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Clios are expanding to a 9 round calendar next year, so they'll be at all of the rounds bar Thruxton.

So we are already at the half way point of the championship, oh how time flies and other cliches like that. I've been thinking about doing a brief summary for a while and here's what I've got...

Driver of the year (so far)
It is difficult not to pick Matt Neal here. 4 wins, very consistent and the title leader. Matt's driving has been clean and (unlike a couple of his title rivals) he's has stayed out of trouble.

Honourable mention goes to Colin Turkington also. The BMW is still massively underdeveloped, yet Colin has been consistent throughout the season, picking up good results despite challenging races and he's got 3 wins. To put Colin's achievements into context, Collard (who is no slouch) is nowhere by comparison.

Car of the year (so far)
It cannot be anything other than the Honda Civic. With the exception of Jeff Smith all the Civics have won races and are challenging for the title. Even Andrew Jordan.

Surprise of the year (so far)
Also to be known as the "Good news story of the year" - TEAM Hard and the VW Passat driven by Tom Onslow-Cole. I know TOC is a known quantity, but a lot of us (me especially) were sceptical of TEAM Hard's ambitions prior to the start of the year considering the team is still very new and they'd gone from running a Team Dynamics built S2000 Civic to a home grown range of cars. But they've given TOC a great car and continue to turn heads, with multiple podiums so far and Tom 9th in the table at the half way point.

An honourable mention here goes to Sherman and Rob Austin, following the heavy shunt at Brands Hatch and the rebuild that was needed.

Disappointment of the year (so far)
Where do I start with Mat Jackson and Motorbase? I'm a big Mat Jackson fan and this season has just been horrible. If he's not been sidelined with terrible realiability he has been getting caught up in incidents caused by overdriving (compensation needed for a poor car) or just plain bad luck. And to think that at the start of the year this team were confident of a title challenge.

Also in this catagory goes Frank Wrathall, for the same reasons as above. But that's a case of rinse and repeat for this driver and team, as in 2011 and 2012. Hopefully the second half of the season follows the same as those years also.

The "where did that come from" of the year (so far)
Adam Morgan anyone? His family team are showing both Dynojet and Speedworks what you can do with a Toyota Avensis. Good to see.

The British Touring Car Championship had one of its best seasons in 2013. The racing was close but usually fair, it had a strong entry, and there was a fine title fight that culminated in a worthy new champion.

Andrew Jordan and his Eurotech Honda Civic managed to defeat four previous title winners - works Honda drivers Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden, MG star Jason Plato and returning 2009 champion Colin Turkington - to take the crown at the very final race.

There were many fine performances, as well as some controversial moments, so here's AUTOSPORT's take on the top 10 drivers of a great year.


1. ANDREW JORDAN

Eurotech Honda Civic
Champ pos: 1st (397 points)
Wins: 6
Poles: 2
Fastest laps: 8

Came of age as a touring car star. His Brands Hatch lunge on Plato aside, Jordan proved pretty adept at knowing when to attack and when to settle back and take the points.

The pace was there – as it has often been before – and he often matched the works Hondas of Shedden and Neal, but there was also a new level of consistency.

The Snetterton race two charge and Silverstone battle with Plato were highlights before he proved he can take the pressure of a title fight with a fine performance in the Brands GP finale despite his race two setback.


2. COLIN TURKINGTON

WSR BMW 125i M Sport
Champ pos: 5th (347)
Wins: 5
Poles: 1
FLs: 3

Hard to fault Turkington's 2013. Could anyone else have put together a title campaign in the brand new WSR BMW?

There was a slightly embarrassing spin in qualifying at the first round and he probably should have given Jordan more room when the BMW ran slightly wide at Oggies in race two at Snetterton. That cost him a handful of points.

But otherwise, Turkington showed his class. He picked up solid points, helped by lightning rear-wheel-drive getaways and canny defence, when the car wasn't quite fast enough and dominated when it was.

Contact from other cars, most notably Shedden at Snetterton and Mat Jackson at Silverstone, ultimately ended his title hopes, but it was a superb return for the 2009 champion.


3. JASON PLATO

MG (Triple Eight) MG6
Champ pos: 3rd (380)
Wins: 8
Poles: 4
FLs: 6

He won more races than anyone else, took the most poles, and could well have clinched his third BTCC crown despite the car issues he suffered at Snetterton.

There were times when rookie team-mate Sam Tordoff ran him closer than one might have expected – and beat Plato fair and square in race one at Snetterton – and he crashed in the third Snett race, but the most successful driver in BTCC history did enough to take the fight to the Honda horde right down to the wire.

He also proved that Triple Eight has made progress in the wet with two wins at the Brands GP finale, but a lacklustre reversed-grid race meant he fell to third in the standings.


4. GORDON SHEDDEN

Honda (Dynamics) Honda Civic
Champ pos: 2nd (390)
Wins: 5
Poles: 1
FLs: 5

Having the reigning champion down in fourth could be considered a tad harsh. He did, after all, overcome quite a lot of bad luck (disqualification at the Brands opener, engine failure at Knockhill) to snatch second in the points race.

Shedden's charges through the field were also impressive and he was usually one of the fastest racers, but there are a couple of reasons he is here.

The first is that he also lost a number of points through his own doing. There was the big slide at Paddock Hill Bend at Brands, moving over on Plato at Thruxton and getting fired off, and his Silverstone qualifying (15th, compared to Neal's ninth and Jordan's 10th) suggested there was more in the Honda Civic than he extracted.

There were also a number of times when Jordan outpaced the works Honda despite carrying more ballast. Nevertheless, Shedden remained one of the top performers and it would be a surprise not to see him battling for the title again in 2014.


5. MATT NEAL

Honda (Dynamics) Honda Civic
Champ pos: 4th (356)
Wins: 4
Poles: 0
FLs: 1 (shared)

Neal was the third fastest of the Civic drivers this year. He scored fewer wins, poles and fastest laps than Jordan or Shedden and his average qualifying position was 7.1 compared to the 3.9 and 4.3 of his Civic colleagues.

And yet Neal led the title race for much of the season. He often raced well – his charge from row five to third at a Silverstone National circuit that did not suit the Civic was one of the drives of the season – and largely kept out of trouble.

Things really started to fall apart for Neal in September. A rare mistake behind the safety car in race one at Rockingham was followed by steering failure in race two. That turned a six-point advantage into a 34-point deficit.

Then Neal broke a finger during martial arts training and seemed out of sorts at the Brands finale after he had it operated on just prior to the meeting.


6. SAM TORDOFF

MG (Triple Eight) MG6
Champ pos: 6th (286)
Wins: 1
Poles: 1
FLs: 3

He might have had a race-winning record in the Renault Clio and Porsche Carrera cups, but it was still a surprise that Tordoff looked quite so comfortable in the BTCC quite so quickly.

The 24-year-old was rarely far away from team-mate Plato's pace, particularly at tracks where the MG6 was going well, and scored a well-deserved first BTCC success at Snetterton.

There's still a gap between impressing as a rookie and putting together a genuine title challenge, but Tordoff certainly made a promising start in 2013.


7. ADAM MORGAN

Ciceley Toyota Avensis
Champ pos: 7th (233)
Wins: 0
Poles: 0
FLs: 2

One of the quiet stars of 2013, Morgan could normally be found hanging on to the coat tails of the championship's big guns and 26 points finishes underlined his consistency.

Morgan's rookie campaign in 2012 showed flashes of pace, but was remarkable mainly for the number of incidents he managed to get involved in.

That changed this season and it was unfortunate that one of Morgan's few errors – at Church in race three at Thruxton – arguably cost him his first BTCC win.


8. ROB AUSTIN

Rob Austin Audi A4
Champ pos: 11th (154)
Wins: 1
Poles: 1
FLs: 2

With a revised car (engine further back), powerplant switch (Field to TOCA) and better funding (courtesy of Wix), Austin's peaks were higher in 2013 than they had been in his previous two seasons.

The inconsistency was still there, perhaps inevitable for a driver who also engineers his own car, but his Knockhill pole and Rockingham victory were hard-earned and popular.


9. TOM ONSLOW-COLE

Hard VW Passat & Motorbase Ford Focus
Champ pos: 12th (152)
Wins: 0
Poles: 0
FLs: 0

Onslow-Cole's sideways antics in Hard's new VW Passat were among the highlights of the early stages of the year. Nowhere was his commitment more obvious than at the high-speed Thruxton, two podiums being a remarkable result so early in the car's life.

There was another fine top three in tricky conditions at Croft before Onslow-Cole made one of his mid-season changes and joined Motorbase.

Base boost, car issues and unfortunate incidents initially masked his true form in the Ford Focus, as his subsequent seventh in qualifying and fourth in race one at Brands GP proved.


10. MAT JACKSON

Motorbase Ford Focus
Champ pos: 8th (225)
Wins: 0
Poles: 0
FLs: 0

There are a number of candidates for the 10th spot. Many drivers had ups and downs during 2013 and Jackson was no exception.

Given his experience and the promise Motorbase's Ford Focus showed last year, Jackson's season was a disappointing one. The team lost its way with the car early on and Jackson had a worrying tendency to find an accident.

Things improved in the second-half of the season, however, and Jackson pipped team-mate Aron Smith to eighth in the points despite still never really getting on top of qualifying. His charging drives at Rockingham and Brands GP proved he is still one of the best racer's in the championship.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Smith largely held his own against more experienced team-mate Jackson, despite a couple of major crashes, and took two impressive podiums at Silverstone.

Dave Newsham got his hands on an NGTC machine in the form of a Speedworks Toyota Avensis but incidents and the odd problem often prevented him from turning his pace into results.

It was a similar story for fellow Toyota racer Frank Wrathall, whose qualifying efforts matched Morgan's and yet the Dynoject man finished nine places further back in the table than his Ciceley rival.

Rob Collard attracted most of WSR's bad luck, but had good race pace by the second half of the year, while rookie Jack Goff made good progress and was comfortably the best of the scores of drivers who appeared in a Hard Vauxhall Insignia.

After the early challenge of James Kaye faded, Lea Wood ran out an easy winner in the Jack Sears Trophy for S2000 cars in his Vauxhall Vectra. With the class now consigned to the history books, hopefully Wood can find his way into an NGTC machine in 2014.