I attended the BTCC Test day at Brands Hatch, This was the first chance to see the 2023 cars and teams on track. With the first rounds of the season at Donnington Park on the 22nd and 23rd of April, this will give us insight into who will be quickest, albeit under test conditions.
Some changes for 2023, Team Dynamics have announced that they will be taking a hiatus from the BTCC. They will be supporting the One Motorsport with Starline Racing in trying to win the driver and constructors overall titles in 2023. Josh Cook, Aiden Moffatt and Will Powell are driving this season. Team Dynamics will also be focus will take place using on their classic, touring car and GT race car business as well as running customer cars in all kinds if championships worldwide.
Mikey Doble and Andrew Watson make their debuts for CarStore Power Maxed Racing, Ronan Pearson has his debut for BRISTOL STREET MOTORS with EXCELR8 in the BTCC, while Nick Halstead joins BRISTOL STREET MOTORS with EXCELR8 after making a solo outing at Croft in 2021.
NAPA Racing UK now has a 4 car team, Ash Sutton and Dan Cammish are joined by Daniel Rowbottom and Sam Osborne.
Jade Edwards has signed a very last minute deal with Re.Beverages and Batercard with Team HARD.
This year at some of the races, there will be a normal 30 minute qualifying session followed by a 5 minute break then followed by the top ten taking to the track in a top ten, ten minute shootout.
This will take place at Donnington Park (National) 22/23 April, Brands Hatch (Indy) 06/07 May, Oulton Park 17/18 June, Knockhill 12/13 August, Silverstone 23/24 September.
2023 also see's the return of the Option Tyre. The majority of events will utilise hard medium or soft where the 'Option' tyre must be used during race one, two or three meaning we will see lots of different strategies playing out over the races.
At Snetterton and Croft, all three tyres must be used and at Thruxton only the hard tyre will be used due to the high speeds.
There have also been tweaks to the Hybrid Deployment rules that will also see different strategies throughout race weekends.
With all of this 2023 is going to be an interesting season.
Below are my photo's from the Test Day.
Jake Hill flying round a drenched Brands Hatch
Stephen Jelley's test came to an abrupt end when his BMW went straight on at Druids Corner. Cold tyres and a wet track were not a good combination. Thankfully Stephen walk away from the incident and was taken to the med centre for a check over.
Colin Turkington
Ash Sutton
Tom Ingram
George Gamble
Sam Osborne
Ronan Pearson
Dan Cammish
Nick Halstead
Daniel Rowbottom
Andrew Watson
Aiden Moffatt
Rory Butcher
Will Powell
Tom Ingram was quickest around Brands Hatch with a time of 47.928s, the top 7 were covered by a little over half a second. Hopefully then some close wheel to wheel racing for 2023.
For further information on the BTCC, please visit:
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