Andy Rouse, the most successful driver in the history of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship, has admitted that his record in the series is likely to be surpassed in the coming seasons.
Rouse made his BTCC debut back in 1973 when the championship ran to multi-class regulations and, having taken the Class C title the following year, picked up his first BTCC crown in 1975 at the wheel of a Triumph.
Further championships followed in 1983, 1984 and 1985 – making Rouse only the third man after Bill McGovern and Win Percy to secure a hat-trick of titles – and by the time he hung up his helmet for the final time, his win tally had hit 60, a record that still stands to this day.
However, with the series now running 30 races in a season, Rouse admitted that it is unlikely that his record will remain unbroken, with current SEAT driver Jason Plato lying second on the all-time winners list with 40 victories in his career to date.
"I guess it will eventually be beaten because the drivers nowadays do three races in a day whereas we used to do one," Rouse told
Crash.net. "We only had 13 races in a season. It took me a lot longer than it would take a driver now to do the amount of races it would require to get to 60 wins.
"Jason is creeping up on me but he still has a long way to."
One record currently held by Rouse which is less likely to be beaten is his eight consecutive wins in 1988 – with no-one having managed to win more than three races in a row since the introduction of the current regulations.
The top six drivers in terms of BTCC wins can be found below, along with the records of the current winners on the grid.
BTCC record wins:
1.
Andy Rouse 60
2.
Jason Plato 40
3.
Yvan Muller 36
=.
Alain Menu 36
5.
Frank Gardner 35
6.
James Thompson 33
Others:
Matt Neal 30
Fabrizio Giovanardi 16
Colin Turkington 12
Gordon Shedden 9
Tom Chilton 6
Darren Turner 4
Mat Jackson 3
Tom Onslow-Cole 3
Gareth Howell 3
Rob Collard 2
Mike Jordan 1
