The 2013 BTCC is heading towards the commencement of its second half following an entertaining opening 15 races that have gifted us many talking points and not yet produced a clear favourite. So while the summer break continues for the drivers and teams involved, we at thecheckeredflag.co.uk sit back and crunch the key numbers of the season so far…
0 – The amount of times Andrew Jordan has failed to score a point this season. This stat could prove vital come the end of the season, as Jordan’s ‘long game’ approach towards this season may pay off in the championship fight should his rivals falter.
0.083 – The smallest winning margin of the 2013 season so far, which came between Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden at the third race of the season opener at Brands Hatch…although somewhat aided by the Honda boys performing a photo opportunity formation finish.
2 – The number of pole positions and race victories for Andrew Jordan from the first five rounds, the two poles at Brands Hatch and Thruxton also being the most of any driver from the current season.
4 – The highest number of wins so far in the first half of the season, held by both Matt Neal and Jason Plato after wins at Brands Hatch, Thruxton and Croft for Neal, with double wins at Brands Hatch and Oulton Park to Plato’s name.
5 – The number of winners so far in 2013, with Matt Neal and Jason Plato on four, Colin Turkington now increasing his tally to three following his electric Croft, while Gordon Shedden and Andrew Jordan both lie on two.
– Five is also the best race position earned in a so far struggling season for Airwaves Racing, one they would desperately like to modify almost a year after the NGTC Focus made its debut at Snetterton last season, shortly before picking up a famous win at Silverstone afterwards.
6 – The number of Jack Sears Trophy race victories held so far by the current Cup leader, Lea Wood. His nearest rival, Liam Griffin, has four wins to his name, the new-for-2013 class for S2000 machines seeing a total of six winners already also – Wood, Griffin, James Kaye, Jake Hill, Joe Girling and David Nye recently at Croft in an entertaining second race.
8 – The most number of wins for a manufacturer thus far from the first 15 races, that figure held by Honda. Second in that tally lie MG on four – all from Plato – while BMW now have three thanks to Colin Turkington and WSR. Toyota and Ford meanwhile are yet to get off the mark.
Toyota and Ford are yet to win a race in 2013 (Photo: KAN Photography)
9.334 – The biggest winning margin from a race so far in the 2013 BTCC season, when Colin Turkington charged to a dominant win in the opening race at Croft, also helped by the BMW’s pace on the championship’s new softer compound tyre introduced by Dunlop for the season.
10 – The number of drivers who have been in the lead of a race at some point during the first half of the season. Those include Neal, Jordan, Plato, Shedden, Turkington, Nick Foster, Jeff Smith, Rob Austin, Mat Jackson and Jack Goff.
13 – The number of top-five finishes for Matt Neal out of 15 races. As people often say, consistency wins championships, and the triple champion’s consistency has so far proved envious to his opposition, helping him towards ending the first half of the year as championship leader.
19– The current points lead held by Matt Neal over his nearest challenger, Andrew Jordan.
26 – The ‘lowest’ number of entrants to enter a BTCC round so far this year, in what has seen a whopping total of 22 NGTC cars appear so far in 2013, proving that the BTCC’s new era is now fully into its groove.
30 – The current Independents championship lead, held by the title’s defending holder, Andrew Jordan.
40 – The number of points separating the top five drivers in the championship at the moment (Neal, Jordan, Shedden, Plato, Turkington).
61 – Out of a maximum of 67 points available at each round is the score that Colin Turkington came away from the previous encounter at Croft with, having only missed out on two fastest laps and coming 0.6s from winning the final race of the day what wouldhave been the BTCC’s third victory hat-trick. Turkington had claimed pole position and won the first two races in North Yorkshire, while a second place in race three means that he and the eBay Motors BMW squad enter the second half of 2013 as a major threat.
69 – Already the number of points that rookie Sam Tordoff has scored over Andy Neate’s tally from the 2012 season in the second KX Momentum Racing MG6 during his superb debut year so far, picking up two podium finishes along the way.
400 – The number of starts Jason Plato passed after race two at Donington Park, a race in which he won a superb battle with Gordon Shedden over second position. The double champion made his BTCC debut back in 1997 with the Williams Renault Laguna squad, alongside that year’s champion, Alain Menu.
Plato and Neal made their 400th and 500th BTCC starts at Donington (Photo: KAN Photography)
500 – Is also the number of BTCC starts Matt Neal passed following that very same race, the vastly experienced three-time champion having first made his BTCC debut back on July 14 at Silverstone in 1991, driving a BMW M3.
1274 – The achingly-long period of days between Colin Turkington’s title-winning last appearance in the BTCC back on October 4, 2009, and his comeback to the sport this year on March 31.
1358 – Is the amount of days you had to wait between Turkington’s BTCC wins meanwhile, from a Snetterton win with WSR in 2009, to victory in as early as the sixth race of 2013 at Donington in the very same squad’s new NGTC-specification 125i M-Sport BMW.
The days between Turkington’s Snetterton 2009 win and Donington 2013 win (Photo: btcc.net)
