[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by antnee

I think BTCC's unique position is restricting the involvement of OEMs. From a technical side ('factory' support/team), they can't add much due to the strict regulations, only direct access to parts and data. The 'national sales companies' can get involved from a marketing point of view, but its a relatively expensive activity for the UK entities and it may not line up with the mother companies strategy if they did have the money.

And I think that is entirely intentional.

If you listen to some of Gow's interviews previously, you'll know that he considers the level of manufacturer involvements as being poor for the series. Examples such as:

"towards the end of the Super Touring era we had 10 manufacturers, though that wasn’t sustainable. The costs were getting out of control.[...] It was a great era, but a lot of people look back with rose-coloured glasses because the racing we have nowadays is much, much better than ever it was in the Super Touring days. We had to introduce all sorts of artificial means, such as mandatory pit stops, in a bid to make the racing more interesting. The cars eventually became so good, with so much mechanical and aero grip, that they really couldn’t get past each other. The best races were always those in the wet, because all that grip didn’t come into play. It’s easy to look back and say, ‘Wasn’t the racing fantastic?’ but it was the cars, teams and drivers that were fantastic. The racing itself could be pretty poor.”

“Ford spent £12 million in its final season, but most – Nissan, Renault, Volvo – were spending eight to 10. I think Vauxhall got away with six million, eye-watering numbers for a national series.”


"Short to medium term, I think that the amount of manufacturers involved in motorsports certainly won't increase, it will probably decrease, or they will actually consolidate into those areas that they want to be doing. Mercedes is a good example of that. They were involved in DTM, and Formula 1 and Formula E and a few other things like GT racing. They'll consolidate down to Formula 1 and Formula E now. I imagine that most manufacturers will start doing that. Motorsport will always form an important part of the manufacturers' marketing armoury. At least I would hope it would, certainly in the medium term, but I don't think now they will do as much of it, just consolidate and polarise their efforts into one or two series."