BTC Touring
Encyclopedia
In motor racing, BTC Touring (BTC-T) was the set of new regulations for the British Touring Car Championship
British Touring Car Championship
The British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom. The Championship was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and has run to various rules over the years – "production cars", then FIA Group 1 or 2 in the late 1960s...

 (BTCC) introduced in 2001 BTCC
2001 British Touring Car Championship season
The 2001 theAA.com MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 44th British Touring Car Championship season and marked the beginning of a new era of lower-cost rules and regulations for the series.-Changes for 2001:...

, after the demise of the Supertouring
Supertouring
Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created for the British Touring Car Championship in 1990...

 category.

The cars were based on standard bodyshells, but allowed plenty of modification to turn the car into a racecar and differentiate it from the Super Production class that would run alongside BTC Touring in the 2001 BTCC
2001 British Touring Car Championship season
The 2001 theAA.com MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 44th British Touring Car Championship season and marked the beginning of a new era of lower-cost rules and regulations for the series.-Changes for 2001:...

.

Models

In chronological order of their appearances, the cars were:
  • BTC-T Vauxhall Astra Coupe
    BTC-T Vauxhall Astra Coupe
    The Triple Eight Race Engineering Vauxhall Astra Coupe was the first BTC Touring car to be unveiled in late 2000. Work began on the car in the summer of that year and as a result, had a massive headstart on the rest of the field come the 2001 campaign...

  • BTC-T Peugeot 406 Coupe
    BTC-T Peugeot 406 Coupe
    After he was released from prison, Vic Lee began his BTCC campaign with taking over Bowman Motorsport and reastarting it as Vic Lee Racing team. After success in National Saloon Car Championship and BTCC Class B with Peugeot 306, Peugeot supported VLR for their 2001 BTCC season campaign...

  • BTC-T Alfa Romeo 147
  • BTC-T Lexus IS200
    BTC-T Lexus IS200
    With the new low cost BTC Touring rules encouraging private teams to build their own cars, Cheshire-based ABG Motorsport decided to construct a Lexus IS200 for 2001....

  • BTC-T MG ZS EX259
    BTC-T MG ZS EX259
    After serving as official works team for Ford and Honda in BTCC, WSR began their 2001 BTCC season with MG ZS. The debut of the car was in the final races of the season, driven by Anthony Reid and Warren Hughes. The team and drivers, however, were not eligible for points...

  • BTC-T Honda Civic Type-R
  • BTC-T Proton Impian
    BTC-T Proton Impian
    The Malaysian company Proton announced it was to join the BTCC in 2002 with its Impian saloon car. In fact, this was actually more of a semi-works effort run under the guise of Team Petronas Syntium Proton The Malaysian company Proton announced it was to join the BTCC in 2002 with its Impian saloon...

  • BTC-T Peugeot 307
    BTC-T Peugeot 307
    After two seasons of running the big and heavy Peugeot 406 Coupe, Vic Lee Racing entered a new car in the BTCC. Designed by renowned Formula One designer Sergio Rinland, the Peugeot 307 was the second BTC Touring spec car built by the Coventry-based firm...

  • BTC-T Vauxhall Vectra
    BTC-T Vauxhall Vectra
    In late 2003 and early 2004, Triple Eight Race Engineering built a Vauxhall Vectra saloon to the BTC Touring rules, to evaluate the possibility of using it to replace the ultra successful Astra Coupe for 2004...

  • BTC-T Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch
    BTC-T Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch
    The replacement for the record breaking Vauxhall Astra Coupe for 2005 was the BTC Touring version of the Astra SportHatch. Following such a class act as the Coupe was difficult though and the car only won ten out of the sixty races it contested as a works entry, in the hands of Yvan Muller, Colin...

  • BTC-T Honda Integra Type R
    BTC-T Honda Integra Type R
    In 2005, Team Dynamics took advantage of a loophole in the British Touring Car Championship regulations that allowed cars to enter, whether they were on sale in the United Kingdom or not...


History

A year after the regulations began, the European Touring Car Championship
European Touring Car Championship
The European Touring Car Championship was an international touring car racing series organised by the FIA. It had two incarnations, the first one between 1963 and 1988, and the second between 2000 and 2004...

 launched its Super 2000
Super 2000
Super 2000, also known as S2000, is an FIA specification and classification for production based race cars. The specification is split to cover both rally and touring car racing. Super 2000 rally cars are also permitted to compete in Super 2000 World Rally Championship events...

 regulations. As the latter allowed manufacturers to have their cars seen internationally, most major companies opted for this, meaning that the BTCC suffered from small grids until it allowed Super 2000 cars to compete (with rules designed to equalise the two). In 2007
2007 British Touring Car Championship season
The 2007 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 50th British Touring Car Championship season. It was won by Fabrizio Giovanardi with 10 race wins and 17 podiums...

 BTC-T cars were made ineligible to win the main championship, although as of 2010
2010 British Touring Car Championship season
The 2010 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 53rd British Touring Car Championship season. It began at Thruxton Circuit on April 4 and finished after 30 races over ten events at Brands Hatch on October 10....

 a handful are still ran by small teams.

The 2010 season was meant to be the last year BTC Touring cars would be eligible to enter the championship, however Series Director Alan J. Gow
Alan J. Gow
Alan James Gow is currently the Series Director and Administrator of the British Touring Car Championship , Chairman of MSA and President of the FIA Touring Car Commission...

 has since announced BTC Touring will be allowed to compete in 2011
2011 British Touring Car Championship season
The 2011 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship is a multi-event motor racing championship for sedan based touring car racing cars held across England and Scotland...

, with their base-weight +50 kg on 2010. Only cars that competed in 2010 will be eligible to race in 2011.
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