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Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship Season Preview

By MJP Media | 21 March 2013

As the stars of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship took to the track for the official launch day, we bring you the latest news ahead of the seasons exciting opener at Brands Hatch in just 10 days time!

On track - Mat Jackson, Gordon Shedden, Jason Plato and Nick Foster

Following their back-to-back title victories in the last 2 seasons, all eyes will naturally be on the Honda Yuasa Racing Team. Continuing with the same driver line up of 2012 champion Gordon Shedden and 2011 champion Matt Neal, they are bound to be competitive from the word go. Also likely to be in the mix will be Jason Plato who was third in last year's championship in the MG KX Momentum Racing MG6, partnered this year by Sam Tordoff.

2013 also sees the return of Independent Drivers Champion Andrew Jordan in the Pirtek Racing Honda Civic who will once again be partnered by Jeff Smith. Jordan is hoping to go one better with the outright Drivers Championship this year. Other championship contenders include Dave Newsham in the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis who produced some memorable results last year and who is partnered this year by Ollie Jackson. Other potential championship contenders include former BTCC champion Colin Turkington in the eBay Motors BMW 1 Series as well as Rob Austin in the WIX Racing Audi A4 and Mat Jackson in the Airwaves Racing Ford Focus.

Matt Neal in his fire-spitting Honda Yuasa Racing Team Civic

With 13 car models from 11 different car manufacturers on the grid, the 2013 BTCC season has one of the most varied grids in touring car racing and with 32 cars entered this year, the racing is bound to be frantic and that leads to more action and more excitement. One feature of this year's championship that will no doubt add to this is the introduction of the new Dunlop 'soft compound' tyre which is a new innovation requiring every car to use a set of the new soft tyres in one of the 3 races at each race meeting. The twist is that the teams will have to nominate which race they will use them in before qualifying. The logic of this innovation is to encourage real tyre management as the soft compound tyres will be blisteringly fast in the first few laps and then progressively 'go off' towards the end of a race. As teams and drivers will not know which race their competitors have nominated to use the soft tyres in until the cars line up on the grid, this is sure to lead to even more exciting race action.

It was interesting to see today that most of the cars were out on track and posting very competitive lap times. The most notable exception however was the Team HARD. outfit of Tony Gilham who are facing the massive task of building four cars ahead of the opening round next week at Brands Hatch on Easter weekend. Although all of Tony's drivers were present for the official launch, their cars were still being worked on back at the team's base in Kent.

The Class of 2013

As the countdown to the 2013 British Touring Car Championship season reaches its final stages, the excitement is really mounting and we will be bringing you full coverage of the season in these pages, starting with a chance to win tickets to the opening round at Brands Hatch - check back soon for details in our Brands Hatch preview.

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media