Did the right driver win the BTCC crown?

There are few exercises in life that are more time-consuming, more fun, and more fruitless, than plotting 'what if?'. But let's entertain that idea here just for a moment.

Andrew Jordan will argue that had it not been for his non-score at Donington Park in the second round of the 2019 British Touring Car Championship season, or being hit by Senna Proctor in race three at Knockhill, then he would be the newly crowned champion.

Dan Cammish can make the case that had his brakes not failed on the penultimate lap of the final race at Brands Hatch then he would have converted his last-minute points lead into the title spoils last weekend.

And the driver who ultimately lifted the crown, Colin Turkington, can bat both of those cases off by pointing to his collision with Matt Neal in the second race at Brands, or being spun around by the duelling Rob Collard and Adam Morgan in the first Silverstone race.

Then there's race two at Knockhill. As Jordan romped to victory, Turkington was hit by Butcher - who was slapped with a five-place grid penalty - as he tried to reclaim third on the inside into McIntyres. The rear of his BMW 330i M Sport was tagged and sent spinning into the gravel. From there Turkington would limp to a pointless 19th.

Without any of those, the championship fight might never have slipped in Cammish's favour at the 11th hour.

But that's all based on hypotheticals which, as interesting to debate as they might be, can never be proven one way or the other.

If that is the case, although it may create only a two-dimensional picture, then what of the statistical analysis - did the right driver win the BTCC this year? A purist, or a traditionalist, might argue no.

The numbers say that had Jordan finished any one of those three Donington races then, more than likely, he would have defeated Turkington

For those who consider the partially reversed grid for race three at each BTCC meeting as contrived, or lament the introduction of a third race from 2004 onwards altogether, arguably Jordan is their champion.

Of his eventual 318-point tally - just two shy of Turkington's haul - 259 were accrued during the 'purer' first two races of each meeting. That equates to 81.4% - 0.3% greater than Cammish and 6.1% ahead of Turkington. If it wasn't for the lottery of the race three grid then Jordan would have been top dog.

And let's reconsider his Donington non-score. Jordan was spun by Collard on the opening lap and an unsighted Morgan and Stephen Jelley smashed into the BMW 330i M Sport. It put Jordan out of the race, in hospital and left on the sidelines for two races.

That means, of the nine rounds he properly contested, Jordan scored on average 35.3 points. Add one more of those onto his eventual figure.

Or, with 4050 points up for grabs this season, split by 30 drivers, the average score per driver at each race was 4.5 points. Add in just one of those.

Put simply, the numbers say that had Jordan finished any one of those three Donington races then, more than likely, he would have defeated his WSR team-mate. Not to mention that Jordan ended 2019 with the highest number of wins - six beats Turkington's five and Cammish's three.

There's also another incident with Jordan, and it's one that's flown under the radar. Rain in race three at Silverstone forced both Turkington and Jordan to pit for wet tyres. Caught by surprise, Jordan stopped first, but it took WSR 23 seconds longer to service his car than Turkington's.

The team finished with Turkington in seventh and Jordan eighth. But deduct the hefty delay from Jordan's race time and he could have been battling alongside Jack Goff and fellow rear-wheel-drive runner Aidan Moffat for victory.

The numbers don't support Cammish's claim to the throne quite so strongly: he finished and scored points in every race of the season bar one - when it really counted.

After a tame start to the year, Team Dynamics and Cammish in particular kicked on with the FK8 Honda Civic Type R and he bagged 19 top 10 finishes from the first Thruxton meeting onwards.

He never really dropped the ball at any point, but nor did he knit together many race-winning performances. What's more, he only led 15 laps all season. Turkington and Jordan were tied at the top on 87 laps, but Cammish was way down in 11th.

What remains indisputable is that Turkington withstood everything the BTCC threw at him this season

According to Barry Plowman, the co-owner and technical director of Team Dynamics, a combination of running in too close a proximity to Ollie Jackson's Motorbase Ford Focus, and not in cooler air, plus Cammish's tendency to left-foot brake - which in turn generally exerts greater force - means his dramatic and gut-wrenching brake failure wasn't entirely a freak occurrence.

One other explanation could be that, after a wet race two, larger brake ducts weren't swapped in for the dry finale - which might explain the excessive fade that Cammish experienced.

What of the champion? To be emotive, Turkington draws level with Andy Rouse as a four-time champion. For that alone, he must be considered a BTCC great. And owing to his calm mannerisms, there's a case to be made that Turkington is still underrated as a driver - people seem to underestimate his ability to pull out the perfect qualifying lap or be ruthlessly efficient in overtaking.

Turkington, as the points leader for 23 races, also entered no fewer than seven rounds with the maximum 54kg of success ballast to haul around in qualifying and each opening race.

Added to his five wins, for which he carried his ballast into the following bout, it means that for 12 of the 30 races Turkington was laden with the largest weight penalty. That's more weight than Jordan had to carry following his Donington disaster.

That Turkington still achieved pole at Oulton Park in the dry despite the handicap shows how quick he has been this year. Some will maintain that the new BMW 3 Series held a performance advantage - despite having its power reduced, a centre of gravity change and all non-BMWs getting a 4bhp boost increase. After qualifying at Brands Hatch last weekend Cammish even called BMW out for its "DTM" machinery.

It's little exaggeration to say that it didn't take WSR long to make the 3 Series the best in class, while it's taken Team Dynamics far longer to consistently nail down what makes the FK8 Civic Type R tick - even in its second season. Cammish has had to fight with that all season, and delivered remarkably well.

Above all of the arguments, however, what remains indisputable is that Turkington withstood everything the BTCC threw at him this season.

Based on the comeback and the raw emotion he showed as he crossed the line in race three, the numbers alone almost fade into the background. He is the man who should be king.