BTCC Rounds 16 - 18 Silverstone

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by Mike_Powell

he's earned the right to be out there and given the circumstances, does a fricking good job.

out of curiosity, if being constantly on the last row of the grid and being among the last finishers is a good job than what is a bad job ?

Alex Zanardi even won races in WTCC in a BMW just with hand controls

[mprmke]

I think she did ok, as well as anyone with any real knowledge of the series would have expected.

She was on the pace of the back markers, who have all had a lot more time and competitive racing laps in their, albeit vastly inferior, cars.

She also brought it home in 2 out of 3 races. She didn’t perform any worse than, Jack Butel (purely an example) did in his first race weekend in an OK car.

Yes, the PMR is Astra is a much better can than the shocking efforts from Team Hard et all at the wrong end of the grid, but you can’t expect anyone with no prior BTCC experience to get great results out of any car.

If Jason Plato was given that car this weekend, I wouldn’t have bet against him winning a race in it as it’s a car more than capable of winning at Silverstone, especially with the RWD cars severely handicapped, but that’s a totally different scenario!

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

At least be accurate with your claims.

Fiona Leggate got a 5th place in the Astra in 2005. Three 10th place finishes in the first half of 2006.

that 5th place was freak high attrtion rainy race if I remember and you have to remember most season the grid was usually under 15 cars so getting top 10s was not that hard, 2 of those entries were the **** poor S2000 Lexus

Paul's best finish in the car in 2006 was an 8th place, so only marginally better.

see Silverstone 2006, Paul was so much more on the pace in that outdated car and in 2006 the grids were much larger than 2005

[Greem]

Originally Posted by Mike_Powell

We were discussing Nic Hamilton at Thruxton and the consensus of opinion with my fellow marshals was that we doubt that the majority of the drivers in the BTCC could, IN NIC'S CAR, set many better times.



Nic's car, with it's hand controls offers a much different drive to any other touring car. Nic doesn't have the ability to feel the car through his feet, or to easily feather the brakes or throttle. Rather than continually moan about him, he should be given a lot more respect - he's earned the right to be out there and given the circumstances, does a fricking good job.

For the avoidance of doubt, I wasn't - and don't - moan about Nic. I was using him as a comparator; could just as easily (and perhaps more accurately this year) have been Butel.

Or, come to that, any number of other perennial back markers, because every series has them and every series needs them. If there were 30 potential champions on every grid I can't imagine the reaction here or on other rather less thoughtful/restrained forms of social media.

[Mike_Powell]

Sorry Greem, that wasn't aimed at you, in fact it was agreeing with you.

Apologies if it caused any misunderstanding.

[Mike_Powell]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

out of curiosity, if being constantly on the last row of the grid and being among the last finishers is a good job than what is a bad job ?

And once again you've ignored the salient point of my comment.

[tallguy_2]

Neate is extremely outclassed and needs outing however he was well and truly in the hole at becketts well up to the door in race one, looked worse as jade didn’t see it coming and turned in, same move with Sutton on Turks and we’d all be praising Sutton.

As for the rest of his day............ let’s retire him from the BTCC and see how he fares in a stock car.

Great to see Butcher step out under his own steam

[pimmy]

To paraphrase James Hunt: "Neate really is completely out of order, he really shouldn't be allowed to drive in British Touring Cars. He's got a mental age of 10 in the first place, and that was an absolutely disgraceful bit of driving for a driver of his experience...the authorities have to crack down on driving like that...he should certainly receive a short suspension, and for being himself, he should receive a permanent suspension."

[MagicBoy]

Sorry, bit late to the party having just caught up on Race 3.

Big well done to Ollie.

Neate is a weapons grade bellend with an anger issue. Didn't have any business being anywhere near a Touring Car anyway, but the last couple of weeks show he's back to his worst behaviour. If Rory needs a spare shell, give him the car Andy tried to maim Jade with this week and fix it up.

[bella]

with my moderators hat on, please can everybody consider the way they’re expressing their disgust at neate’s driving this weekend?

if it continues i’m happy to go through the thread and remove all references so we all have to start again if we don’t use grown up words.

thank you.

Originally Posted by Mike_Powell

Nic's car, with it's hand controls offers a much different drive to any other touring car. Nic doesn't have the ability to feel the car through his feet, or to easily feather the brakes or throttle. Rather than continually moan about him, he should be given a lot more respect - he's earned the right to be out there and given the circumstances, does a fricking good job.

exactly.

it’s interesting that folk can dissect the detail of cars and rules but struggle with processing the details of the major obstacles that some people have to overcome to participate in the sport at their desired level. and the privileges he does have - his upbringing, his connections - he uses to amplify his achievements and message.

hard to accuse him of sitting back and enjoying his brothers wealth. if he was, don’t you think he’d be knocking at team dynamics and wsr’s doors with a bag full of cash?

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by SR18

It's time we get rid of the success ballast. In my opinion it's not acceptable to penalise somebody who does better than the rest of the field. I found the Turkington-Sutton situation from R3 laughable when Sutton beeing waved by by almost everyone once again and Turkington struggling because of his win in R2. Something needs to change ...

I think the problem is that when a RWD car is slapped with 60kg of ballast, its not 60kg at all, its actually nearer 100kg, because the RWD cars already carry something like 30-40kg of penalty weight for being RWD. I think overcoming that 100kg is pretty tough against such a close field.

[S griffin]

First of all I am so glad Rory got out of that one alright. The roll was bad enough, but it was worse that he came back onto the track with other cars coming up. The team will have to work all hours to get it out for Croft, wouldn't be surprised if Neate has to step down to give him the car

Neate seems to be dominating a lot of this thread. You'd think after Thruxton he'd try and keep his nose clean, but apparently not. Seemed to get a bit involved with Jade. I'm not going to judge Jade after he first meeting, with time she has every chance to improve

Really bad luck for Tingram after looking odds on for that win in R2. Now he needs a mega weekend at Croft if he is to keep his title hopes alive. As does Butcher, fingers crossed he gets back out there

By contrast what a recovery by Sutton, shame he got that penalty. Judging by his comments, the others better hope he doesn't finish outside the top 10 before R3 so he doesn't end up with zero ballest when the car is mega. Turkington once again racks up the points and Cammish has a big chance to try and get the title he came close to last year

Glad to see Ollie win, especially after what happened to Rory. He was back on the form he showed at Brands after a couple of meetings in midfield and really soaked up that pressure in the final race. Also good to see Moffat giving it a good go. Morgan once again three solid finishes in the Merc. Good to see Jelley up there agin too, shame he threw it all away with that spin in R2. And Boardley was mixing it up there until he had that drive thru in R2

I'm sure everyone is in agreement that it's great to have live onboards back, we've been missing that, especially when there has been incidents that the outside cameras missed

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by Greem

I have it from two friends on that post today that the flag marshal was checked over in the med centre and released without a problem.

This is great to read, good reactions from the marshal!

Have to say that, as much as critique Silverstone for being a boring circuit, the last race yesterday was absolutely superb, easily one of the best races I have watched this year.

Shame that the stewards had to get involved (seems to have been a lot of that yesterday!), but at least Sutton still retains the Championship lead.

[KA]

Originally Posted by thetool

Alex Zanardi WON WTCC races with hand controls.

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

out of curiosity, if being constantly on the last row of the grid and being among the last finishers is a good job than what is a bad job ?

Alex Zanardi even won races in WTCC in a BMW just with hand controls

Though I'm not sure an experienced ex-F1 driver and Indycar race winner in a factory-backed BMW, adapted with the full technical backing of BMW Motorsport is the ideal comparison for the relatively-inexperienced Hamilton in an elderly Team HARD Passat adapted by Tony Gilham's crew...

[thetool]

Originally Posted by KA

Though I'm not sure an experienced ex-F1 driver and Indycar race winner in a factory-backed BMW, adapted with the full technical backing of BMW Motorsport is the ideal comparison for the relatively-inexperienced Hamilton in an elderly Team HARD Passat adapted by Tony Gilham's crew...

Of course not, but no-one is expecting him to be winning races. Being a bit nearer Jack Goff would be a start.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by Greem

I have it from two friends on that post today that the flag marshal was checked over in the med centre and released without a problem.

Nasty crash though.

Good to know, thanks for sharing Greem.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by bella

this. she had no testing, no nothing. and she’s barely been in a racing car for months.

i can’t be arsed to break down for people how women are expected to be as good as the best men in the sport at their jobs immediately or they’re deemed not good enough. she had the measure of a couple of the lads running round at the back, running without a teammate to share data with.

I wholeheartedly agree and am fed up with some folk who think women are inferior to men or black people are somehow more important than white or that promoting homosexuality is a good thing etc etc.

Jade is a young racing driver with AFAIK zero experience of an NGTC race car. I thought she did rather well. The comparison with Rob Austin is irrelevant - Rob had many years of experience under his belt including a lot of NGTC - that I am not a Rob Austin fan is irrelevant, what is relevant is he more than held his own in the series for a number of seasons and that he got good results at Thruxton was not totally unexpected (although he dud do better than I thought he might). I would wager the keyboard warriors bemoaning her performance would have have fared no better and probably much worse. Having a penis does not make one a better driver; there are several examples of BTCC drivers current and past with such appendages who are terrible...

I hope she has another opportunity in the future to race at this level.

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Jade is a young racing driver with AFAIK zero experience of an NGTC race car.

not quite zero

[porsche962fan]

just noticed, Suton got 2 penalties at Silverstone

Race 2:
Ash Sutton received a formal written reprimand for gaining an unfair advantage in an incident involving Rory Butcher

Race 3:
Ash Sutton was penalised by the addition of 0.3 seconds to his race time for gaining an unfair advantage in an incident involving Tom Oliphant


does this mean 2 strikes ? possible at the back of the grid at another offense ?

[S griffin]

I think they made it so track limits don’t count towards a strike, after he got sent to the back of the grid for the same offence at the same circuit in 2017

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

does this mean 2 strikes ? possible at the back of the grid at another offense ?

Race 3 was just a time penalty, not formal warning, so doesn't count as a strike.

Q - Butel
R1 - Morgan
R2 - Sutton and Thompson
do count as strikes

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

I think what people are reacting to re Jade Edwards is the coverage of her appearance. At least, I hope it is, since I think time and effort is much better spent trying to revoke Andy Neate's racing license permanently than ramble on about Jade Edwards being uNwOrThY of a BTCC drive for contrived reasons.

The problem seems to be the media hype, running along nonsensical W Series logic that says that Alice Powell (1 point, GP3 2012, as a rookie) deserves another chance to be funded into F1 whilst Patric Niederhauser (2 wins, GP3 2012, as a rookie) apparently does not (or at least, F1 can continue to ignore him without any 'moral issues'), and this is all because Powell is a woman - the desire for these woman athletes to be worthy of the most elite men when those portrayed as such are clearly not worthy is what grates. It is an outlook that is clearly unfair and unconcerned about meritocracy (i.e. it ignores the entire ethos of sport), and very patronising to the woman concerned (although can make for nice sponsorship opportunities!), the men, and the spectators. I don't see why Jade Edwards doesn't deserve another shot where without ballast and hopefully without Andy Neate ruining her day she can scrap a little higher up, after all as has been pointed out some drivers won't be Ash Sutton's quality, and so long as they aren't actively endangering others (again, Neate, of whom enough can never be spoken until he is outright banned for good) then this doesn't need to be anyone's concern. After all, Ollie Jackson spent a good few seasons squabbling for top 15/20 finishes and now he's a race winner.

And I will not edit out that double negative.

[tux]

Yes, exactly Biscuits in a Red Bull. I think its the coverage that riles people up.

[bella]

i don't know why it would wind people up. if the tv interviews were anything like the pre-racing interview she gave to itv and louise, she's a real credit to the series.

on another note, i'm watching the sunday coverage for the first time and tim harvey *is* saying cabbage, isn't he...

[Evantra]

Originally Posted by bella

on another note, i'm watching the sunday coverage for the first time and tim harvey *is* saying cabbage, isn't he...

I'm pretty sure he referred to 'Josh Cookie' non-ironically several times... at least the few moments he wasn't on about Cammish.

I would quite like to see how Richard John Neil gets on beside David for the BTCC races.