At the conclusion of the 2006 season, the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship was in good shape, with ever increasing grid numbers, a strong television package, and a title fight that went to the wire at
Silverstone before
Matt Neal lifted the title for the second successive season.
All-in-all, things looked good then heading into 2007….
With the BTCC embracing the Super 2000 rules found in the World Touring Car Championship, the grid looked rather different when the field assembled at Rockingham for the annual Media Day back in March. For a start, the champion had a new car as Team Halfords switched the all-conquering Honda Integra for the new Civic – although the car wasn’t ready to run on the day and the team faced a race to even make sure it had two cars for the opening rounds at
Brands Hatch. Team RAC had new machinery and a new driver line-up, with
Tom Onslow-Cole joining
Colin Turkington in a brace of
BMW 320sis while VX Racing also had a new machine – with the Vectra replacing the Astra Sport Hatch. Indeed, of the front-runner teams, only SEAT Sport had some continuity, with
Jason Plato and Darren Turner at the wheel of the same SEAT Leons they had used in 2006.
Elsewhere on the grid, SEAT Cupra Cup champion
Mat Jackson had made the step up with the same BMW 320si that Andy Priaulx had taken to the previous season’s WTCC title, while Adam Jones had swapped the Xero Lexus for a SEAT Toledo run by GR Asia under the Team Aircool banner. After a toe in the water entry with Dave Pinkney in 2006, Motorbase expanded to two cars, with Matt Allison and Gareth Howell in SEAT Toledos, while Pinkney joined forces with Richard Marsh to enter two Alfa Romeo’s for the new A-Tech team. Eoin Murray, Martyn Bell, Chris Stockton and Nick Leason all returned in S2000 machinery while two new-comers completed the S2000 brigade in the shape of BMW racers Jim Pocklington and Rick Kerry – the latter becoming the first person to enter a diesel car in the BTCC.
