BMW has won its sixth straight manufacturers’ championship in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), led by Colin Turkington, who finished second in the drivers’ championship. Turkington had seven podiums during the season, including wins at Snetterton, Knockhill, and Donington Park. He was one of five drivers who were in contention for the drivers’ title at the finale at Brands Hatch (the British have such cool names for their race tracks), but a DNF in the third race after being hit by another car took him out of contention.
Turkington did win the Goodyear Wingfoot Award at the finale, given to the driver with the best qualifying performances during the year; Turkington’s performance included three overall pole positions. The BTCC uses success ballast, weight added to winning cars in order to create a more even playing field, and the BMW 330i M Sport run by Team BMW in the series was the second-heaviest car in the field.
The manufacturers’ championship was also the fifteenth overall title won by the West Surrey Racing team, which runs the BMW program, and all of them have been in BMWs. “We’ve made history today for BMW in the Manufacturers’ Championship, which is a great thing to be a part of for myself and the team,” said Turkington after the race. “My target this weekend was to win the drivers’ championship, but it wasn’t to be this time. We did everything we could, got the maximum from the BMW in races cne and two with the ballast we had, but it was always going to be a tall order because of the way the points were coming into the weekend. We’ve won races this year, shown what we were capable of, and we can walk away knowing we did the best job we possibly could.”—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy Jakob Ebrey/BMW.]
