How those in the know ranked the BTCC's class of 2019

This is isn't a question of Autosport shirking its responsibilities. Well, OK, maybe it is a bit.

But we wanted the definitive top 10 drivers of the British Touring Car Championship season just gone, so we went deep into the pitlane to speak to the people who really know. We questioned team managers or owners from every operation represented on the grid and asked them for their leading performers of 2019.

We've added up the votes (see, we did put in some effort) and come up with a list from the men and women on the inside.

Team representatives scrutinise every practice, qualifying and race lap, and also have an intimate knowledge of the equipment at each racer's disposal. Who better to point out the star performers from 2019?

The team managers' panel: Dick Bennetts (WSR); Martin Broadhurst (Power Maxed Racing); Oly Collins (Motorbase Performance); Christian Dick (Speedworks Motorsport); Tony Gilham (Team Hard); Ian Harrison (BMR Racing); Shaun Hollamby (AmD Tuning); Marvin Humphries (Excelr8 Motorsport); Dan Kirby (Trade Price Cars Racing); Bob Moffat (Laser Tools Racing); Russell Morgan (Ciceley Motorsport); Stuart Parker (Team Parker Racing); James Rodgers (Team Dynamics); Matt Simpson (Simpson Motorsport); Zoe Timbrell (BTC Racing).

10 Sam Tordoff

Car: Honda Civic Type R FK2
Team: AmD Tuning
Championship position: 13th
Wins: 1
Points: 147
Laps led: 31
Average qualifying position: 6.71

Tordoff was desperate to get his hands on a Honda Civic FK2. He knew only too well about the ability of the Team Dynamics-built machine, having been beaten to the 2016 crown by Gordon Shedden's version when he was driving a BMW.

The Yorkshire driver switched from Motorbase to the ambitious AmD Tuning squad, but one thing he didn't shake off was his habit of finding bad luck when there was some knocking about.

There was a podium at Thruxton in between some mechanical problems, but it wasn't until Oulton in June where things really started to click and he was a regular inside the top six. An accomplished win in the opener at the second Thruxton meeting was well deserved and looked like it would reignite his charge.

Sadly, Tordoff had to sit out the latter part of the season after the death of his infant son, and he was replaced in the line-up by Mike Bushell.

9 Tom Ingram

Car: Toyota Corolla
Team: Speedworks Motorsport
Championship position: 6th
Wins: 4
Points: 245
Laps led: 67
Average qualifying position: 9.40

Building and operating the brand new Toyota Corolla was a huge step for Speedworks and for Ingram too, because he was leading the line in terms of development for the first time and didn't have a sister car to speed up the development work.

He had promised that there would be a learning process and then thought that the combination could battle for wins in the latter half of the year. Taking a reversed-grid win at the second meeting of the season at Donington Park was, therefore, something of a surprise and might have flattered to deceive a little.

Ingram said work done at the mid-season test at Snetterton truly unlocked the set-up secrets of the hatchback and so it proved, with three more wins on the billiard-smooth surfaces of Snetterton and Silverstone. There is still work to do in terms of getting the Corolla to cope with kerbs and uneven surfaces elsewhere. That will come with more development over the winter.

8 Jake Hill

Car: Audi S3
Team: Trade Price Cars Racing
Championship position: 15th
Wins: 1
Points: 131
Laps led: 42
Average qualifying position: 14.70

It was always going to be hard to rip up trees in an ageing Audi S3 saloon, but Hill built on the foundations he had already shown in the British Touring Car Championship to finally break into the winners' circle in 2019.

He started the season with a podium at Brands Hatch in a tricky race - which is always the sign of a driver with superb car control - and he was knocking on the door of the top 10 elsewhere. Victory was his at Oulton Park but, after a controversial collision with Neal's Honda, an emotional Hill was stripped of what would have been his maiden triumph. He was heartbroken.

The team continued to work hard on the car, which excelled on the more technical tracks, and it finally all came good for Hill at Knockhill, where he took a win he could keep.

There were some other strong cameos - again excelling in mixed conditions at Silverstone, for example - and Hill certainly deserves his place in this top 10. A switch to more modern machinery is his dream, and that would give everyone the chance to finally see his unquestioned ability.

7 Matt Neal

Car: Honda Civic Type R FK8
Team: Team Dynamics
Championship position: 9th
Wins: 0
Points: 232
Laps led: 6
Average qualifying position: 9.20

In the second year with the Honda Civic Type R FK8, much was expected from Team Dynamics and Neal himself. The learning had been done throughout 2018, and those lessons should have helped the hatchback climb up the order.

In truth, the car was faster that it had been in the previous campaign, but it came up against a huge steamroller from BMW. Neal has been around the BTCC block and he knows that drivers don't necessarily have the best car for the entire year, but the Honda wasn't on point until right at the end of the campaign.

Neal is an experienced points collector and that helped him to run inside the top 10 for the whole season without ever troubling the top step of the podium - it was the first time since 2001 that his towering presence had not been felt on the summit of the rostrum.

He was often put in the shade in terms of outright pace by team-mate Cammish, but proved to be a team player as the sister car fought for the overall drivers' title. He recorded his second ninth place in the points standings in consecutive seasons.

6 Ash Sutton

Car: Subaru Levorg GT
Team: BMR Racing
Championship position: 8th
Wins: 1
Points: 233
Laps led: 25
Average qualifying position: 8.50

Sutton was in a very unusual position after the sixth race of the British Touring Car Championship campaign. He was leading. Not that being on top of the pile is unusual for the 2017 champion, but his previous challenges have been typified by a slow start then a charge over the latter races.

It was a topsy-turvy 2019. The long-in-the-tooth Subaru didn't really have many areas to refine and therefore, as others got up to speed with their 2019 machines, the Levorg slipped back down the order.

Sutton's ability has never been in doubt and he is one of the best out there, especially in tricky conditions. He used all of his ability but, from the third round onwards, he was usually scrapping for the smaller points at the bottom end of the top 10, which was painful for him. However, he didn't let his head drop.

There was the highlight of a win - on a slippery surface - at the final meeting of the year at Brands Hatch that reminded everyone of his talents. But, overall, it was a year to forget.

5 Josh Cook

Car: Honda Civic Type R FK8
Team: BTC Racing
Championship position: 4th
Wins: 3
Points: 278
Laps led: 74
Average qualifying position: 11.80

Cook looked like he would be on the sidelines this season but got a last-gasp chance with BTC Racing, which itself was taking a big stride by grabbing a couple of latest-spec FK8 Hondas and forging an alliance with the factory squad Team Dynamics.

The Bath racer hit the ground running with a win in the opening race at Brands Hatch, and it seemed like he, the team and the car was a match made in heaven. But things got harder thereafter, although there were some highlights that included a superb race-two win on the championship's second visit to Thruxton.

If there was a downside, there were some meetings where Cook struggled to get on top of the set-up of the Civic. That would leave him reverse-engineering his weekend to aim for a slice of luck in the reversed-grid draw to land big points. That worked on a number of occasions, but too often he had jettisoned big scores earlier in the meetings.

With more consistency with the set-up of the car, Cook would have been odds on for a top three in the standings.

4 Rory Butcher

Car: Honda Civic Type R FK2
Team: AmD Tuning
Championship position: 5th
Wins: 3
Points: 266
Laps led: 35
Average qualifying position: 10.40

Butcher had built himself a solid reputation in the ageing MG6 in 2018, and this was a golden opportunity to step forward in more solid equipment with the FK2 Honda. He grabbed it with both hands.

Working with racer Mike Bushell on the engineering strength, Butcher proved to be fast and consistent. He is a classy racer who rarely gets himself embroiled in the point-sapping clashes that can ruin a campaign.

There was only one wobble when the pressure was on at Croft and he binned it in qualifying, which consigned him to a start on the penultimate row, and there was also a controversial incident with Turkington at Knockhill that put the Northern Irishman out of the points.

Those aside, the Scot was a threat everywhere and arguably had the legs over team-mate Tordoff in the opening stages of the season. He got his rewards with a narrow triumph in the Independents Trophy and he also claimed the Jack Sears Trophy - but such was his progress that his eyes were firmly focused on the overall battle. That is a mark of how far he has come.

3 Andrew Jordan

Car: BMW 330i M Sport
Team: WSR
Championship position: 2nd
Wins: 6
Points: 318
Laps led: 87
Average qualifying position: 6.80

Jordan came up two points short, and he took part in only 90% of the season. So, by rights, he should have been the champion. Jordan joined WSR to go up against Turkington in the same car, and proved that he is every bit his match.

The three races he missed at Donington Park mean that Jordan went into a considerable portion of the opening half of the season with less weight than team-mate Turkington. He took full advantage at some of the circuits that are traditionally more favourable to the rear-wheel drive cars, such as Croft, and he had also doubled up at Thruxton.

He appeared to click with the new car straight away and got up to speed faster than his team-mates, but the damage of missing a round was simply too big to overcome.

Jordan clawed his way back into the title fight and it simply didn't roll his way at Brands Hatch, which was a shame as his long-term backer Pirtek has withdrawn from motorsport - leaving him with an uncertain future at this level.

2 Dan Cammish

Car: Honda Civic Type R FK8
Team: Team Dynamics
Championship position: 3rd
Wins: 2
Points: 318
Laps led: 15
Average qualifying position: 5.20

This was the season that Cammish really needed to break through. As racer-turned-ITV pundit Paul O'Neill said at the beginning of 2018, the Yorkshireman effectively got his first season in the top flight "for free" while he found his feet.

This year he shone, and cemented his reputation as one of the most complete racers on the grid. He was put in the shade by the benchmark cars, the BMWs, over the opening part of the season and he wore his heart on his sleeve in terms of his attitude, getting positively grumpy with the advantage that he perceived the WSR cars to have.

It is to his credit, really, because it showed how much he cares. Despite almost spitting out his dummy on a couple of occasions, he put that edgy attitude away when he climbed into the cockpit and fought for every single point that was on offer for him.

No stone was left unturned in his quest and, when the BMWs were finally pegged back, he found himself as the only major threat to them. Those unsung early drives to what was usually third place were the bedrock of his campaign.

1 Colin Turkington

Car: BMW 330i M Sport
Team: WSR
Championship position: 1st
Wins: 5
Points: 320
Laps led: 87
Average qualifying position: 4.20

Turkington is not the tortoise to everyone else's hare because, although he is steady, he is anything but slow - and he sure knows how to win the race.

The speed of the new BMW 330i M Sport was unquestioned, but it took Turkington slightly longer to get fully on top of it than his team-mates - possibly as a result of working with a new engineer for the first time in many seasons as Dan Millard filled the departing Kevin Berry's shoes.

It is hard to argue that there were any downsides to Turkington's performance this season. Although he might not have had the headline-grabbing double victories that his team-mate Jordan pulled off in the middle of the season, by that stage, Turkington was carrying weight and didn't need to overextend himself. He knows racking up points is what counts.

He held his nerve in the tense finale to prevail, but will count himself lucky that he was ready to pounce when his main rival faltered - although he would probably say that was payback for the "professional foul" he had to endure in the penultimate race when he was nerfed off the road by Neal.