2. Alain Menu
The greatest driver of the most competitive super touring era misses out on top spot by a fraction. He was extremely quick, potentially slightly quicker than Turkington, but he did seem to have preferential treatment over his teammates at Renault, and was not as good in wheel-to-wheel combat. Menu joined the BTCC in 1992, driving a BMW, and narrowly outperformed teammate Tim Sugden in the first part of the season, including a maiden podium at Snetterton. Despite departing mid-season, he still finished ninth in the championship. Menu then switched to the works Renault team, driving the Renault Laguna that became synonymous with him. He was paired with reigning champion Tim Harvey and so looked to have a tough job on his hands, especially as the Renault was very uncompetitive in its first season. Strangely, though, it was the fastest car in the wet by a country mile, as was demonstrated at Donington in the second round of the season as Harvey led Menu home for a one-two. However, Menu generally had the upper hand over Harvey and took another second when it rained again at Donington, before taking his first win in the second race after a great scrap with Paul Radisich. Menu ended the season tenth in the standings, to Harvey's fourteenth. The Laguna went into the 1994 far more competitive and Menu took two wins at Oulton Park and Knockhill, along with an array of podiums, and took second in the championship at the end of the season from Radisich. However, he was a long way adrift of champion Tarquini. Harvey struggled down in ninth and was sacked. The Renault was even stronger in 1995, and looked to be a championship contender, particularly with its great form late in the season. Menu won seven races, but missed out on the title to John Cleland. He comfortably beat new teammate Will Hoy, champion of 1991, who was fourth with three wins to help Renault to their first manufacturers' championship. 1996 was almost a carbon copy of 1994 for Menu, as he took another second in the standings thanks to strong form late in the season, but was a long way behind champion Frank Biela's Audi. Another similarity was that his champion teammate, this time Will Hoy, only managed ninth and was sacked at the end of the season. There was a famous accident at Thruxton as Joachim Winkelhock was pincered between the Renaults while battling for the lead, eliminating all three. After finishing runner-up three years in a row, Menu was finally given the dominant car by Williams and Renault for the 1997 season and, despite an early scare as he was outqualified by new teammate Jason Plato for the first two races, Menu went on to utterly dominate the championship more convincingly than even Tarquini and Biela. Menu won twelve races and finished over a hundred points clear of Biela in second, while Plato was third. The Renault was no longer the dominant car in 1998 in a much more competitive season, and Menu only won three races to take fourth in the championship. He beat Jason Plato by only 24 points, and decided to depart from Renault at the end of the season to drive the Ford Mondeo. Initially, this appeared to be a bad move as it was the slowest works car on the grid for 1999. Menu ranked only eleventh with one win at Knockhill. But his move was proved to be the right one the following year as the Ford finally became the fastest car. Menu was part of the strongest driver lineup in the history of the BTCC alongside Anthony Reid and Rickard Rydell, but he proved himself to be the best of the three and won the championship by a mere two points from Reid. Menu left the BTCC to drive in DTM at the end of the season as Ford pulled out and the Super Touring era ended. I think it's safe to say that this was the most competitive era in BTCC history, and Menu was the best of a strong bunch from that era. Menu made three returns to the BTCC later in his career. The first was in the 2007 season finale at Thruxton, where he was drafted in by Vauxhall to help Fabrizio Giovanardi win the championship. Despite a puncture in race one, he did his job. In 2014, he returned for a full season in the BMR Volkswagen CC. This return is often cited as a disaster by BTCC fans, but I believe it was not (unlike Giovanardi's, which absolutely was). Given Menu was in his fifties at this point, the fact that he managed eleventh in the championship was quite impressive, only two places behind teammate Aron Smith who took two reverse-grid wins. Over the course of the season, I would argue that Menu narrowly outperformed Smith. He then returned to BMR for the season finale of 2015 to help Plato take the title. He got a puncture in the final race while running ahead of Plato's title rival Gordon Shedden, and Shedden then fought through the pack to take the title. Tim Harvey's words after the race were 'how different it could have been had Menu not had that puncture,' and he's absolutely right. (I would also like to point out that I said those exact words around five seconds earlier
) So I believe Menu was the second-best driver of the modern era, and no prizes for guessing who gets first place.