Why the BTCC has become less destructive

In most series that use it, push-to-pass is a system that allows a driver to thumb a button on their steering wheel to gain a brief power boost in a bid to overtake the car in front. Simple enough, if somewhat artificial. But it's a term that takes on a different meaning in the British Touring Car Championship. Here, it's the colloquial term for an unsubtle and rough overtake: release the brakes early, nudge the driver ahead to force them off line and then claim the position.

The BTCC has long faced criticism for its 'door-banging' driving standards, not least because it is relied upon to set an example to the lesser championships which support it, including Ginetta Junior which caters for drivers as young as 14. 'What example are they setting?' the sceptics ask, and purists bemoan the tin-tops' perceived heavy-handedness.

But so far this year, the BTCC has enjoyed something of a soft reboot.

After seven rounds of the 2018 season a total of 33 penalties had been dished out by the stewards. Fast forward 12 months and, after the same 21-race period, that's fallen to 25. It's by no means a clean bill, but a 24% reduction points to an effort, unconscious or otherwise, that's helped clean up the BTCC's act.

Much of that can be attributed to three-time series champion Matt Neal. He was due to kick-off his year in an Audi R8 LMS for the Bathurst 12 Hour enduro. A shunt for Neal's car at The Chase in the amateur-only practice session meant he and team-mates Gordon Shedden and Pete Storey never made it to the race, but it wasn't a totally wasted trip.

Neal returned with a piece of paper on which the driving standards for Bathurst - as set out by the Stephane Ratel Organisation, organising body of the Intercontinental GT Challenge - were clearly defined.

Prior to 2019, no such equivalent document existed in the BTCC. But that soon changed. Although no new rules were added for the season, they are at least now down in black and white. That appears to have put on-track etiquette at the forefront of drivers' and stewards' minds.

As current points leader and triple champion Colin Turkington says: "Four or five years ago, people knew about the BTCC because they would switch on, come to the races to see those crashes. A lot of people, that's what they want to see.

"But as drivers, and more as team owners, that got really expensive - big repair bills to fix the car every time. As a driver, I found it frustrating because it wasn't how I like to go about racing.

"You weren't using your tactical brain, you weren't trying to spend three corners trying to line up a pass. Somebody would just release off the brake, run into the back of you and the pass is made.

"Obviously, the driver guidelines that we have to adhere to mean you can't drive like that any longer or you have to give the position back. There's a big penalty if all those strikes add up: you start the race at the back of the grid. I think drivers are looking at the bigger picture and playing the long game."

Two of the 25 penalties dealt this season were handed to Jason Plato in just one contest - the Snetterton finale. He had five seconds added to his race time for his incident with the BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R of Chris Smiley, but the main talking point was a 10s reprimand for spinning Ash Sutton across the track after just having lost the lead to eventual winner Rory Butcher.

The Plato-Sutton collision should almost be treated in isolation, for their rivalry stretches well beyond those two sharing the same piece of asphalt in that particular race following their turbulent time as Team BMR stablemates.

While the Snetterton battle between the pair was exciting and became a hit on social media, there's a case to be made that the eventual crash was almost inevitable after several laps spent side-by-side in a duel that played out not unlike a grudge match.

Plato's double sting feels like an anomaly in a downward trend. Although Neal's paperwork has played an underlying part in that pattern, there's another factor: the work of the WSR team.

The Snetterton climax aside, of the 20 other races this season, 10 have been won by the new BMW 330i M Sport. Of those, seven times the victor - Turkington or WSR team-mate Andrew Jordan - has started from pole. We're a long way off matching last season's record total of 17 different race winners. That's no bad thing.

A significant drop in penalties might be explained if overtaking had tailed off, but since it hasn't perhaps the 'new' driving regulations have had a tacit effect

The G20 3 Series has set an engineering benchmark in the championship since being rolled out at Brands Hatch, but that has arguably come at the expense of exciting battles for the lead. Only four times this year has less than a second separated first and second place at the flag. But that hasn't necessarily come at the expense of overtaking throughout the rest of the field.

An 'entropy' figure, in broad terms, reflects how much action there has been in a race. For each BTCC round, it has been calculated by logging the changes of position. This does include cars that crash or retire, which can skew the result, but it still gives an overall picture as to the amount of passing.

The fewer overtakes and retirements, the lower the number. For example, if the polesitter leads every lap on the way to victory, the entropy for first place will register as zero.

But so far this season, the figure has averaged at 4.2% per race - right in the middle of the 3.7% (2015) and 5.0% (2017) range since 2014, when the entire field switched to Next Generation Touring Car specification machines.

A significant drop in the number of penalties might be explained if the overtaking had tailed off, but since that isn't the case then perhaps the new-but-not-new driving regulations have a had an effect by reversing the BTCC's previous tacit strategy.

You could go further still. While Neal is responsible for the BTCC now having the rules outlined on paper, Turkington might just be the sole inspiration for a change in mentality that has swept across the top-half of the field.

On the way to winning the title last season, he won just once. While Sutton's unsuccessful bid to defend his crown earned him six triumphs, it was Turkington's relentless point-scoring that underpinned his charge.

"[After] my sole race win last year but winning the championship, that sort of consistent approach, people are maybe broadening their horizons and seeing that there is an alternative way to win the championship: to chip away, collect the points and do it that way," Turkington says.

"That's not the sexiest way to win a championship. People would say to me at the end of last year, 'Excellent, great season, you did really well', and all of these things. But inside it didn't really feel like that. I had eight podiums, but with one win you don't necessarily feel like a champion driver."

The importance of finishing a race in a points-paying position has revealed itself in cases of drivers dropping back behind their opponents after a clumsy overtake to avoid the attention of the stewards.

In the final race at the Brands Hatch season opener, Stephen Jelley slowed his BMW 125i M Sport to let Neal retake the position after they tagged. When Neal dropped back on the final lap after left-rear suspension failure, Jelley's caution meant he was promoted to his first podium since 2009.

"What we're seeing is less contact which might have looked like accidental contact before, but was in fact deliberate. I can tell you as a driver, if you do a deliberate action well, it looks like a racing incident!" Tim Harvey

It's a trend noticed too by series executive Alan Gow. While he doesn't endorse the notion that writing the guidelines down has led to the reduction in the number of penalties, he's quick to highlight the increasing examples of drivers erring on the side of caution.

"The regulations haven't changed on driver behaviour, so in effect putting them on a paper shouldn't make a difference," he says. "There's probably half a dozen incidents where drivers have reversed a position when they know they've done something untoward. But again that same penalty was there last year, I just think they're more used to doing it, that's all."

But ITV4 commentator and 1992 BTCC champion Tim Harvey disagrees, and points out the drivers' collective cunning.

"The driving-standards rules have been enforced in a stricter way this year," he says. "What we're seeing is less contact which might have looked like accidental contact before, but was in fact deliberate. I can tell you as a driver, if you do a deliberate action well, it looks like a racing incident!

"I think there's less of that because the consequences are now being jumped on if you gain an advantage."

It doesn't matter though that Gow and Harvey disagree. The BTCC has enjoyed a massive 14% growth in TV figures this season. Much of that has been attributed to the loss of free-to-air Formula 1. But that bigger audience has tuned in to a cleaner and purer championship. Penalties are down, the amount of overtaking has remained stable and there's a certain attraction in the two best drivers (Turkington and Jordan) winning in the best car (the BMW 330i M Sport) for the best team (WSR).

Things could have deteriorated if the number of different race winners had remained similar to last year, or even increased. That lofty figure of 17 could lead to the notion that anyone can win and that the BTCC is a competitive battleground. But it could just as easily seem artificial.

In 2019, it looks as though the BTCC has found the correct balance. Fewer people might well take to the top step of the podium, but that doesn't mean it's less fair. Just that it's no longer a free-for-all.

The BTCC is all the better for being a slightly calmer championship this year. There's still the entertainment and the overtaking, but it's managed to also become a more meritocratic and sporting battleground.