Why ‘Flash' is back in the BTCC

To the majority for whom Snetterton is a drive east, there’s something that raises the spirits as you glide past the endless fields along the A11. Perhaps it’s the rising sun in front of you, bringing promise of a new day. Until, 15 miles or so from destination, suddenly the clouds have rolled in from the North Sea.

“It’s as cold as I always remember Snetterton,” chirps Gordon Shedden. “There’s glorious sunshine and not a cloud in the sky at Knockhill, I can tell you that!”

For ‘Flash’ it’s not just a new day; it’s a new dawn for a third-time-around British Touring Car Championship career. The 46-year-old Scot has had only historic racing to occupy him for the past two years, alongside his day job as commercial chief at Knockhill. For him, it’s not only the end of the short, dark days of a Scottish winter, but an emergence from hibernation from modern racing since the end of the 2022 season.

The arrival of the three-time BTCC champion at the Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Gazoo Racing UK team was one of the great ‘nobody-saw-that-one-coming’ moments of recent silly seasons, especially since it was way back in 2009 that he raced anything other than a Team Dynamics Honda in the series.

At Snetterton, on Thursday 27 March, it’s his first day at the wheel of the Toyota Corolla GR Sport he will campaign this year, and was newly built for Josh Cook to race in 2024. It’s a private test, but 15 of the 24 BTCC competitors are here, getting ready for the series’ official days at Croft the following week.

“It is very fresh,” declares Shedden as he glances towards his unliveried car in the garage. “But we are here, it’s dry, I think the forecast looks OK, but to be honest the day’s just ach… We’ve just got to run round, get used to the systems and see exactly what we’ve got.

“I’m looking at some tired eyes that have worked pretty hard to get two cars here today [Shedden and Aron Taylor-Smith are the only two Speedworks drivers running, with Ronan Pearson’s and James Dorlin’s being readied for Croft], so let’s just have a good sensible day, set the basis and platform and then go from there.

“Bumping into people up and down the pitlane, some people have run before, some haven’t. The removal of hybrid means everyone’s learning and I think that’s good for us, because everyone’s got something to change and tweak from last year.”

Last time around: Shedden on his way to victory at Donington Park in 2022

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

By Shedden’s own lofty standards, 2021 and 2022 – when he returned to the BTCC with Dynamics after his globe-trotting interlude in the World Touring Car Cup – did not quite live up to expectations: sixth (2021) and seventh (2022) in the points, with four wins across the two seasons to bring his career tally to 52.

Arguably he might still be adding to that with Dynamics, had the sudden pullout of Halfords from its long-running sponsorship deal with that team not caused its departure at the start of 2023.

“It was OK,” he counters. “2021 was pretty good. We had all sorts of dramas. Here at Snetterton we were on pole, and we lost it by the rear wing being half a degree out or something, and we had to start at the back. The engine went at Thruxton. There were a fair few things that year that didn’t really kind of help.

“Arguably the hybrid maybe suited the slightly bigger cars by virtue of the space for the motor, the cooling, the way the battery could go. Hopefully the Toyota comes back into its own” Gordon Shedden

“And to be fair in 2022 we had a lot of hybrid issues. It was still a decent year in areas, you know? I still won two races that year and finished on the podium multiple times. ‘Cookie’ [Josh Cook] used that car the year after [with One Motorsport] and didn’t really get anywhere near it.”

With hybrid introduced for 2022, Shedden has a theory on why Dynamics may have been hit harder than other teams by its arrival. “We just struggled really to get the balance right with that hybrid,” he reflects.

“The Honda engine was particularly susceptible to where the boost was. It performs very well as a normal engine but, as soon as we ended up with the extra weight and everything, it tipped it just a little bit left of centre. I don’t think we optimised the performance. ‘Cookie’ jumped from the TOCA engine, which had bags of boost and loads of torque, and realised it was quite tricky when he jumped into what I’d had.”

Hybrid is gone now, yet Shedden has another theory on how it may also have impacted his new weapon: the Corolla. Ironically, this is the car in which series organiser TOCA developed the system, yet its best seasons were most definitely before 2022. As with the Civic, it’s simply a matter of dimensions.

“It’s obviously a small car and I think they were very limited, especially in the cooling, as to what they could physically fit in the engine bay, so I think taking that hybrid out shouldn’t do any harm,” he argues. “Arguably the hybrid maybe suited the slightly bigger cars by virtue of the space for the motor, the cooling, the way the battery could go. Hopefully the Toyota comes back into its own.”

Third – and most recent – BTCC title for Shedden came in 2016

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Speedworks has made a habit in recent years of shaking its machinery down at Toyota’s test track near Derby. This year, there simply hasn’t been time. Now that the team is here, at Snetterton, it wants to ensure everything is right before the cars head out. Taylor-Smith is first on track, the sun now shining brightly; Shedden’s comeback begins with an installation lap at 11.10am. The morning is all about making sure everything is working properly. This is, effectively, the team’s shakedown after all.

“The car is brand new,” points out Shedden. “Two weeks ago there was nothing bolted onto it whatsoever. The winters are never long enough, are they? It’s just a couple of little things with the rule changes that we need to get ironed out.”

The green flag for the afternoon session is waved at 1.30pm and, five minutes later, the first engine fires up and it’s Shedden heading out. Back he comes to the pitlane, and the Toyota is parked on the apron with its engine-blipping, tyres changed, before he heads back out for his first run of four flying laps. The best is a 1m58.318s, and he’s soon out for another four, and quickly works down to 1m56.795s.

On his next run, you can see the old magic coming back, the car squirming on the brakes into the esses, kicking up the dust on the left apex. The puff of smoke as the Toyota brakes through the endless Coram curve for the final turn shows we’re in business. Until there’s a red flag. “Yeah, I was building into it, and off the shakedown tyres but still used tyres,” explains Shedden. “It was coming in and… familiar story, but I was way up on the delta when the red flags came out!”

Ah, it looks as though the patriotic Scots can dig their Saltires out of the cupboard for the August trip to Knockhill. Shedden is just one of four drivers from north of the border on the BTCC grid this year, and his home round is one of the key events for the circuit where he holds such a key role.

“I’ve always said that the crowds at Knockhill are just incredible,” he declares. “That’s because they’re so close to the action, and it’s just a real partisan atmosphere. We will definitely have the place rocking. We want people to enjoy motorsport, to enjoy touring cars, and if they’ve got something to shout about then all the better!”

As well as 2023-24, Shedden also missed out on racing at home in the BTCC in 2018-20 due to his World Touring Car adventure. If not for that, who knows? Given the pace of the new FK8 Civic in those first three years he was absent, maybe he could have equalled – or even surpassed – four-time champions Andy Rouse, Colin Turkington and Ash Sutton.

“Ifs, buts and maybes, and everybody up and down the pitlane has got the same,” he reasons. “World touring cars was an opportunity which I couldn’t turn down. I’m really glad I did it – I’d probably rather I did it in a different car, but it was an experience, and you’ve got to have the bad things to appreciate the good, and I definitely came back stronger from that world journey. It wasn’t an easy time but it made me a more rounded, more complete driver. It wasn’t great, but I can still call myself a world touring car race winner.”

Shedden gets down to business in his new home: the Toyota Corolla

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

In the pitlane, former BTCC technical chief Peter Riches, who lives locally, has popped into the Speedworks garage for a natter. “How’s the house in Florida?” enquires Shedden, before we veer onto the current political situation. “How are things going at Knockhill?” asks Riches.

And what is Speedworks making of its new McHollywood signing? “The really good news at the end of the day is that ‘Flash’ is really positive about the feeling that he’s got from the car when he starts to lean on it,” smiles team principal Christian Dick. “The balance feels good for him. I think we’re in good shape.”

And with complete car rebuilds over the winter, teething issues are bound to strike. “Every car, every chassis is taken down to a bare metal shell again,” explains Dick. They’re repanelled, rejigged to make sure everything is where it should be, the rigidity of the chassis is checked, everything is checked to make sure that they are exactly where they need to be.

“It doesn’t matter how much time you’ve got – you always feel that you’re right on the cusp of it when you get to the start of the race season!” Gordon Shedden

“All of the electronics are sent away for testing, servicing, and replaced where they need to be. Same with gearbox, drivetrain plus any of the modifications that you’re implementing to chassis, bodywork, cooling system. It doesn’t matter how much time you’ve got – you always feel that you’re right on the cusp of it when you get to the start of the race season! All of that while you’re trying to get contracts in place with drivers, sponsors. There’s lots of balls to juggle, that’s for sure.”

There’s time for another brief run of two flying laps, during which Shedden lowers his best to a 1m56.351s. And he is out of the car – 34 laps covered over the day – when the final flurry of times comes in, with Dan Cammish’s Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford on top at 1m54.133s. Taylor-Smith, in the sister car, has managed a 1m55.575s on this ‘shakedown’ day.

“It’s OK,” relates ‘Flash’. “We’ve done nothing on tyres. It’s a new car build, but we’ll go to Croft next week and the overriding feeling is that what I’ve got under me is good, that it will be fast.”

The eyes are shining with enthusiasm and gratitude as Shedden bids farewell to the team before he heads for Stansted to catch his flight home. “I feel happy, and that’s the most important thing,” he beams.

“Knowing what tyres I’m on, what engine mode we’re using, I’m comfortable. This is about learning. We’re just scratching the surface. We’ve not tuned the car to how I want it; it’s very much as it came out of the truck this morning. We’re just trying to do all the install stuff. I can’t wait to get going!” It’s clear that he’s back in business.

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The 46-year-old BTCC returnee is raring to go

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images