Can David beat Goliath in the BTCC again?

There have been plenty of fanfares in the build up to the 2016 British Touring Car Championship and most of them have centred around the factory teams of Honda and Subaru.

The smart money is on the champion coming from one of those two squads, with WSR's BMWs and the factory MGs nipping at their heels.

Looking beyond that, there have been some smart moves made by the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus team over the closed season.

It has recruited 2013 champion Andrew Jordan to join Mat Jackson on the driving strength and has been working away refining the set-up of the hatchback since the end of last season. Is it possible that this combination could topple the factory operations?

There is plenty of optimism. Firstly, the car was unstoppable since it joined the championship halfway through last season.

The Wrotham-based operation missed the first part of last year as it was short on funds, but it was genuinely excited about the new Mountune-prepared Ford EcoBoost engine.

The numbers it generated on the dyno had the engineers rubbing their hands in glee and they were translated to results. The car was in the top six at its first event at Snetterton, and then went on to take four wins in Jackson's hands.

It was looked upon enviously by others up and down the pitlane and questions were raised about the power from the motor by grumpy rival team managers.

Officials had done the equivalency tests before the car had taken to the circuit and the team was adamant that the performance was coming from the design detail in the chassis, allied to the well-sorted powerplant.

At the same time that Motorbase Performance was in the ascendancy, Jordan's season as a factory MG driver was falling apart.

There was discontent between the engineering side of the squad and Jordan himself, and they were simply unable to nail down the performance they expected.

There was an argument last season, when Jordan joined the factory MG squad, that he was well outside of his comfort zone.

Gone was the arm around the shoulder of the friendly family team run by his father Mike, and the Lichfield charger was plugged into a full-on works team - and it didn't work out.

Jordan's greatest success came when he snatched the title in 2013 with the family-run Eurotech Racing team (which has since been bought by Jeff Smith).

He had the support of his father and was engineered by his brother-in-law Adam Hardy (who has since gone on to work in the DTM). It was a combination that knew each other well and it gelled to claim the biggest prize in British motorsport.

That all disappeared at the start of 2015 when AJ joined Triple Eight Racing to spearhead the MG programme.

Although he was in the hunt for the title right up until the final rounds of the season on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit, he failed to win a race during the 30-event campaign and the garage became full of recriminations. Things needed to change, and Jordan put pen to paper with Motorbase.

From the outside, some people saw it as a kneejerk reaction. After all, the Motorbase cars would surely have their engines pegged back for 2016? And Motorbase, even though it has been in the championship since 2006, has yet to lift a title.

Jordan points to the hunger within the team as one of the reasons he made the switch, and Motorbase is confident that Jordan's knowledge of just what it takes to put a title together will help it to make the next step from being a regular race winner to a genuine threat for the crown.

Any hiccups that occurred last season will not happen in the year ahead as there have been some fundamental decisions on the engineering side to help get the most from Jordan and his new environment.

Motorbase Performance team manager Oly Collins explains: "We have taken on Andrew Brown to engineer Andrew Jordan. Andrew worked has worked with AJ before, and we have also taken on Andrew's dad Mike.

"He would have been in the garage anyway, supporting his son, and he asked if we would like him to get involved rather than just sit in the background drinking tea and eating cake.

"Of course, we jumped at that chance - there is no one who knows AJ better than Mike and that is going to help us.

"Mike is on the radio to AJ during the races anyway and so it makes sense that he is involved."

Collins says that partnering Jordan with Jackson, who has been part of the team since 2010, is another key aspect that is going to help push the team forwards. Both have multiple race wins and Jackson was the championship runner up in 2008.

"From the testing we have done so far, one thing that stands out is the openness during the debriefs," says Collins.

"We don't do egos at Motorbase. The drivers have both realised that they can learn things from each other.

"Although they have different driving styles, they can help push each other along and both know that it is a benefit to them both and to the team as a whole."

A raft of new control parts built by RML have caused many teams a problem, and Motorbase is included in that.

It had to redesign its manifold from the car that it ran last season and there have been other tweaks too. One of the most fundamental is the adjustment to the boost levels that the car can run this year: just as the paddock insiders had predicted, the EcoBoost was turned down by rulemakers.

"We won't know the effect of that until Brands Hatch," says Collins.

"There are new specification engines up and down the pitlane. The Subaru engine is new, Honda is new, BMW has been reworked - most of the major teams have new units to work with.

"It is slightly frustrating because we did everything above the board last season and we were running a strong chassis with very little success ballast weight compared to the others on the grid. But we have got what we have got."

Despite the engine being slightly pegged back, there is genuine optimism surrounding the programme and all the work has been done behind the scenes. Jordan is in a positive frame of mind and the team is desperate for success.

"I honestly think this is going to be one of the most open beginnings to a season yet," says Collins.

"Everybody has new kits or new cars, so it is going to be hard to predict. The pressure is on us, I guess, because of the success we had at the end of last year, but everybody has pressure.

"I am not going to plead poverty, but we aren't as well funded as some of the other teams and this year is going to be all about development - and that takes money.

"So looking at that, you would say that we should target the Independents' Trophy but everybody in motorsport is greedy, and we certainly are.

"The overall title has to be on the radar."