The BTCC's big shake-up

Mass change does not happen that often in the British Touring Car Championship.

New regulations and manufacturer arrivals and departures aside, the scale of top-end driver/team line-up transformation ahead of the 2015 season is unparalleled since the dawn of the BTCC's Super Touring revolution in 1991.

Those days are long gone, but the BTCC is riding the crest of a wave at the moment, and that makes the changes for 2015 all the more pertinent.

Last week's confirmation of Andrew Jordan's switch to the Triple Eight-run MG team and triple World Touring Car champion Andy Priaulx's return with West Surrey Racing sparked the beginning of a huge shake-up for the championship.

Like in 2009, champion Colin Turkington's future is in doubt, following eBay's departure as WSR's title sponsor. Jason Plato is leaving MG, with his destination as yet unknown. Sam Tordoff has left Triple Eight as well, moving to WSR, while the factory Honda team is introducing a new car. Rob Collard and Mat Jackson are also being kept waiting.

Turkington's previous title-winning season also ended with him losing his drive © LAT

Right now, none of last year's top eight finishers in the championship will return in the same car. At best, two will.

And that's before you consider that the likelihood of both of last year's returning champions - Fabrizio Giovanardi and Alain Menu - continuing is not very high either.

Triple Eight and MG having to supplant Plato and Tordoff in one go and Jordan's task at replacing the most successful driver in BTCC history in terms of race wins are unenviable.

Jordan needs to prove he has learned the lessons from the first time he flew the nest, when his unsuccessful move away in 2009 (also to Triple Eight) was to be a number three to Giovanardi and Matt Neal. Now, as a champion, this move makes him the focal point of a factory-backed campaign for the first time.

"There are more drivers moving this year than previously; it's really exciting for the championship," he reckons.

"Continuity has got its upsides and some people might view changing teams as a disadvantage, but moving to a different team, taking myself out of that comfort zone, means I've got to do the job."

That job is to succeed where Plato failed. The double champion won more races than any other driver over his three years with MG, but couldn't turn that into a third drivers' title.

That has forced his hand, and his future remains one of the final pieces of the puzzle. Options are dwindling quickly, though a race-winning possibility remains in the form of the Team BMR set-up.

That could, of course, raise the prospect of Plato unseating former Renault team-mate Menu from the BTCC, though for his part Plato insists he is not in a rush to confirm his plans.

Menu, BMR and Plato remain missing pieces in the jigsaw © LAT

Team BMR, which only has three-time race winner Aron Smith confirmed, would represent a sizeable challenge. Plato needs to integrate quickly wherever he goes, and while the BMR Volkswagen CC has shown flashes of genuine speed, it was only an occasional contender in 2014.

Turning it into a title prospect, especially with leading engineer Geoff Kingston off to Speedworks, is a big task, but Plato's efforts in the ungainly MG6 show that is unlikely to faze him.

On paper, Honda's mission is the least imposing, returning to a hatchback version of its Civic for drivers Neal and Gordon Shedden. But while it has a wealth of data from its NGTC Civic of 2012 and '13, the new model still presents a challenge - particularly as it looks like whichever Civic it settles on, it will have a tight production deadline and testing could be at a premium.

Beyond Plato's plans, it's Turkington's future that holds the most interest. But right now there is no firm answer to the question of whether he will be with WSR this season. The man himself admits his options are slim and is refusing to bluster about his chances - though he did give away that he hopes to know what his future holds by the end of January.

Turkington is the most salient example of the change facing the BTCC grid in 2015. If he does remain with WSR, he looks set to be the only champion driver in the same car as last year - but even that consistency will have been reached against a backdrop of serious instability. If the injustice of 2009 is repeated, he will be a huge loss to the championship, which is on course to deliver a fascinating campaign.

The big sell for the BTCC in 2014 was seven champions, but with Giovanardi and Menu being reduced to little more than cameo roles, its USP this time has far greater substance. What has happened over the winter, and will happen in the next few weeks, will have a genuine bearing on the outcome of the championship.

As Turkington will testify, the usual suspects can take nothing for granted in 2015.