Is there a favourite for the 2015 BTCC?

Trying to predict a winner at Brands Hatch, let alone a champion, is not normally this difficult before a British Touring Car Championship season. There's usually a clutch of three or four drivers you would expect to be leading the way when it all kicks off after the usual winter of mystery. But there's something very different about this year.

With the NGTC regulations throwing up another packed grid - 32 cars have entered the 2015 season, although three (the two Motorbase Fords and Nicolas Hamilton's Audi) will miss the early races - the championship is enjoying a strong period of technical stability. Most cars are entering their fourth season, some their fifth. It's still not a universally loved formula, but in quantity alone the results speak for themselves.

And yet the biggest driver shake-up in recent times is promising a season of unparalleled unpredictability. The status quo has been ripped apart, and it's all change at the top. Jason Plato's MG contract expired and Team BMR was the only place with the coffers and ambition to match his pedigree. Colin Turkington lost his seat with WSR when eBay pulled its title sponsorship (echoing the scenes of 2009), but BMR offered a reprieve.

In any other BTCC off-season, 2013 champion Jordan's move to Triple Eight probably would've been the biggest © LAT

MG's replacement for Plato is 2013 champion Andrew Jordan, who has taken something of a gamble in leaving the security of his family-run team and its proven Honda Civic to try to succeed where Plato failed (in title terms).

In fact, it's all change at MG, with Sam Tordoff following Plato out of the exit door and Jack Goff stepping into his vacant MG6. Tordoff heads over to WSR, where he will join triple world champion Andy Priaulx and the veteran Rob Collard.

Throw in a new car for Honda, along with Motorbase's shock withdrawal, which leaves Mat Jackson (fourth in 2014) and James Cole on the sidelines for now since the team has not been able to replace the funding provided by departed sponsor Airwaves, and each of the top eight from last year has something new to deal with, something that stops them being a "favourite".

You can legitimately throw Collard into that mix, not just because he is targeting podiums rather than a title attack, but because WSR is not convinced it will hit the ground running after regulation tweaks to peg back the performance of rear-wheel-drive cars. But more on that later.

A high-stakes game of musical chairs was always going to result in big-name casulaties; Fabrizio Giovanardi and Alain Menu were the two left standing when the music stopped. While losing those two deprives the series of its "seven champions" USP from 2014, it doesn't detract from what's happening at the front. Somehow, having said goodbye to a pair of double champions, it's become even tougher to work out who will be at the front.

With two titles apiece, Turkington and Plato found new homes at the ambitious BMR © LAT

"I'm not that brave," laughs Turkington when asked if he has any insight into the pecking order. "Normally it's the same old faces but I think this year is going to be more open than ever."

He's right. The start of the 2015 season will be more open than it has probably ever been. It's certainly rare in a period of technical stability, and the result is a campaign that should throw up a series of twists and turns.

The list of potential race winners is well into double figures, though we know Eurotech, which ran Jordan to the 2013 crown, is probably not on it (with no disrespect to the returning Jeff Smith or Martin Depper).

But it may well be part of a much longer list of potential podium finishers, especially with the increased ballast amounts for this season and the doubling of the number of drivers who have to carry it. Suddenly, race two is not as predictable as it was in previous seasons. Reversed-grid races should be even more of a lottery than before too.

Graciously, the winter has at least provided a few clues. The only official pre-season test at Donington Park confirmed what trackside viewers had suggested from early tests of the new Team BMR superteam era - that Colin Turkington and Jason Plato look quick.

That's not surprising in itself, but if the double champions - the top two in last year's championship - can fight for pole and victory at Brands Hatch then it's an ominous marker for the remainder of the season. Especially since Plato, who topped the Donington test by just six thousandths of a second ahead of Turkington, says there's "loads left in the car".

Plato led a promising start for the new superteam at the series' media day © LAT

"It's not a surprise they've got on top of them because they are top-class drivers," points out 1992 BTCC champion Tim Harvey, who pays close attention to what's happening on and off the track in his long-running role as one of ITV's commentators. "They've had eight days' testing already - that's more than anyone else. The others have had a few but nobody's done as much as they have."

That work is standing BMR in good stead. Plato was targeting wins as soon as the announcement was made in early February, but Turkington was more pragmatic - it would, he said, take time to adjust to the front-wheel drive Volkswagen CC after becoming a rear-wheel- drive "specialist".

That sounds like nonsense. Turkington's a top driver - "world class", says Plato - and that's been evident. He has looked very comfortable in the VW and it should translate into a frontrunning performance at Brands, even though Plato has bagged early bragging rights with his 0.006s advantage.

Testing, though, can be as red a herring in touring cars as it is in any discipline. So while it's safe to believe the BMR machines have moved forward significantly this season, are the Ciceley Racing Mercedes A-Classes really going to be the nearest challengers? The likely answer is no.

Aiden Moffat's a promising young driver, but expecting him to be best of the rest - as he was on the media-day test - is premature and unfair. Adam Morgan won a race last year, and was a frontrunner on merit. Regular podium challenges should be the target, but it would be a surprise to see the Mercs suddenly launch into regular race-winning contention.

The delayed Civic Type-R is the third different model Honda Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal will race in three seasons © LAT

Assessing the usual suspects, it is crucial that Honda hits the ground running with its new Civic Type-R. Niggling small reliability issues hurt its media-day running, on top of an already delayed testing programme. This year it will be harder than ever to make up ground - that's why Honda crowbarred in a day at Brands Hatch last week. Track time has never been so crucial.

The top 10 is packed with drivers who could make legitimate arguments for being contenders for victory at the first race. But, just for the record, take a look at the information from the media day.

Is that really how the first race is going to pan out? While the Hondas' and WSR BMWs' positions are unrepresentative, they're not a million miles away. The expectation is for the Mercedes to be very credible contenders. Rob Austin's Audi A4 should be in the mix too.

It would be rose-tinted to say the BTCC is perfect. There are arguments bubbling away all the time, unhappiness with some NGTC parts, and always a financial row or two in the background. But there is every reason to believe that on-track, this season will be a step up - and arguably the most competitive in recent times.

Aron Smith's 2014 victories both came from reverse grid races © LAT

This season has the potential to play into the hands of an experienced driver such as Matt Neal, because the nature of more drivers carrying success ballast (and more of it) means that races one, two and three should be very different stories.

"It might be hard to understand from home," reckons Harvey, because drivers could suffer greatly contrasting fortunes across a race day. The out-and-out fastest should, in theory, be hurt the most: prime territory for a driver to win big through consistency.

Backed into a corner you could put money on Andrew Jordan to take pole and win the opening race at Brands Hatch, with one of the BMR Volkswagens scoring in race two and, with less weight and a favourable grid position, a WSR BMW (probably Tordoff's) to win race three. Looking further ahead, you could place factory Honda men Neal and Gordon Shedden in the running for the title.

Honda has watched a customer team win the title in 2013 and a rival manufacturer do so in '14 - with an aggressive new car, it's clear where its intentions lie. If Shedden or Neal can avoid losing too much ground early on, then expect a second-half flourish from the Team Dynamics-run cars that will ramp up the pressure on the BMR boys and, you would expect, Jordan.

A topsy-turvy season lies in wait and keeping on top of it all will be tough enough - pre-empting it all is a near-impossibility.

"It's such a shuffled pack," Turkington points out. "I think it's going to be the same contenders as ever but everybody has the potential to win now; you can't afford to write anybody off. That's the beauty of it: it's going to be harder than ever to win."

This week's issue of AUTOSPORT contains a 12-page preview of the 2015 BTCC season - including a full run through of the grid and 1992 champion Tim Harvey's take on the year's big talking points