ALTERNATIVE CHAMPIONSHIP LOOKBACK BTCC 2025

Well, you asked for it. So here it is. It's the alternative driver championships as presented

by Sam.

Hello, and welcome back to the British Touring Car podcast. We hope you're doing well despite

how bloody chilly it's got. It's cooled down quickly, isn't it?

It has cooled down very quickly. The wind always adds to these sort of things. But we

are back and it is a kind of podcast I absolutely love because I have to do no prep for it.

I don't really have to do a lot in this episode. I'm really only here for comedical value

and to balance out. So you're not talking to yourself for an entire sort of 10, 15, 20

minutes.

I did spend most of my time on an Excel spreadsheet.

Welcome to my working day. So yeah, so we are, as you know, probably by now, Sam did do at the

start this season and alternative championship he wants to look at different ways that we can

improve the touring cars. And I will for that, we've always said that we'll always discuss

ways to make the sport better. There's several videos on that. And I'm sure there will be

more to come as we carry on this sport that is the British touring cars. This season, Sam has

taken upon himself for no other reason than personal pleasure to do his own championships on

varying different scales and methods to see if there's a better way of recording the points.

And for fun, he's also done one where Tom Ingram and Ash Sutton don't exist or do exist, but

don't work in the touring car field. They said work at being Q or Tesco's or in an office

somewhere. So I'm going to hand over to Sam because he is going to be the main driving force

behind this podcast. I know normal normality will resume in some later podcasts where I take the

front roll and do all the work. But today, it's up to Sam.

Thanks for that, mate. Yes, obviously, I went into the season where we looked at possible rule

changes that we might look at. And I said, why don't we shake up the point system a little bit,

which you thought was absolutely barmy.

I'll tell you what, this is terrifying. That doesn't feel like the side.

So, yeah, off the back of that, I went out and created my own points table, basically. So all

drivers who race for the weekend and finish the race would then get points. And then I also had

a look at some other different ways. So doing one point difference between each position or

finishing position. And as you say, when we get to that time of having no Sutton and no Ingram,

it will be a sad time, unfortunately. But if that were to happen for this past season,

who would come out on top? And how close would the championship fight have been? So I'm going to

set off into the highest points total, my own one that I came up with. And quite frankly, not much

changed in the top 10. Just for the risk of a salad, Rory Stewart, for the benefit of people

who may not have heard this before, what was the parameters for this? So how many points

were we awarding per place? So in my alternate championship, for a win, you've got 100 points

leading all the way down to 25th, dependent on the runners as well. But round about 25 drivers

we had, you'd get one point, you get five points for a pole position, five points for a fastest lap.

I didn't bother adding lead lapsing because it was going to be too difficult to work out.

But yeah, so we'd go from 185, 75, 68, 62, 56, 50, so on and so forth, all the way down.

So pretty much everyone that finishes or everyone that does finish a race

will get points for that race. It's interesting, in a way, that the gap from 22nd to 25th is four

points. Yes. That's quite interesting, because it is quite close at the back between how, yeah,

between the back runners on the Hamilton's, your house. And actually more of the changes

happened in that back end of the field. I can understand that. The top nine all stayed the

same, same order. The major change came in with Proctor. Obviously, he didn't compete all the

races this season. So he actually drops down two positions. Although interestingly, both Cook and

Moffitt, Cook being obviously complete all rounds, he missed those two right in the middle of the

season, actually go up a position. I think that probably is testament to his really strong end

to the season, particularly when they switched to the better engine. Of course, he did take a race

win and I believe a further podium if memory serves me right. So yeah, that makes sense.

And then the rest of the changes all came in the bottom end of the championship. So from 17th

downwards, there were lots of chopping and changing of positions. Halton, although ending up bottom

in the main championship, would actually have finished 22nd in the championship following

the points, titles that I've gone for. So because he completed the whole season,

yes, he had some DNFs along the way, I think eight overall, he was still able to score a

decent amount of points and will actually have ended up scoring more points than the house did.

So why is he down five? So he's down five compared. So from where his championship

actual position was. Oh, okay. He's down five positions compared to my high points total.

But he's got 212. Yes. So why is he behind?

So how's they got 190? How so would have got 199? Same as Jelly Hall, so that it's in order of

championship finish currently. Oh, okay, right. So yeah, Hall would have been finishing last due

to the amount of nonfinishes that he had while he was there and obviously going off to TCR halfway

through the season. Where we saw quite a lot of the changes though, was actually in the one point

difference. So 25 points for a win, 24 for a second all the way down to one once again.

And there are a lot of changes throughout the field. Unfortunately, the top three still

stayed the same. So you can look at that in a couple of ways. You can go, right, those three

drivers, they are the best drivers this season, and they are by a decent margin.

See, I'm not sure that's true. I think the top two, yeah, I don't think that, I mean, obviously

the numbers say that, but yeah, it's interesting because I don't think there's a lot between

Camish Hill and Robottom, maybe until the last two rounds, but then Hill was a lot better at that

point. It's interesting that those three haven't changed at all and actually that Hill and Robottom

aren't particularly close in either of these championships either. So in the main championship,

Camish finished on 307 points and then Robottom was round about what 31 points behind, whereas in

this one point difference championship, there was only actually between Camish Hill and Robottom,

11 points difference. So it made it a real fight for them. Yeah, that's true. And Camish only

hit by three points actually. Yeah, that's true. Whereas obviously Ingram and Sutton,

runaway winners, which is why we then looked at having a non Ingram, non Sutton championship as

well. There were lots of changes throughout this, lots of ups and downs. A really strange one,

Proctor down six positions from where he would have obviously finished in the main championship

would have finished 16th overall. Those rounds not being there really hampering him,

and Moffitt finishing 7th overall. Yeah, I guess for Proctor, sorry, because he came in so well

and scored so highly, he's taken some really big point swings. Whereas in this world,

those point swings are a lot smaller because obviously there are only a point difference

between each place. I think there's also Testaments in a way to Moffitt who, as we looked at our

driver grades, which is available now, we gave a think bokeh for C, or you might have gone for

a B actually. I think I went for a B. I was quite surprised by how he performed this season.

But I think that's Testaments to York, because I only went for a C. That's Testaments perhaps to

your argument that actually he had a fairly consistent point scoring season. Yeah, he had

very few non finishes, which very much helps you in this championship. Because as long as you finish,

you're still scoring points. Again, the same thing happened with Nick Hamilton.

He would have finished 21st in this championship out of 27. So it pushed him right up the standings

because he was there to finish races. So yeah, lots of chopping and changing. Obviously, the

drivers that didn't complete the full season really missed out in this style of championship,

because obviously points weren't awarded. Yeah, of course, yeah. But then you've got other drivers

taking up a little bit more and a little bit more. I would be interested to see if we could

implement this sort of scoring going forward, because I think it would end up with possibly a

closer championship battle, unless you're going to have like an Ingram and Sutton go out there

and absolutely dominate like they've done this season. But even so, it's, I think that is still

closer at the top. So if you look at Ingram finish on 462, Sutton on 426, or what's that,

40, 36 point gap. In the high points championship, Ingram wins by over 200 points.

And in this championship, it is what, 26, 16 points. So I don't know if it's 60 or somewhere.

So yeah, I mean, even in this world, where those who have been the runaway success stories,

it's a lot closer. It being that you get a point for every position that you're finishing,

it gives everyone something to fight for. It doesn't matter if you're down at the back,

like you would be as a halter and a house dead, a Patterson, you're constantly trying to fight for

points. My only concern of that would be, is that, is there enough risk on the table for people to

make overtakes? Because if you're guaranteed, what is it, at the minute you go for that seven

point swing, if there's only a point swing, would you bother? And I don't think you would.

I think as you get to the crux of the season, that extra point could be enough to win you a

championship when the points totals are so close. Yeah, but I think it probably rewards a Colin

Turketon style champion, which would be to bank those points rather than take the risk. And I

know at some point you'd have to take a risk if Ingram is winning. But if you're a second and

you're losing a point, even if a third, four fifth, you're only losing a handful of points,

I don't think you'd make those. I think this really outlines the consistency and the

average finishing position that both Ingram and Sutton have had this season.

Would agree. In the fact that Sutton in second in this championship is, what, 130 points ahead

of third? Yeah. That's a massive margin. Yeah, well Ingram was to, sorry, 150 effectively.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It just shows the quality that those two drivers have had.

Agreed. But there is a lot of battling in the midfield as well. You can cover,

what's that, six, seven drivers by less than 100 points just because of how close the points

totals are. Yeah, there are 100 points or a lot less, or sorry, there's a bigger margin in this

version because there's not enough point swings. But yeah, I like that it is made the top two

closer. I just think that if you were to implement this version, I don't think you get enough overtakes

because I just don't think you give enough of a reward to make that overtake is my personal

opinion. Maybe that could lead us back to a Jack Sears style trophy where you get awarded points

for overtakes that you make as well. That would be cool. That would be cool. We've seen that before,

haven't we? We have indeed. Again, that's not, people like Ingram and Sutton might complain,

so hang on a minute, we're always at the front. We can't overtake because we're out the front

all the time, which yeah. But a separate championship could certainly be an interesting one for that.

And then moving on to an avenue where we would have no Sutton, no Ingram. And you know what,

having to change the results of all these drivers, the amount of times that Sutton Ingram finished

one, two this season was ridiculous. So as you would probably expect, Camish came out the winner

in this championship from Hill, from Robot, and from Morgan, from Chilton. So the top five stayed

the same. So just to be clear for our international listeners, what you've done here is that you

have taken their points out and reallocated them. So yeah, so everyone's either moved up one or two

positions in the race finish. So if Ingram had won a race and Sutton came second and Hill came

third, Hill would have the points for the win in this and then so yes, just so exactly. What I

have taken out of this is lead laps because that gets confusing. I understand that. And also

pole positions and fastest laps just before everything changed. Absolutely fair. So yes,

Camish would have won the championship by 21 points from Hill on 340 from Robot on 336.

There is still a big gap between those three back to Morgan and Chilton.

Yeah, that gap is really weird because, and we touched on that I think in the in the season

review and also in the grades, you think rightly that Hyundai had a really strong season between

Virtue and yet and yet Morgan and Chilton, who we both would also say had good seasons,

Chilton took multiple wins, Morgan took multiple podiums and they are a long way off,

a driver that missed the entire round, a driver that wanted to drive into everything at one point

and also back of Hill, a driver had basically turned up in a lorry effectively for a couple

of weekends or the car just didn't want to do anything. Yeah, I think it really shows that

we've got to coin the F1, F1.5 and F2 standards. You've got F1, you've got Ingram and Sutton.

F1.5, I think is quite clearly this season at least Camish Hill, Robot and then the rest behind

that. Yeah, I would agree. Although I think that again, it would go a slightly off topic.

I would love to have seen a season where Cheddon had a proper engine the entire way through.

Yes, I do think a lot of points that were scored by drivers like Cheddon and Cook,

if they'd have had that car at the start of the season, then we could have well have seen a top

six, a top seven that were all vying for third position. Well, suppose to go back to your previous

one we were discussing, which is the one point changes, that championship suits what happened

to Toyota this year because they were at least finishing race well in case of Cheddon and Cook,

maybe not so much, but they were finishing races, which would mean that they were getting at least

in that scenario points and not losing out too much. So weirdly, the most effective or there

are two most affected drivers by this. So Rainford, who finished eighth in the championship overall,

would actually have finished tenth in the championship, which is four positions down,

have been taken out Ingram and Sutton anyway, if that makes sense.

So when you're taking Ingram and Sutton out, he would have been a sixth overall in the championship

if you'd looked at it verbatim, and then he moved down four positions to tenth. And I can't

understand why, but he lost out the most with Ingram and Sutton not being there.

I guess because when Cook made up the most, he went up four positions.

So who's he then finished behind Rainford? So the championship would have finished,

Camish Hill-Robotom, Morgan Chilton, then Cook Cheddon, Moffat Proctor, Rainford.

So I think with Cook Cheddon, that's because they would inherited wins and podiums from

those two not finishing. They'd have finished in around the top six more often than not.

Cook would have been head of Cheddon, by the way.

Yeah, it doesn't shock me.

Which I find slightly strange.

So that would make some sense. I don't quite understand. Who actually say he's finished

behind, sorry? Proctor and Moffat.

Yeah, the Proctor won perhaps not because he was in the top a lot. The Moffat one I cannot explain.

That's one I cannot explain in formal and behind. The other ones I can say, okay, they finished

particularly towards the end of the season, they were finishing even in that top six,

which would then promote them to top four potentially podium places as well, depending

on whereabouts they were. I think Cheddon had a couple of fourths towards the end of the season,

which would have probably promoted them up to second on a couple of these anyway.

And Rainford wasn't in those spots. He was scoring well, but he wasn't in that echelon

of the point scoring. Sorry, the Moffat one I really can't explain to you.

Yeah, and then there were a couple of position swaps. So Osborne and Taylor Smith would have

swapped around in the championship. Dallin and Patterson would have swapped around in the championship.

And then Jelly would have been down two, up two, sorry, and Pearson bucks them down two,

but they're drivers that didn't compete with all championship anyway.

Hamilton in this situation would have scored three points overall and Halstead would have scored eight.

So, okay, what championship, including the real one, would have benefited Halstead the most?

Would have benefited Halstead the most. That would be the one point difference.

So, he would have finished 23rd overall. Both that championship for him and Hamilton would have

been the most beneficial because even when they were finishing races, yes, they may have been

well at the back, but they were still finishing. And then they were picking up more points on

drivers who may not have completed the whole season, but were picking up points when they were there.

Okay. And then the one that had been most detrimental to Ingram,

notwithstanding obviously the one that he's in would have been the also the one point difference.

The one point difference, yes. It makes sense. But we would still have seen him as champion.

Yes. So, you could argue that the right champion has definitely been crowned. The right top three

has been crowned. I don't think in practice you would have seen him be championed in that one

because I don't think he'd have driven as aggressively and I think that might possibly.

Quite possibly. I agree with the data you've got, absolutely. But if that was the way,

I think that that I don't think it would be interesting to see how driver approaches change

certainly with the points or the different points that would be on offer. Yeah. I'd love to know

the listeners thoughts or the viewers thoughts on how you would like to shake up the championship,

whether it is about the points that drivers score, whether it's about having that possible

separate championship for overtakes made or something along those lines.

Bring back the Dunlop Forever Forward Award. Exactly. What I will say just as we sort of

look to close this off is that if we are going to move into a situation where we have sprint

races on the Saturday next year, I would like one of these two to be used. I want a different

point scoring system. Yeah. F1 do it. Yeah. I'd like this. I'd like the same personally. I actually

think the one point difference is probably the way to go with the sprint because I don't want,

if we're going to go down the sprint race. It's kind of how they set it out in the F1 now. You

obviously get your eight points for the win and then it's a point change down. I don't want too

much damage done on a Saturday for a pointless sprint race as I currently see it. Yep. So I'd

change once the actual rules come out. But I think F1 have got that right insofar as that

even if you have a stinker, Oscar Piastri looking at you, the worst you might lose to your rival

is eight points, which in F1 isn't a great, it's still not ideal. It's never ideal to those points,

but that is recoverable. Yes. Whereas if it would have been a 15 or 25 point swing because

they're given the full, then that really is a championship ending, isn't it? From a daft little

gimmicky race that I don't fully agree with. I don't fully agree with sprints in F1 either,

but that's a chat for another day. Yeah. I must say thank you for the response on that video.

We're not quite sure how it's all going to level itself out when we come around to the new season,

but I'm sure we'll find out in due course. Absolutely. And also, Mr Plato, if you're out

there, can we listen to news? I was going to say this podcast is Plato's fault. If he had bothered

to put the news out, as promised, we wouldn't be sat here discussing made up championships,

would have been dropping the Plato news. But we were promised to announce at the end of October,

it is now three quarters-ish of the way through November, and we're no closer forward.

Lots of whispers, lots of rumors, but there's no point speculating on them because at the minute

he's driving everything from a Ferrari to a Civic to a Passat to an Inserter car here,

and there's about 90 drivers on his team as it currently stands. So, I mean,

yeah, as it stands, you and I have got a chance of having a drive. I mean, I'd give it a go.

Yeah, your ego would. I'm not sure I would give it a go. I think I'd be more suited to do something

in the background, maybe. Okay. Be my engineer, mate. Yeah, no, you're limits. I'll be your Spencer.

Do let us know what other videos you would like to see through the off-season.

We're still working in the background on our awards show towards the end of the year,

and we'll bring you up to date with any breaking news as it comes out, hopefully.

Guarantee. Guarantee it comes out once you're editing this. It's always the way,

and this will now look so old, despite the fact it's been recorded on the 19th of November.

Just remember that if you want to bully us in the comments, this was recorded on the

evening of the 19th of November. If Plato wants to drop a storm now, then it's not our fault.

Yeah, but until next time, we'll see you soon. Bye for now.

ALTERNATIVE CHAMPIONSHIP LOOKBACK BTCC 2025

Formula 1

F1

Ferrari

Civic

Volkswagen Passat

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