Friday favourite: The BTCC pocket rocket cruelly denied a title shot

Patrick Watts is surely one of the finest British Touring Car drivers not to score an outright race win. The multiple single-make champion came close with Peugeot during the competitive Super Touring era but the cards (and machinery) never fell his way.

It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that it’s a class dominator that Watts picks as the favourite car from his career. It’s a car that he feels he could have won the BTCC crown with.

Watts joined the factory-supported Roger Dowson Engineering MG Metro team for the 1983 BTCC, or British Saloon Car Championship as it was then known. He started off with the normally aspirated Class C car before getting his hands on the Class B Metro Turbo halfway through the season.

He quickly adapted to the dreaded turbo lag of the period. “You had to left-foot brake and get on the power when you didn’t want it, knowing you’d want it two seconds later,” recalls Watts of the car that helped launch his career. “It was totally different to the single-make cars, all the suspension was different.

“I was a works driver for Austin Rover Group, I was being paid to go racing and my team-mate was Tony Pond. We developed the car in 1983, then in 1984 my team-mate was Robin Brundle and we were all set to win.”

Watts hit the ground running with the 1.3-litre turbocharged pocket rocket, winning his class in three of the first four rounds of 1984. In those days, class winners could score the same number of points as outright victors, so the overall title was a real possibility.

Three class wins from the opening four rounds set up a possible title tilt for Watts

Photo by: Gary Hawkins

But then-works Rover driver Steve Soper lost his 1983 crown when the engine-rocker assembly on the Tom Walkinshaw Racing Vitesses was finally adjudged to be illegal. The result was that Austin Rover, of which MG was a part, withdrew from the 1984 championship.

Watts, who had suffered retirements in the two most recent races, was left with no drive and could only watch as Andy Rouse took the crown in his self-prepared Rover.

“It was a winning car, so I missed my opportunity to be BTCC champion,” rues Watts. It would take until 1992, via more one-make success, before Watts could firmly reestablish himself in the BTCC, with Mazda.

"I would attack the bigger stuff but with a mind to finishing. I don’t remember denting the car – you had to stay out of trouble" Patrick Watts

Nevertheless, he has fond memories of the diminutive, flame-spitting car that produced more than 200bhp and could be a giant-killer against bigger Group A opposition. “I would attack the bigger stuff but with a mind to finishing,” he says. “I don’t remember denting the car – you had to stay out of trouble.”

He now owns one of the original cars and drives it at events such as Super Touring Power at Brands Hatch. “I didn’t know it still existed until someone told me it was for sale,” adds Watts. “I thought it’d be a Metro Challenge car. I bought it quite quickly – he had me over a barrel!”