Why the BTCC elite should fear Shedden's return

Twelve months or so before the Chinese city of Wuhan gained notoriety as the source of COVID-19, its main recognition among UK motorsport fans was as the location of a breakthrough win in the World Touring Car Cup for Gordon Shedden.

That was as good as it got for ‘Flash’ during his 2018-19 stint with Audi in the series. And, when the Ingolstadt manufacturer pulled its official backing of TCR competition, he was left high and dry last season. Now Shedden, a three-time title winner in the British Touring Car Championship, is back where he belongs for 2021: at the wheel of a Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R. It’s the same team, manufacturer and, indeed, car model with which he claimed all three of his crowns.

OK, so the FK2-spec Civic with which he attained his success has been replaced by the FK8. But we can fully expect Shedden to take up where the unfortunate Dan Cammish – whose ousting from the team appears to be down to nothing more than commercial realities during the current bruising economic climate – left off and get straight into the fight for the title.

And that ‘one-dimensional’ success leaves some cynics suggesting that Shedden cannot be regarded as a true great of the BTCC in the same way as other multiple champions. Jason Plato has scored wins and titles with different manufacturers; so too did Alain Menu in the Super Touring era, and Andy Rouse in the olden days of multi-class competition. Colin Turkington, too, has scored race victories on his rare forays away from West Surrey Racing-run BMWs. And Shedden never really cracked it at world level.

That’s unfair. A year before the initial outbreak began escaping from Wuhan, Shedden took his WRT-run Audi RS3 LMS to his first WTCR podium in the Saturday race of the city’s October 2018 fixture. The following day, he topped the qualifying shootout, then survived two contacts during the race – the first of which put his car absolutely sideways – to keep control and fend off the similar machine of established Audi TCR hotshot Frederic Vervisch.

Gordon Shedden, WTCR China 2018

Photo by: WTCR

“It was a city nobody had ever heard of!” jokes Shedden (pictured, above). “And I’m still a race winner in World Touring Cars.” While that remained his sole win of a disappointing pair of seasons, he acknowledges that “it was an opportunity that was something I couldn’t not do. But it didn’t come together. A lot of things went on that I couldn’t change or influence there, but I certainly learned a lot from that experience. I also learned to value even more the level Team Dynamics is at.”

It’s also worth assessing Flash’s first taste of the Nurburgring Nordschleife. WRT brought in circuit specialist and all-round Audi superstar Rene Rast in a third car alongside the Scot and his regular team-mate, WTCR great Jean-Karl Vernay. Yet Shedden qualified within 0.8 seconds of the German on a nine-minute lap, 1.8s quicker than Vernay.

“The team came in having never done touring cars before," he says, "and whenever there was an anomaly [such as an unusual circuit] I went OK. The Yokohama tyre was very strange – it was very soft and didn’t suit the Audi. The team didn’t know the tricks, and there were shocking things you had to do to make them work.”

“Any racing driver, regardless of what formula he’s in, wants the best equipment. What is the best front-wheel-drive touring car team in the country? It has to be Dynamics"Gordon Shedden

Now he’s back in his natural habitat, at the Dynamics team of his great mate Matt Neal. Rewind a year, and it was Shedden who undertook testing work alongside Cammish as Neal recovered from injuries sustained when he cycled at high speed into a tree, and was on standby if his fellow three-time BTCC champion wasn’t ready for the start of the season. The arrival of COVID-19 and Neal-friendly season delay put paid to that, but at least it allowed a taste of the newer FK8 Civic.

“There are a lot of areas of small improvements [over the FK2],” he says. “It’s just a nicer car to drive. It does everything you want it to, whereas the FK2 you had to hustle more. That only comes with evolution. And people understand these NGTC rules more now, which is why the field is so close.”

Gordon Shedden, Team Dynamics Honda, 2020

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey

He’s not the only member of what has to be regarded as the royal family of Scottish touring car racing to be on the BTCC grid, of course. Brother-in-law Rory Butcher has become a leading contender since Shedden, who is still the business development manager at Butcher’s father Derek’s Knockhill circuit, went on his round-the-world trip. “I don’t really see much of Rory now, because he doesn’t work at Knockhill anymore,” reports Shedden. “He follows his own path, and he’s learned to stand on his own two feet.”

But Butcher – and the rest – will be up against tough opposition. Is Shedden a returning BTCC great? Definitely. Put it another way: does anyone diminish Jim Clark’s accomplishments because he didn’t leave Lotus and go to try to win an F1 title at BRM? Of course not.

Put that to Shedden, and he chuckles: “Any racing driver, regardless of what formula he’s in, wants the best equipment. What is the best front-wheel-drive touring car team in the country? It has to be Dynamics. Good drivers find themselves in good teams, don’t they?” Quite so.

Gordon Shedden, British Touring Car Championship 2017

Photo by: JEP/MSI