TBK-Light.com

After a long six and a half months away, the British Touring Car Championship is back for the opening rounds of the 2009 championship at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent:


Between now and the season finale on the full Brands Hatch GP track in October, the BTCC will have 30 races across nine venues providing the same panel-bashing action as usual. This is the 2009 calendar:

Rounds 01,02,03  Brands Hatch (Indy) 5th April
Rounds 04,05,06  Thruxton            26th April
Rounds 07,08,09  Donington Park      17th May
Rounds 10,11,12  Oulton Park         31st May
Rounds 13,14,15  Croft               14th June
Rounds 16,17,18  Snetterton          2nd August
Rounds 19,20,21  Knockhill           16th August
Rounds 22,23,24  Silverstone         30th August
Rounds 25,26,27  Rockingham          20th September
Rounds 28,29,30  Brands Hatch (GP)   4th October

The off-season has been dominated by the withdrawal of SEAT from the championship at the end of last season, leaving just one manufacturer in the series for 2009. However, Volvo will be entering two cars at a round this season (thought to be Snetterton) with a view to a full manufacturer effort for 2010.

Vauxhall may be the only manufacturer in the series and in reigning back-to-back champion Fabrizio Giovanardi have the most accomplished driver in the series, but there will be stern opposition from inside his own team from fellow double champion Matt Neal, and 19 year-old Andrew Jordan who impressed greatly in his rookie season. Elsewhere, Colin Turkington from WSR will be a threat, as will Gordon Shedden of Team Dynamics. Tom Chilton's Ford Focus entry, and the Cartridge World SEATs of Dan Eaves and Adam Jones can't be counted out either. Jason Plato's late return to the series means the 47-time BTCC race winner will be back on the grid, his team may take some time to get up to speed, but once there, Plato will surely challenge.

Here are the current runners and riders:

VXR: Fabrizio Giovanardi, Matt Neal & Andrew Jordan


Team RAC: Colin Turkington & Stephen Jelley


Team Dynamics: Gordon Shedden & David Pinkney


Team Airwaves: Rob Collard & Jonathan Adam


Cartridge World Carbon Zero Racing: Dan Eaves & Adam Jones


Arena Motorsport: Tom Chilton & Alan Morrison


Sunshine.co.uk Motorsport: Martyn Bell & Paul O'Neill


RML: Jason Plato


Tempus Sport: Harry Vaulkhard


TH Motorsport: John George


Maxtreme Racing: Liam McMillan


Boulevard Team Racing: Martin Johnson


Kartworld Racing: Jason Hughes


Team AFM: Nick Leason


Sunday timetable
10.00 Formula Renault UK with Michelin
10.40 Ginetta G50 Cup
11.30 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
12.10 Ginetta Junior Championship
13.30 ELF Renault Clio Cup
14.20 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
15.00 Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain
15.40 Formula Renault UK with Michelin
16.30 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
17.10 Ginetta G50 Cup

TV coverage
ITV4 @ 1145-1800, Sunday 5 April (Live BTCC & Supports)
ITV1 @ 0140-0255, Tuesday 7 April (BTCC highlights)
ITV4 @ 1600-1730, Tuesday 7 April (BTCC highlights)

Further highlight repeats on Men & Motors. Check schedules for these.

Weather forecast
Saturday: Scattered Showers, Temperature 18°C, chance of rain 30%
Sunday: Cloudy, Temperature 17°C, chance of rain 10%
http://www.uk.weather.com

woooo BTCC is back

Wonder why Vauxhall aren't using the Insignia, and is it a possibility Plato is holding out for a Volvo drive?

Looks like ITV should be showing 1 race from all of the support classes, good stuff!



Prehaps Vauxhall didn't have the budget to develop the Insignia for this year?

And still no detailed TV schedule to be found, are british TV channels always so late in making their schedules available? It just says "BTcC" for 6 hours on sunday afternoon on the ITV4 website.

Well the 3 BTCC races are live, so they'll be on at the times specified in jdh's opening post. The question is whether in between these races they'll show the support races live, or mix delayed coverage of the earlier support races (or saturday's races) in between.

The first race starts before ITV's coverage does, and of course ITV are bound to have half an hour on how many pets Andrew Jordan has or a tour of Stephen Jelley's garden, or some other bollocks. So I'd imagine they'll show the first BTCC race as-live around 12:15ish.

That is not a bad sized field for the first event and there is still a prospect of another Focus and Chevy.

I can tell you exactly why the Insignia isnt being used. It is far far, too heavy and its aero isnt great. Furthermore, Vauxhall will be switching to the new Astra from next year, making it pointless to build the a new car around the Insugnia for next year.

Really looking forward to this, although cant see it live due to work, but I will be sky plusing it.

Safe to say there will only be one Chevy and Ford each at the opening round I would have thought. Still a pretty decent field of cars, interested to see what Johnny Adam can do.

I'm a little surprised Arena haven't got a second driver, they've been saying it would be a two car team since the start.

What chance those two seats being filled at some point this season?

Oh right. I'm sure I heard ITV were showing live coverage of the 3 touring car races, at every meeting of the year. Perhaps I misheard/misunderstood it.


Yes, same here. There's no doubt he's a very good driver.

They'll be filled. Still plenty of time for a late deal to come together for the opening round.

Maybe they're hoping for a desperate Plato or something

Good to see the G50s on the bill

But i do hope that the race is televised, you never know with ITV.

Hopefully there will be a stream this year. I know justin.tv/bluesking40 showed it last year, hopefully he will do the same this year.

The BTCC will do what ITV tell them to. If they tell them to prat around for 15 mins and grid up at 11:45 then the BTCC will.
If BTCC want to be slightly delayed so they can pick edit points for race one (their worry is that race 1 of a new season with no ballast might not be as exciting as many other races....I can see Gio running away with it tbh...) then the BTCC will race at 11:30am...

TBH I would like to see the Ginetta G50s but the way their races are scheduled you'll have to hope race 1 is really exciting so it gets chosen to be shown during the broadcast slot, otherwise they'll just stick to the live stuff to make it up to their friends at Renualt and Porsche for their free advertising
There's no way they'll stick around for race 2, however.

Shouldn't really moan though (but it's so funnnnnn ), it's an improvement on last year and probably the best we'll ever get out of ITV4.
Only something like Motors or Setanta has the time to do better and this is more accessable than those channels...

Cheers for that kart, I've just been wondering about it for a while now. The new Astra does look p. sweet.

Here's hoping for another great year from the most entertaining touring car series.

Probably won't see as much this year as my account got deleted on RU, but hopefully the justin streams work this year.

Brilliant Sunday coming up. F1 in the morning then this the rest of the day.

Tempus have confirmed they will only field one Lacetti for Brands although they still plan to run a second car later in the season.