Donington Park Sat/Sun 20th/21st April 2013
British Touring Cars were the headline event at Donington this weekend with the arrival of the country's biggest series to the East Midlands. A busy 2 days with qualifying and 4 races on Saturday followed by 11 races on Sunday. There were 3 races for the BTCC along with triple-headers for Formula Ford and Ginetta GT Supercup. Renault Clios, Ginetta Juniors and Porsche Carrera Cup had 2 races each.
It's 20 years since the TOCA Package was launched in the UK which changed the face of UK motor racing forever. Before that, all major championships tended to headline various events around the country. The gathering together of series and "packaging" them became the way forward and not always successfully. Remember Power Tour, Power Nights and Premier Package.....?? Touring Cars have had a constant presence on our TV screens and they are by far and away the most popular series in the UK. The heady days of the mid-90's with factory teams are long gone but 27 cars on the grid at Donington indicates a championship on the up. The current breed of 2-litre turbocharged "Next Generation" cars are cheaper to run than the previous S2000 regs and, given that we live in noise sensitive times, extremely noisy cars! The MG6 cars being the noisiest by far.
A very large crowd on Sunday witnessed 3 different race winners with reigning champion Gordon Shedden looking particularly strong with a 1st, 3rd and 2nd. The Honda Civic looks the car to beat with Andrew Jordan winning race 2 in his version. Race 3, with the top 10 grid positions based on a reversed top 10 of race 2 results, saw ex-champion Colin Turkington claim the first win for the new BMW 125i. Touring cars are renowned for their rough and tumble style of racing so it must have been a bit of a shock for many in the crowd that all 3 races were relatively calm and clean. Biggest incident of the day at the Old Hairpin was a huge spin for Warren Scott in his SEAT Leon in race 2 who shot off the track at high speed and is lucky that the wall was moved back several years ago as he ended up near the marshal's post.
Highlights in the support races were Renault Clios whose lines through the Old Hairpin seem to involve using as less asphalt as possible. Huge clouds of dust kept being kicked up in the air and I resembled somebody who had walked through the Sahara desert by Sunday evening. Safe to say I didn't purchase a Waffle or Burger whose outlets at the Old Hairpin were downwind of the dust clouds.....
There were some worryingly low entries to report in the Porsche Cup (13) Formula Fords (12) and Ginetta Juniors (14). The Ginetta Juniors you can forgive as they always race well and with 14-16 year olds you probably don't want too many cars! I'm not sure what's happened to the Porsche grid as they had a decent entry last year, although it was good to see Dean Stoneman out racing again following his battle with testicular cancer. As for Formula Ford, 2013 sees the advent of Wings to the formula. "It's life Jim but not as we know it." To be fair, aside from 3 very dominant wins by Dan Cammish, there was some good racing down the order with unusually lots of overtaking in the Craner Curves and Old Hairpin area.
Weather wise it was quite pleasant on Saturday with strong sunshine all day but just as you think it's time to ditch the coat, Sunday was very cold and windy. Back to normal then! Not a bad weekend's motor racing but I'm sure a lot of a very big crowd went home thinking "It looked better on the telly"
I paid £15 on Saturday and many thanks to Ken for the use of his Christmas present which got me in on Sunday! The programme was £5 and one where colour and design was more important than substance......
It's 20 years since the TOCA Package was launched in the UK which changed the face of UK motor racing forever. Before that, all major championships tended to headline various events around the country. The gathering together of series and "packaging" them became the way forward and not always successfully. Remember Power Tour, Power Nights and Premier Package.....?? Touring Cars have had a constant presence on our TV screens and they are by far and away the most popular series in the UK. The heady days of the mid-90's with factory teams are long gone but 27 cars on the grid at Donington indicates a championship on the up. The current breed of 2-litre turbocharged "Next Generation" cars are cheaper to run than the previous S2000 regs and, given that we live in noise sensitive times, extremely noisy cars! The MG6 cars being the noisiest by far.
A very large crowd on Sunday witnessed 3 different race winners with reigning champion Gordon Shedden looking particularly strong with a 1st, 3rd and 2nd. The Honda Civic looks the car to beat with Andrew Jordan winning race 2 in his version. Race 3, with the top 10 grid positions based on a reversed top 10 of race 2 results, saw ex-champion Colin Turkington claim the first win for the new BMW 125i. Touring cars are renowned for their rough and tumble style of racing so it must have been a bit of a shock for many in the crowd that all 3 races were relatively calm and clean. Biggest incident of the day at the Old Hairpin was a huge spin for Warren Scott in his SEAT Leon in race 2 who shot off the track at high speed and is lucky that the wall was moved back several years ago as he ended up near the marshal's post.
Highlights in the support races were Renault Clios whose lines through the Old Hairpin seem to involve using as less asphalt as possible. Huge clouds of dust kept being kicked up in the air and I resembled somebody who had walked through the Sahara desert by Sunday evening. Safe to say I didn't purchase a Waffle or Burger whose outlets at the Old Hairpin were downwind of the dust clouds.....
There were some worryingly low entries to report in the Porsche Cup (13) Formula Fords (12) and Ginetta Juniors (14). The Ginetta Juniors you can forgive as they always race well and with 14-16 year olds you probably don't want too many cars! I'm not sure what's happened to the Porsche grid as they had a decent entry last year, although it was good to see Dean Stoneman out racing again following his battle with testicular cancer. As for Formula Ford, 2013 sees the advent of Wings to the formula. "It's life Jim but not as we know it." To be fair, aside from 3 very dominant wins by Dan Cammish, there was some good racing down the order with unusually lots of overtaking in the Craner Curves and Old Hairpin area.
Weather wise it was quite pleasant on Saturday with strong sunshine all day but just as you think it's time to ditch the coat, Sunday was very cold and windy. Back to normal then! Not a bad weekend's motor racing but I'm sure a lot of a very big crowd went home thinking "It looked better on the telly"
I paid £15 on Saturday and many thanks to Ken for the use of his Christmas present which got me in on Sunday! The programme was £5 and one where colour and design was more important than substance......
Comments
Post a Comment