Whilst the BTCC again produced three enthralling action-packed races at Silverstone this past weekend there was much talk about a number of incidents involving contact between competitors on-track.

The official BTCC  Series Director, Alan Gow shares his thoughts on this particular subject…

“I’m not happy at all with the amount of contact and resulting body damage – despite the fact that we have clearly been increasing the amount and severity of penalties for driving infringements,” he said. “We’ve had more and greater penalties this year than in any season I can remember.
 
“Yes of course when there are 32 cars blanketed by just nine tenths during qualifying then it’s almost inevitable that some degree of minor contact and mistakes will occur – some drivers are truly superb to watch in close duels, but many simply don’t give enough ‘racing room’ to each other. 
 
“So we will keep issuing increasingly tougher penalties where it is warranted, but by then of course the incident has already occurred. The harsh reality is that it’s the drivers themselves who have to take sole responsibility for their own actions. After all, those are the guys who are driving the cars and making the decisions that lead to making contact, or not, with another car  – not us.
 
“We have a teams meeting next month and this subject will be at the very top of my agenda. Personally I’m in favour of ‘lowering the bar’ even further in terms of drivers accruing a race ban, along with introducing other harsher sanctions, and I look forward to hearing what the teams and drivers will also do to help us remove unnecessary contact. It can actually be changed quite quickly, largely with a simple change in mindset and attitude from some drivers and teams.  We will sort it out…”