversed in the Final, with Hill managing to hold back Craig Davies’s Ford Mustang until the pair went wide at St. Mary’s, with Davies going off again a lap later and gifting the overall victory to Hill in his very first weekend in the car.

This was a weekend off for Hill, who has been impressing BTCC fans all season long and now finds himself mathematically in with a chance of the overall crown this weekend. While taking the title would require a lot of cards falling in his favour, Hill is firmly establishing himself as a real name for the future, both in the BTCC and here at Goodwood.

The end of an era

The 2022 season premiere of the BTCC will usher in a new dawn for the championship as the hybrid engine makes its long-awaited debut. With over six decades of history in the books, whoever wins the final race on Sunday will forever be the last driver to win a BTCC race purely powered by an internal combustion engine.

Work on the engine has been overseen by Cosworth – a manufacturer with a history that dates back to the same year as the BTCC’s birth and which can boast success in Formula 1, IndyCar and much more. Every team will be leased the engine from Cosworth at a price of just over £20,000, billed as the first “cost-effective hybrid system” in motorsport. The engine will also feature a ‘push-to-pass’ function, giving an additional 40PS (29kW) to the driver for 15 seconds, meaning an entirely new strategic element will enter the racing for 2022. Following a rigorous testing schedule led by Speedworks Motorsport (which runs the Toyota Gazoo Racing outfit) and with Andrew Jordan as lead test driver, all of the ingredients are in place for an incredibly exciting start to the 2022 campaign – and we haven’t even finished 2021 yet.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images, Jake Hill image by Drew Gibson.