Can new BTCC superteam win in 2015?

The two sides of the coin represented very different options for Colin Turkington. Either would lead to a British Touring Car Championship superteam. The question was whether the 2014 champion would stick or twist.

His first choice, continuing at West Surrey Racing alongside Andy Priaulx and Sam Tordoff, has not materialised. But he's happy where he's ended up, and not just because it's stopped him repeating his enforced 2010 sabbatical. Turkington's not been forced to BMR, but he's had a nudge in that direction.

The end product is - after a winter of constant speculation over the future of the top two drivers from 2014 - a pairing of Turkington and Jason Plato in the BTCC. That's ominous. That's as good as it gets. And that's why it's crucial Team BMR's bold ambitions bear fruit.

Warren Scott's outfit is the BTCC's unknown quantity at the moment, but it should not be in the business of surprising anyone anymore. Its coup of luring series legend Alain Menu back last year - only its second season in the championship - shows it can pull off something extraordinary.

Menu's BTCC return with BMR didn't always go to plan last year © LAT

But this isn't so much delivering a surprise as it is firing a substantial warning shot - the team means business.

Even when Menu was announced last year, the Swiss was raving about Scott's ambition. Twelve months on, both Plato and Turkington talk in similar tones. Ending 2014 with four Volkswagen CCs on the grid and two victories showed that the team, which grew from fielding a sole S2000 SEAT Leon, had greater intentions than being an underdog independent.

Now it's generating the most tantalising of storylines. The defending champion and the most successful driver in the championship's history. Last year's dominating force, and the man who dragged every last drop out of his MG in pursuit, publicly criticising the so-called superior rear-wheel-drive BMW of his new team-mate along the way.

No doubt the 'superteam' moniker is set for a resounding PR cycle this season, and while an in-form Plato and Turkington would be among the very best line-ups even in the championship's Super Touring pomp, it will count for little if it doesn't translate into results.

That's where the real substance lies in this story. Turkington has declared little interest in beating Plato straight away - "that's not my immediate goal," he says - and wants to switch his head to front-wheel-drive spec after years in RWD trim. Plato, for all his confidence, also knows it's a long-term project.

So how exactly does Team BMR turn a car that was more often than not an occasional podium contender into a title-challenger fit for the two top drivers from the previous season?

There's clearly potential. After all, in only its second season the team won races. These were reversed-grid victories, admittedly, but it showed the CCs - two sweeping revisions from Team Hard's original machines and two new builds - were sound cars.

One of the big benefits is that, after a year lacking a real team leader, it now has two. Plato and Turkington will be invaluable, as they have been the respective driving forces behind the establishment of the two most potent cars on the grid last year.

"It's a similar scenario to where I was with the BMW in the first year," says Turkington. "We would be right at the front at some tracks, and others we would have to work a bit harder. The VW isn't the finished article yet, but that's the long-term goal."

Plato echoes those sentiments. Alongside chief designer Carl Faux, who has left Triple Eight to join Plato at BMR, the double champion was instrumental in turning the MG6 into the potent weapon it became - by the end of his three-year stint with MG, that combination had won more races than any other.

Turkington and Plato were the BTCC's top two in last year's championship © LAT

"We came from nowhere with the MG, and turned it into the best front-wheel-drive car on the grid in all conditions," Plato says.

"Carl and I were right in the middle of that. We know how it needs to be set up and what the VW has been like in the past.

"Slowly but surely over the past six months it all started to come together. The decision for me to get involved just became easier and easier. It's a fantastic team, it's well funded and it has the right ingredients."

What is key is that both drivers are speaking in the long-term. They won't talk about the length of their deals, but both are looking at a relationship that lasts beyond 2015.

So when Plato talks of instant success - "we want to be popping it on pole and winning, anything less will be a disappointment" - it's important to recognise that 'want' is the operative word.

The addition of Faux and Turkington's engineer from WSR Kevin Berry to BMR's technical line-up should not be understated in its potential to inject a short-term boost and, in the long run, give its star line-up the best chance of having a refined, consistent, competitive package.

Plato, who worked with Berry at Triple Eight in 2012, describes both engineers as "heavyweights", while Scott says he has two of the best minds in the paddock. Any hangover from last year's car is likely to have a cure found for it, and as Plato is quick to point out, it's not starting from a bad point in the first place.

"One thing I've found is if you have the right engineering team - and these cars are a bit unusual - and plug in some world-class drivers, that car will win races," he says (modesty not pictured). "Providing it has no inherent issues in the design or build process, and we know it hasn't. Aerodynamically it's the most efficient car on the grid. That's a big plus.

"We've got the man that I would trust my life on in terms of engineering me, and Colin has his man there too. They know what levers to pull to get the best out of each other.

"The performance push that both of us will give will help everybody. I know with my eyes closed what a front-wheel-drive car should do to win races, and Colin will get that in a very short space of time."

Providing Turkington gets to grips with the FWD way of working, wins are clearly possible this season. There's no reason why he shouldn't adapt quickly, as he's won races in FWD machinery before, and, as Plato points out, "he's a world class driver and it won't make any difference".

That said, Turkington is refusing to get carried away. "I know from the past you need to be consistent to win the title," he admits. "I think that's something that might take a little bit of time.

"Just from getting to know Warren, who is motivated and ambitious to succeed in the BTCC, I know I share his enthusiasm. Sometimes you've got to take a risk and step outside your comfort zone. Certainly that's what I've done.

"It would have been a lot easier to stick with the BMW, but this is a chance to do something a bit different. Hopefully I'll be as successful as I was with the BMW."

Like Turkington, Plato will hope that BMR offers the same success rate as WSR's BMW did last year. He craves a third title. He should have it by now. He should have had a fourth, or a fifth. And he knows it.

BMR won two races last year with Aron Smith in the VW CC © LAT

Something was missing at MG and Triple Eight, something that stopped the most successful package over the last three years (in terms of race wins) from achieving more than a solitary manufacturers' title.

Has he found that at BMR? The test at Thruxton this week will have given the duo the first true indicator of who has it more right - Plato, with his bolder ambition, or Turkington, with the hope of wins first and the title later.

But both know how to mould a winning package. So Plato's confidence in a two-year-old team with an unproven car challenging for the title may not be as misplaced as it first seems.

"It's something quite serious that Warren has put together," Plato reiterates. "He's not playing games. He's got big plans for BMR. This guy looks like he could be the next big team in the championship.

"I think it's going to be mega, isn't it? The season we've just come off, me and Colin were the two standouts, and what a fantastic prospect to work together in the same team.

"I think we're in great shape. I think the other guys on the grid will have a little bit of a cold shiver run down their spine when they see what we've got."