The key takeaways from the BTCC season opener

After all the hype… Flashback to 30 March 1997, qualifying day for the first round of the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park. Jason Plato is the controversial newboy in the Williams Renault Laguna team and shocks everyone by taking a double pole position. He ends Saturday on the crest of a wave of goodwill and recognition. Coincidentally, this is the beginning of your columnist’s first full season covering the BTCC for Autosport, after being drafted in mid-1996.

Now fast-forward to 18 April 2026, qualifying day for the first round of the BTCC at Donington Park. Jason Plato is the controversial boss of the new Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon team, which shocks everyone when Dan Rowbottom wins the qualifying race. The team ends Saturday on the crest of a wave of goodwill and recognition. Your columnist is there again.

“Tim Harvey mentioned that in our hospitality!” chortled Plato of the 29-years-apart comparison. “We knew we’d assembled a brilliant bunch of people. I was enormously confident in the abilities of RML to design us a car based upon what we want, that we could collaborate with them in terms of design and almost keep the reins on so they don’t spear off in a different direction. They’re creatives.

“I knew quite honestly that it was the most ridiculous idea in the world to try and do it in five and a half months, and do you know what? We have. My dream and my focus and my goal was to not just be competitive but to be the best in every area. I wanted the best branding, the best looking garages, the best team kit, the best colour scheme, the best food. And all that stuff is really important to me with the way I am.”

Rowbottom is a partner in a team that is fielding two cars, the other for his fellow multiple race winner Adam Morgan. ‘Rowbo’ spent Friday afternoon before Donington in a garden centre buying shrubs for the hospitality. On Saturday he was on it. In fact, a Plato Racing Mercedes led its very first lap of competition, when the momentum of Rowbottom out of the chicane got him across the start-finish line 0.001 seconds in front of Tom Ingram as they raced side by side in the qualifying race.

Rowbottom finished second, but had just enough in hand to inherit victory after Ingram’s 5s penalty. Delight, but he was realistic. The late-race pace was lacking, and had the finish line been just a few yards further down the road then Ingram would have negated that penalty. “We’ve won the inaugural sprint race, which is great,” summed up Rowbottom. “What the penalty did do is it forced Tom into showing us what he had. He was trying to outrace the clock, and we know what we’ve got to aim for now, and we’re nowhere near. It was a really good race because it was educational as well as to get the win.

“We weren’t quick enough at the end. We had to take a stab in the dark with the set-up. You’ve got to set the car up for a qualifying session and a race, neither of which we’d done before. Paul [Ridgway] my engineer did a great job. Both cars suffered exactly the same issues, so we have a problem with the base set-up, and we’ll fix it overnight.”

Plato's BTCC debut both as a driver and as a team boss saw him smiling on Saturday but sunk on Sunday

Photo by: LAT Images via Getty Images

Bearing in mind what happened in 1997, it was tempting to suggest that Alain Menu would arrive in the East Midlands on Sunday morning to take a clean sweep of wins and dampen Plato Racing’s ardour. But no mild-mannered Swiss visitors were required for that. It just ended up being one of those days.

Race pace did seem slightly better in Sunday’s first race proper, although Rowbottom bogged down badly from pole and conceded his advantage straight away: “It felt like the clutch went very soft.” Even so, Rowbottom did lose a place to the Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon of Mikey Doble – another brand-new car – late in the race to finish third on the road, only for a 10s penalty for track limits to dump him down to 11th.

A crank sensor failure in race two, which meant a new engine was installed for the finale, effectively did for Rowbottom’s hopes of any good results.

"It’s my proudest moment actually. I had tears in my eyes, and lots of people had tears in their eyes because they’ve worked so hard, and they took a risk going with the lunatic that’s me" Jason Plato on Dan Rowbottom's win on the team's debut

Morgan too was largely out of luck. A series of lap time deletions for overboost infringements disrupted his qualifying, and the same thing happened at the end of race one, the resulting penalty denying him what would have been a podium. Morgan’s eighth place in the final race ended up as the team’s best of Sunday – not what was expected.

But Plato Racing certainly made its mark. “Having JP back means that ITV have to keep their finger on the dump button to make sure that his swearing doesn’t get across the airwaves!” laughed series boss Alan Gow. “The team have presented themselves incredibly well, the way the garage is set up, the way that the cars are set up, they’ve done a really good job. And it actually shows you the strength of our regulations, where a good team can come into the championship, build a good car and be competitive straight away.”

It hasn’t been easy. The squad parted company with veteran and highly respected team manager Malcolm Swetnam during the build-up to the season, and Plato said “we’ve spent an outrageous amount of money – we’re 55 points over budget which is a lot – but we’ve spent it on performance in every single area.”

That’s why Saturday meant such a lot to the 58-year-old: “It’s my proudest moment actually. I had tears in my eyes, and lots of people had tears in their eyes because they’ve worked so hard, and they took a risk going with the lunatic that’s me!”

Ingram was denied victory in the first race by an overboost use issue - but he wasn't the only troubled by the problem

Photo by: JEP

Getting to grips with the overboost

Morgan’s overboost problems were not unique to him. This season, the BTCC has introduced something that revels in the title of Closed Loop Boost Scrutineering (CLBS). So, instead of the series’ technical officials delving into the cars’ data after sessions or races to find evidence of any illegal spikes, teams can effectively repay it in real time by cutting boost when there has been a transgression.

The problem comes when the overboost happens right at the end of a race. This hit Daryl De Leon’s West Surrey Racing BMW at the end of the qualifying race, and Morgan in Saturday’s opener. They crossed the finish line without having chance to repay their debt, hence their respective 5s penalties.

Reigning champion Ingram’s overboosting in race one, which resulted in his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai’s exclusion from victory, was a different matter. No one with any sense would doubt that the transgressions were accidental, or that this car and driver are one of the combinations to beat when fully legal. But it was a more serious offence than the others.

“On the safety car, we had an overboost alarm, so we’d overboosted going into the safety car period,” explained Ingram’s long-time engineer Spencer Aldridge. “It then wouldn’t repay itself over the safety car period – we were trying every engine map or trick that we’ve got. Over the three or four safety car laps it just about paid itself back, back to zero.

“Then we were fine for the rest of the race until two laps from the end we had the alarm again, but then no matter what we did we couldn’t get it to pay back. He was backing off on straights, we were trying everything you can imagine for the last two laps. We were paying back more the more we deployed, which sounds ridiculous, but that’s the way the recovery system works. It was the last two laps I think was the worst of it.”

That explains why Ingram’s margin over the chasing Doble came steadily down, and it is something that Excelr8 and Hyundai engine builder Swindon are aware needs attention. “It’s the integration with our engine package,” continued Aldridge. “It’s only on that one car. We don’t believe it gave us any more performance through that race. It’s one of those things.”

While Aldridge was philosophical about it, Ingram sounded like northern comedy grump Karl Pilkington uttering “what a load of malarkey” on a mobile-phone ad. “It’s not like it’s a million percent over and we’ve actually generated any performance,” he harrumphed. “It’s just this stupid rule that’s come in that has to be self-policing. I don’t really understand it if I’m honest with you. It’s a load of old nonsense.

“It’s something that’s designed to help the situation out, but in helping the situation all it’s done is create a problem, which I’m not a big fan of. But we are where we are. I know a lot of other people are having the same problem. Some people get a bigger penalty than others – if you’ve overboosted by one or one million it should be an equal penalty.”

Speedworks Motorsport is effectively running two teams and four cars in total this season

Photo by: JEP

Two champions at Speedworks

Speedworks Motorsport has done a remarkable job of making its four-car operation look like two separate teams. In the Speedworks Corolla Racing garage, it’s Josh Cook and Max Buxton in a squad that proudly unveiled a partnership with the British Army on the eve of Donington (to be fair, Cook does look as though he might be quite handy with a bayonet in the desert). Meanwhile, Mark Blundell’s Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport has transferred from backing international endurance-bound 2024 champion Jake Hill at the WSR BMW operation to a pair of Toyotas for Gordon Shedden and Aron Taylor-Smith.

While the SCR duo are running for Manufacturer points, the LTR/MB boys are in the Independents classification. Blundell also brought across Hill’s long-time engineer Craig Porley to look after Shedden, something which was announced quite early in the winter. But what did surprise was the appearance of Blundell’s long-time cohort Gary Paffett as team manager.

Paffett already holds down a role as racing director at the Cupra Kiro team, but there is only one calendar clash (Thruxton and Tokyo – when have you ever seen those two locations written in the same sentence?).

With the recent saloon proliferation, the Corollas are now the only hatchbacks left in the series, but Cook’s early-event performances – and Shedden’s podium in race two – bode well. In Cook’s view, that’s especially the case since the preponderance of long, medium and high-speed corners of the Donington National circuit were expected to not suit the car.

Shedden celebrates his race two podium with his new-look squad

Photo by: JEP