How aborted Honda dream forced Jackson's BTCC exit

On Thursday morning last week, the bosses of Team Dynamics put out a press release announcing that Porsche dominator Dan Cammish had been signed as Gordon Shedden's replacement in the factory-backed Honda Civic Type R squad in the British Touring Car Championship for the 2018 season.

Less than 24 hours later came a brief statement from the bosses of BTCC team Motorbase Performance, describing that the Kent squad and its stalwart driver Mat Jackson had "parted company".

That was quite a surprise, because 31-time winner Jackson had been paraded at Autosport International in the middle of January as a leading light of the Motorbase attack, with its restyled Ford Focus RS machines, alongside Tom Chilton. The team had also recently been bolstered by the arrival of former championship runner-up Sam Tordoff.

Are the announcements from Team Dynamics and Motorbase linked? Of course they are - although neither party is likely to admit it in an open forum.

Ever since Shedden's decision to leave the BTCC and head off to the revamped World Touring Car Cup this year - a move he finally completed last week by joining the WRT Audi attack - Team Dynamics has been on the prowl for a suitable replacement.

Dynamics was in a tricky position here. Co-owner, driver and three-time champion Matt Neal had done the magnanimous thing by not holding Shedden to his commitments with the squad, and instead let his friend go chase a golden opportunity. But then that left a Scotsman-sized hole in the Honda line up in the UK.

Neal said at the time the team was desperate to get a driver who could hit the ground running, a racer it could "plug in" to what will be a newly built Civic for this season and help the team to wins straight away.

When anyone puts that caveat in their demands for a new driver, the options become narrowed quite considerably.

The Jackson/Motorbase relationship had broken down to such a degree that it all fell apart. The bridges had been burnt and it seems as if there was no way to rebuild them

Despite that, Neal was bombarded by candidates, all of whom fancied what is one of the plum drives on the grid. Shedden had taken three titles with the team and the car has been among the best engineered machines on the grid for nearly a decade. Who wouldn't want to take this golden opportunity?

Now for the sticky bit that ultimately led to the situation that unfolded last week: alongside the avalanche of enquiries that Team Dynamics fielded, there was contact between Neal and Jackson in the aftermath of Shedden's decision to leave.

It is unclear who instigated it, but they did talk about Jackson joining the Honda factory team as Neal's team-mate.

Take into account that Jackson had already agreed a race deal - whether signed or not - with Motorbase, and there was some treading on eggshells to be done.

However, when Motorbase Performance boss David Bartrum was informed, he was furious. He wanted to protect his team, his commercial interests and the line-up he thought he had already nailed down. Things quickly got very heated indeed.

Jackson was always going to be near the top of anyone's list as a BTCC driver. During his 11 years in the championship, he has been a consistent frontrunner. He hates the statistic, but he is the driver in the category who has won the most races without claiming a drivers' title.

He has been around the BTCC block, and helped Motorbase turn itself from a customer team into a car builder in its own right. He has been at the forefront of all its new projects with the Ford Focus, and that has given him a good instinct for developing a car.

However, allied to that, he has never brought the biggest of budgets with him for a drive. There are often drivers out there with deeper pockets, but Motorbase was loyal to his abilities and retained his services for the longer term.

Whatever the background to the deal, an agreement could not be reached between Jackson and Honda, which left Dynamics to secure the services of two-time Porsche Carrera Cup GB title winner Cammish. He is a driver with a huge amount of potential and one who has the ability to step up to the next level in the British Touring Car Championship in terms of his profile.

For Motorbase, there was still a big hurdle to get over: the unsettled driver Jackson. The dust had settled, and surely things would return to normal?

Bartrum says that he wanted to keep Jackson and there was some to-ing and fro-ing. However, the relationship had broken down to such a degree that it all fell apart late last week. The bridges had been burnt and it seems as if there was no way to rebuild them, no matter what the desire from either party.

Whoever was in the right and wrong inevitably depends on who you talk to. That will probably always be the case, and it has left a considerable amount of bad feeling behind in its wake.

What it has also left in its wake is a conundrum of mixed emotions for the fans too.

There is the excitement of seeing Cammish finally flourish on a high-profile platform, but the series will be without Jackson, who has been one of its strongest performers over the last 11 seasons.

It also means Bartrum has a prime drive on the grid to offer in one of his redeveloped Ford Focus cars to the right driver and that could also lead to some exciting news in the future. Expect this to be sorted out very rapidly. This story isn't quite finished yet.

Shedden's depature from the British Touring Car Championship paddock was likely to create a number of ripples, but the water is still unsettled more than a month later.