In his second Crash.net column, Team RAC driver Tom Onslow-Cole looks back at the opening rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season at Brands Hatch and his debut in the series.
To make my debut in the BTCC in the BMW at Brands Hatch was fantastic. There were some big ups and some small lows, but it was a fantastic introduction overall. I think the real introduction came in the second race of the weekend, and that was where I found out what the BTCC is all about. But I’m loving it and thriving on it.
Everything I expected the BTCC to be, it has been – and then a bit more. I expected the racing to be how it was and it was quite exciting to see it unfold in front of me in the first race. It was a real eye-opener and I just thought to myself in the car ‘You are here now and this is how it is – get on with it!’
It’s hard to say how the BTCC compares to the Clio Cup, which I won last season – especially going from the Clio with front-wheel drive into the
BMW, which is rear-wheel drive. That has made a bit of a difference to me and in learning the cars, they are a lot different and the race technique is also different. The race is slightly longer, but the cars are so highly tuned that they wear quite rapidly during the race – which means you need to adjust you driving style. Everytime I go out on track, I am learning a little bit more about how it works.
Getting used to the car didn’t cause me too many problems and it isn’t as bad as going from rear-wheel drive to front-wheel drive – as I did when I moved from T Cars into the Clio Cup. We did some tests with an older [Britcar] BMW before I got my hands on the loan car that we had, and it hasn’t been too bad. The cars we ran at Brands Hatch were only a week old so Team RAC did a great job to get us where we were throughout the weekend.
