[BTCC] Donington Park rounds 4,5 & 6 2017

[Matt K]

Exactly my feelings. After the team expanded to three cars, all with one main sponsor, big sponsor with three-year deal, I expected rise and rise for them but now it seems that it's not really the case. Well, it's just round 2 so dont rule them out but it's hard not to notice that Depper and probably Davenport are not drivers who fit this 'rise and rise' plan. M. Jackson, Cook and Jake Hill. That would be a trio!

[skells22]

red flag for the 2nd meeting running

[porsche962fan]

Matt Neal removed from the race

[850Estate]

Feel for Matt, if he hadn't spun his wheels he probably would have been allowed to start.

Fancy Shedden for the win, but would love to see Newsham or Cook take it.

[porsche962fan]

couldn't they have a rolling start this time ?

[slummingangel]

Why did the Camera cut to the winner crossing the line from that 3 car battle?

[porsche962fan]

feel gutted for Newsham

[luckn002]

Shedden maybe failed the ride test.
Win for Turkington?


Gutted for Lloyd in that last race too.

[FFSM]

Originally Posted by slummingangel

Why did the Camera cut to the winner crossing the line from that 3 car battle?

Always happens. Major bugbear of mine that they always cut to the winner crossing the line, whatever is going on behind.

I guess it might annoy sponsors if it didn't happen, but it's a shame that comes ahead of entertainment. The only way to make sure you see it is to be there I guess!

[850Estate]

So...after all that, we aren't really sure what's happened.

What an odd meeting. 3 fantastic, drama filled races though.

[Alfisti]

Prayers with young Billy Monger tonight.

Why BTCC race 3 was started with the conditions clearly terrible? Whose call is that? Thankfully just some bent cars, but that looked like lunacy.

Really impressed with the two Toyotas, that's two meets on the bounce they've been right on it.

Perplexed as to how young Sutton seems to now have a handle on the Subaru now and JP nowhere. Has the old man lost it? Still, a better showing than Cole and Price who look like fish out of water.

Really good drive by Mr Moffat, pleased for him to get that first one on the board.

Senna Procter looking like a man to watch for the future.

Liked Dave Newshams move on Sutton, a man who never gives up. Kind of sorry he was only fifth at the flag, but I'm sure Norlin will be well pleased with their venture into BTCC.

[FFSM]

Thought PO'N was a little insensitive with Mark Proctor. The guy was clearly upset by Billy Monger's accident.

Incidentally, it reminded me a little of Proctor's own horrendous crash with a stationary Carl Breeze at Oulton, which happened right in front of me. The sense of impeding doom as the field all tried to avoid Breeze - then finally the sickening smash - is burned into my memory.

[850Estate]

AMENDED RESULT: Gordon Shedden has been excluded from R6 after his car failed post race ride height checks. More at http://www.btcc.net .

Shedden officially excluded, handing Turkington the win and Ingram a very decent little Championship lead.

Must have been a difficult one for the stewards. On one hand if it was accident damage then he deserved to keep it, on the other hand it could set a precedent for other teams to follow. Lower the car illegally, give someone a bump, blame said bump.

What I will say though is that Honda must be praying for plenty more rain. Shedden drove like a man on wets carving through a field of guys tip-toeing on slicks. The setup on that car is incredible.

[porsche962fan]

I think Colin Turkington will win the title , remember we still have 3 tracks which are VERY good to WSR , Oulton, Croft and Knockhill

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Perplexed as to how young Sutton seems to now have a handle on the Subaru now and JP nowhere. Has the old man lost it? Still, a better showing than Cole and Price who look like fish out of water.

the old man is 23rd in the standings with just 4 points after 2 events

while Colin Turkington is now 2nd in the standings with around 70 points , what a contrast

[luckn002]

Originally Posted by 850Estate

Must have been a difficult one for the stewards. On one hand if it was accident damage then he deserved to keep it, on the other hand it could set a precedent for other teams to follow. Lower the car illegally, give someone a bump, blame said bump.

I'd rather see Turks get a win over Shedden, but I have to agree it's very contreversial and Shedden probably deserves to keep it. On the other hand a very mixed top 10 in the championship without some much bigger names!

--

Can't see Plato sticking around much longer if these low results continue - I know the Brands crash took away a chance at a couple of top ten finishes and it is only race 2, but at this rate I wouldn't be suprised if this is his last year in the BTCC.

Hope poor Monger is OK

[MrAero]

With the Subaru CoG adjustment they have a choice of two factors on a sliding scale. I wonder if they went with different choices for Plato and Sutton, thus explaining such a difference in performance and not something that could be fixed over the weekend?

[FFSM]

Originally Posted by MrAero

With the Subaru CoG adjustment they have a choice of two factors on a sliding scale. I wonder if they went with different choices for Plato and Sutton, thus explaining such a difference in performance and not something that could be fixed over the weekend?

You would think that JP will be getting his engineers to look very closely at Ash's setup and see if it works for him too, if he hasn't already.

Must be very frustrating for him being number 2 in the team again

[luckn002]

Seems to be a lot of talk about driving standards again - I've read about both Epps and M. Jackson complaining in the last five minutes! Very few penalties given out too so it doesn't look like its a problem going away soon...

Very strong words from Jackson: "I’m immensely frustrated. We have ended up alongside people who have ruined our weekend and the driving standards out there have been a complete shambles; they are a complete disgrace. There are drivers on track who you know you can go wheel to wheel with without a problem, but there are others where you don’t know what they will do – and I’m not always sure they do either.”

Something else to pick up on - seemed to be a lot of safety car periods go amiss. Look at the end of R2, Simpsons car stranded in the middle of the road. Very dangerous, especially after Monger's horrific crash.

-----

On a more positive note good to see more teams closer to the front than at Brands:

- 888 MG were running well in R1 and Lloyd was unlucky to lose what may have been a top 5/6 after Shedden's exclusion
- AMD had both cars running in the points at times though seemed to get caught up in many accidents
- Sutton showed that the Subaru is still competitive... at least 1 of the cars!
- BTC Norlin. Not just Newsham but Smiley too is exceeding my expectations of what I thought were backmarkers before Brands
- Maximum Motorsport. Strong at Brands but worthy of mension by wiping the floor with the Motorbase cars.

- HARD were unlucky, both Hill and Epps could've gotten a podium today before exclusion / contact.
- Same with Motorbase, I think Jackson can win R1 at Thruxton with no ballast.

[porsche962fan]

I sometimes wonder if they should split up the starting grid

say the first 1-20 normal start and the ones who qualified in 21 to 32 start about 2 seconds later to try avoid accidents a bit more

[Matt K]

It is really strange how huge the gap between Sutton and JP is and I wonder what is the case. I was also expecting more from Josh Price. It may be his first season but take Sutton's results from debut season for instance...

[BLiTZ]

A frustrating day to be a Honda fan that's for sure! Gutted for Shedden who needed the points and for Matt for being the guinea pig in the first attempt at race 3.

Sutton impressed, hope he can keep the momentum up for the rest of the season. Good drives from Cook also. I didn't feel like Modfat's win was particularly hard fought nowhere near the same as Neal's first win that they insisted on ramming down everyone's throat.

Seems like driving standards throughout the day were shocking. Major accidents in every race, Clios upside down in both races, Monger's incident (which I find appalling that the commentators made no reference to other than calling it a 'clean up operation', after two hours of waiting for an update, it'd have been nice to know if the poor bugger was alive or not!), big smashes in the Porsches and Ginettas. I know the occasional bump is expected and adds excitement, but a lot of damage and expensive repairs throughout the paddock.

[S griffin]

Was gonna stay that Flash and Tingram's gap over the others shows they know when to go for it and when to take the points, before Flash was excluded. Shame really, because the way he held that moment at the craners was all too reminiscent of that Rockingham turn 1 slide in the wet

[STAR Driver]

Originally Posted by luckn002

Something else to pick up on - seemed to be a lot of safety car periods go amiss. Look at the end of R2, Simpsons car stranded in the middle of the road. Very dangerous, especially after Monger's horrific crash.

This surprised me as well; I thought it might even be a red flag if they didn't think they could clear the car quickly. I'm sure it would have been a safety car if Simpson's crash had happened earlier in the race. It's not the first time a late-race incident has been dealt in such a way; I know they may want to avoid spoiling the drama of the race, but just because the race is nearly over doesn't mean an incident is suddenly less likely. Esepcially in this case, they could easily made use of the 3 laps they can add to the race distance due to a safety car.

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Why BTCC race 3 was started with the conditions clearly terrible? Whose call is that? Thankfully just some bent cars, but that looked like lunacy.

Wet starts are a bit more difficult to call, but when you have cars going off on the warmup laps, it should tell you something. Plus the fact a front-running driver is heard on live TV questioning whether they should be starting the race.

[FFSM]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Was gonna stay that Flash and Tingram's gap over the others shows they know when to go for it and when to take the points, before Flash was excluded. Shame really, because the way he held that moment at the craners was all too reminiscent of that Rockingham turn 1 slide in the wet

Tom's really impressed me so far. He's learned from his (sometimes self-inflicted) misfortune in previous years and is showing a maturity in his approach that certain drivers twice his age have never mastered.

I hope he's still there or thereabouts come the finale.