How Porsche rejection inspired a BTCC leading light

"I'm very much a fully fledged touring car driver now. I'm no longer a GT driver pretending to be a touring car driver!"

The words belong to Dan Cammish. His graduation from Porsche specialist to the British Touring Car Championship in 2018 in a plum seat with official Honda squad Team Dynamics wasn't without its growing pains, but to come just a lap and a half short of winning the 2019 title - his second year in the BTCC - pretty much showed that he's arrived.

The brake failure that plunged his Civic Type R into the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit barriers was heartbreaking, yet in a way that heartbreak provided vindication of his status.

"It's a funny one really, isn't it?" Cammish ponders of an incident that should already have been forgotten, had the start of the 2020 season not been put on hold by the coronavirus pandemic.

"Of course it was a big moment for me and everyone around me - the team, my family, friends, girlfriend.

"It was a real hard way to end the season, to go from such a high of race one, to win in the rain with Matt [Neal, team-mate] second, to fire ourselves back into a championship which to be honest on Saturday night we kind of thought was beyond us.

"And then to suddenly find yourself before race three leading the championship... You always believe you can win, but this was when we started to believe we could win it now. To have it snatched away at the end was heartbreaking. It's been a tough few months, I won't lie.

"You're constantly driving with one eye on the road, one eye on the mirror. There's a lot going on, so it took me a little while to settle in, but I'd like to think I've got it sussed now" Dan Cammish

"I don't think there's a day goes by where I don't get reminded of it or think about it, but there's nothing I can do about it. I've got to pick myself up and get going - that's my only option.

"You're only as good as your last race, and right now mine is lingering! So I was looking forward to getting started in 2020 so I could wipe the slate clean."

Cammish fell just two points short of four-time champion Colin Turkington in last season's rankings, and was only beaten to the runner-up spot by Turkington's BMW team-mate Andrew Jordan on wins countback.

Contrast that with 2018 when, as replacement at Dynamics for the World Touring Cars-bound Gordon Shedden, he only scraped into the championship top 10 at the Brands finale (pictured below), where he became the 17th and last man to take a win in the series' most wide-open season in history - and in one of the best cars.

"The speed was there from the start," recalls Cammish. "I only got pole taken off me for my debut at Brands Hatch because I missed the bloody red light in the pitlane. Going from a rear-wheel-drive, rear-engined car to a front-wheel-drive, front-engined Honda Civic was quite a shock.

"The big thing for me was racecraft. The racing is fierce in touring cars. Don't get me wrong, the opening lap of a Porsche Supercup race is pretty fierce, but the bumping and nudging and the little nuances that you have to adapt to in touring cars I'd never really had before, and also I'd never raced any of those guys before.

"Usually, you come up on a similar pathway to the guys you're racing, and being on a different pathway towards the GT stuff I'd never raced against them. They didn't know me, I didn't know them, I'd come into it in a big team, as a relative unknown in the touring car stakes, and I think I got bounced around a lot. I just got pushed around a bit, I made mistakes.

"The speed was there, sure, but it's not all about that in touring car racing. It took me six months to find my feet, and I think we finished strongly. Everything I learned - thankfully I seem to learn pretty quickly; I've had to do that my whole career - I put into practice in 2019 and nearly won the thing. It was just that, learning the competition, learning the racecraft.

"Touring cars is effectively, you either pass the guy in front or the guy behind passes you at the next corner. You're constantly driving with one eye on the road, one eye on the mirror. There's a lot going on, so it took me a little while to settle in, but I'd like to think I've got it sussed now."

It's a valid point. Cammish's background is in series such as Formula Renault UK and Carrera Cup GB, where overtaking has never been abundant - look at his second title-winning season in Porsches in 2016, where there was one pass for the lead in the whole year...

He had a highly impressive maiden season in the Formula 1-supporting Supercup in 2017 - fourth in the ferociously competitive field - but hit a glass ceiling in that discipline.

"I think I did a very good job in year one in Supercup, obviously in a great team with Walter Lechner Racing, and I was there because I'd proved myself, and Walter believed I could be a real star of the future," he says.

"The problem with it was that the information I got back was that I was too old to fit into Porsche's programme.

"I was overlooked for a Porsche junior slot in 2015 because I was deemed to be too old, at just 25-26, which really knocked me for six because that year I won 11 races out of 16 in the UK.

"I stuck with the Porsche thing, and got into Supercup. I had a number of podiums including Monaco, I have some amazing memories, but I was never certain - definitely not from Porsche - where a professional contract was going to come from.

"I'm not really connected in Europe, not really connected to the people who could get me in and open a door for me. I don't have the money, so I needed someone to say, 'We think you're good enough, come and drive our race car', and I don't know where that was going to come from.

"At the end of 2017 my plan was to stay in Supercup with Walter, and I'm sure I would have got bloody close to the title, but as it transpired an opportunity developed at Dynamics in touring cars, and I'd kept my eye on touring cars for a number of years."

Cammish acknowledges the influence of 1992 BTCC champion and long-time friend-to-Dynamics Tim Harvey, who helped the Yorkshireman in Porsches, not least through his influence with sponsor Nationwide: "That kind of rescued my career in a way, and he's been around and supported my career ever since," he says.

"I'm very confident that come the end of the year I'll be in the mix to win it. I'm hopeful that we can just maybe get a little bit more out of ourselves this year" Dan Cammish

"So when the Dynamics opportunity came up, I had to jump at it because here was one of - if not the - best teams in British Touring Cars offering me a professional contract. I thought, 'If I miss this opportunity it's never coming back round again probably'. In hindsight it was definitely the right move for me."

Racecraft apart, the learning process for Cammish has been adjusting to life in a series that's as artificial as they come - success ballast, performance equalisation and reversed grids all play a part in pursuit of entertainment - after the purity of the competition in his previous exploits. "

When I joined touring cars I was warned, especially by Tim, that the days of winning and coming home celebrating with trophies every week, that isn't touring car racing," he reflects.

"You have to learn to celebrate the smaller achievements. "Winning in touring cars is really hard, even a reversed-grid race is not easy. The stars have to align. You need the right tyre with the right weight at the right moment.

"Last season I was having some great days, finishing second, third, and I was being beaten usually by a BMW. That was just the way it went. Thankfully while they were winning I was picking up the points. That's what's so important in touring cars - you maximise the tougher days. If you've got a car to finish fifth, make sure you finish fifth - do not finish 10th. You'll get opportunities to win and you've got to take them."

When the season finally does kick off, that will be as hard as ever.

"It's going to be tough," Cammish acknowledges. "The Bee-Ems are looking good, Tom Ingram in the Toyota looks good, there's a good number of people out there who can challenge, including people within our own Honda 'stable' - BTC Racing with the same car, and Jake Hill looking strong with the old [FK2] car.

"We've got the same FK8 Type R that we've had for the past two seasons, it's been developed and honed yet further. I've got no doubt that the car will be faster, and I'd like to think that I'll be better again.

"I'm still very much in my infancy as a touring car driver. I've got more to learn, more to extract, and I'm very confident that come the end of the year I'll be in the mix to win it. I'm hopeful that we can just maybe get a little bit more out of ourselves this year.

"A few more wins would be nice - consistency's great, but there is a little bit of a gap in points if you do win, and that's what it came down to last year: I didn't win enough races."

If Cammish can do that, there'll be no pretending anymore. The Porsches will be no more than a memory; so too will be that last-race 2019 shunt.

The dynamics of Dynamics

With a two-year deal at Team Dynamics ongoing alongside Matt Neal, Dan Cammish has had a relaxing winter.

"It was the first time I've been able to sit back and not really take part in the silly season," he says. "I knew exactly where I was going to be and had no stress, which was a great feeling."

"Matt's the guy that gave me the job in the first place, he's my biggest supporter, he wants me to succeed and do well, and he helps me no end to make sure I'm the best I can be" Dan Cammish

But then came the upset of Neal's mountain-biking accident in January - not the first (or even the second) time he's broken a bone in two-wheeled activity, but certainly the most injurious: "We're kind of used to Matt hurting himself, but it's usually a finger or a toe or something - this time he went all the way and did himself quite a lot of damage."

The team's old mate Gordon Shedden stepped in for some testing - one day at Donington Park and two at Knockhill - while Neal recovered, and was on standby should he be needed for the opening race weekends. In a way, that would have been a neat full circle: two drivers, each given their breaks by the Neal family, but alongside each other with the lanky man himself looking on, rather than in the sister car.

Cammish is full of praise for triple champion Neal.

"It's a good dynamic - pardon the pun," he says. "The first rule in motorsport is always beat your team-mate, and me and Matt obviously want to beat each other - there's no doubt about it. But unlike in other teams there's absolutely no animosity either way.

"Matt's the guy that gave me the job in the first place, he's my biggest supporter, he wants me to succeed and do well, and he helps me no end to make sure I'm the best I can be, whether that's giving me tips or tricks he's picked up, helping with some data or a line that he's figured out in testing.

"Whatever it might be, he is open and wants me to have that information, which is a big boost for me, because unlike in other teams where if you've got a little bit of something you might keep it to yourself, I get the double-whammy - I get everything given to me.

"Matt's been a big help in not only getting me into touring cars, but also helping me get up to speed as fast as I have, because he's really open. Together we're pushing the team on."