BTCC Motorsport Programme
British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) Sponsorship and Marketing Brochure
Introduction
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BTCC Motorsport Programme
“When AmD Cobra Sport joined the BTCC grid back in 2010, we knew we were taking on the challenge of competing in one of the most competitive tin top series in the world. “From those early days with our self-developed VW Golf, we embraced that challenge head-on, and are proud to now be regarded as one of the leading touring car outfits in the UK. “In battling for podium finishes and championship titles, we have firmly established ourselves as one of the most respected and professional teams on the grid, and are hugely excited about our prospects for the 2019 season. “The Honda Civic Type R is a proven, race-winning package, and when you add in our driver line-up of Sam Tordoff and Rory Butcher, gives us our best chance yet to regularly challenge at the sharp end of the grid and to fight for championship silverware.” Shaun Hollamby Team Principal
03 AmD Cobra Spor t
AmD Cobra Sport is a highly respected and long-standing tuning company based in West Thurrock, Essex. Although primarily known for its work with vehicles from the Volkswagen Audi Group, AmD Cobra Sport specialists in performance tuning and upgrades for all European vehicles, using leading performance products from some of the major companies in the tuning world – including Cobra, Eibach, Millers Oils, Bilstein, Airtec, SuperPro, Milltek, Brembo and Dunlop. AmD Cobra Sport has been involved in motorsport for over 25 years, during which time it has developed the resources, personnel, capabilities and experience necessary to reach the pinnacle of the sport. The story of AmD Cobra Sport is one of tireless effort and dedication, ignited by the passion of the team that has been put together as the team has moved up the motorsport ladder. AmD Cobra Sport now operates at the highest level of British Motorsport, running a multi-car programme in the British Touring Car Championship, and has also successfully campaigned cars in both the British GT Championship and the Le Mans Cup; including fielding a car on the support package for the famous Le Mans 24 Hours.
Sponsorship and Marketing Brochure
What is the BTCC
04 BTCC Motorsport Programme
The British Touring Car Championship is one of the most popular motorsport series’ to be found anywhere in the world and also one of the oldest, having celebrated it’s 60th anniversary season in 2018.
It means the series benefits from more than 200 hours of broadcast coverage, with race highlights also available to fans on demand via the dedicated BTCC section of the ITV website.
The battle for top honours in the series is fought out across ten meetings at eight of the top circuits across the UK.
Those factors combined have helped make the BTCC a hugely attractive option for teams, drivers and manufacturers, with the likes of Ford, Vauxhall, Renault, Alfa Romeo, Volvo and Honda amongst those to have used the series to showcase their latest models over the years.
Each race weekend features two 40 minute practice sessions and a half hour long qualifying session on Saturday, with three races of equal length then taking place on Sunday. On track results are crucial during race day, with the result from race one being used to determine the starting grid for race two, and the final race including a reverse grid draw where anything from the top six to the top twelve from race two is switched on its head. Since being founded back in 1958, the BTCC has been universally popular with race fans who are drawn in by the action-packed racing, the accessibility to the stars, and the fact they can relate to the cars competing on track; all of which are based on some of the most popular models seen on UK roads. Trackside attendance figures continue to rise on a yearly basis, whilst the series has a free-to-air TV package that is unrivalled by any other form of motorsport thanks to a long-standing partnership with ITV. That partnership includes live coverage of each event on ITV4 HD, with a highlights package following all ten rounds that airs on both ITV and ITV4.
Since the advent of the NGTC regulations, cars representing no fewer than 14 different brands have appeared on the grid, giving the BTCC the kind of variety not seen anywhere else in the world. Busy race days include support race action from Porsche, Ginetta, Renault and British F4, as well as a popular pitlane walkabout – providing huge value for money for spectators. Free admission for children at most venues means families play a major part in creating a friendly atmosphere in the grandstands and on the spectator banking.
BTCC Championship Dates 2019 Round Date
Circuit
County
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Brands Hatch (Indy) Donington Park Thruxton Croft Oulton Park Snetterton Thruxton Knockhill Silverstone Brands Hatch (GP)
Kent Leicestershire Hampshire North Yorkshire Cheshire Norfolk Hampshire Fife Northamptonshire Kent
06-07 April 27-28 April 18-19 May 15-16 June 29-30 June 03-04 August 17-18 August 14-15 September 28-29 September 12-13 October
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Technical
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The BTCC has long been a leader when it comes to technical innovations, and the current era is no different after the introduction of the Next Generation Touring Car Regulations. NGTC-spec cars are larger than the Super 2000-spec cars they replaced and feature a series of standardised parts – including the turbo, gearbox, subframe, suspension and brakes – that helps to reduce the costs involved in competing in the sport. The move to a fresh set of regulations saw the introduction of a new engine formula, with teams now running a two-litre turbo-powered unit as opposed to the normally-aspirated engines that had previously been the norm. The new engines have been designed to be cheaper to run than S2000-spec units and while teams can develop their own engines - as long as it is from the same family as the car they are using - there is the option of running an unbranded engine provided by series organisers TOCA. Larger brakes and larger tyres also mean improved performance on track, with the series having been open only to
BTCC Motorsport Programme
NGTC-spec machinery since 2014. The decision to develop the new regulations, at a time when teams and sponsors alike were dealing with challenging economic times, has proved to be something of a masterstroke by series organisers. Rather than seeing grid numbers fall, the series has instead welcomed new manufacturers, new teams and new cars as part of capacity grids, with smaller teams that would previously have been unable to develop their own cars, now in a position where they can produce a machine capable of challenging at the front of the field. Having switched to NGTC machinery in 2014, AmD Cobra Sport has continued to move forwards up the grid; becoming increasingly competitive in a field that is arguably as strong as it has ever been. The addition of the Honda Civic Type-R to the team’s line-up provides AmD Cobra Sport with the chance to work with one of the most successful cars of the current era, with the aim being to fight for race wins and championship silverware during the year ahead.
07 Sponsorship and Marketing Brochure
Sponsorship A walk up and down the BTCC paddock provides a clear indication of the profile that the series holds with sponsors, with a number of blue chip companies making use of the series to promote their brands in recent years. Tesco, eBay Motors and Halfords have all seen the benefit of the series in recent years, with their involvement in Britain’s top racing series putting their product in front of a TV audience of well over 20 million in the UK alone. That’s alongside the hundreds of thousands of people who follow the action trackside across the ten race weekends that make up each season. The series is about much more than making the most of the advertising space available on a car to promote a product to the consumer market, with an increasing number of companies using their involvement in the championship to entertain clients and make the most of the B2B (Business-to-business) opportunities that are available. For others, the ability to work alongside a team competing in the most competitive form of motorsport in the UK helps to push forwards with technological advances that it can then take to the marketplace. Title sponsor Dunlop is a prime example, having long used its involvement in the BTCC to develop new technology that it can then offer to its customers.
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Sam Tordoff
Nationality: British Date of Birth: 16/03/1987
Nationality: British Date of Birth: 19/04/1989
Rory Butcher embarks on his second full season in the BTCC having agreed a deal to remain with AmD Cobra Sport for the 2019 campaign.
Sam Tordoff joins Cobra Sport AmD having firmly established himself as one of the leading drivers in the BTCC.
Having followed the single-seater route in the early stages of his career, Rory moved into sportcars in 2010, finishing second in the GT4 class of the British GT Championship and also making his first foray into the BTCC-support Porsche Carrera Cup with the Celtic Speed team. Three seasons in the Porsche series saw Rory secure multiple race wins and a best finish of third in the championship standings before he made the decision to make a return to GT competition. Alongside wins in the British GT Championship, Rory also competed in the European Le Mans Series and Blancpain Endurance Series, whilst Stateside to compete in the prestigious Rolex 24 at Daytona. The highlight came in 2016, when three wins in the ELMS seeing Rory take second in the GTE class. Set to focus on sportscar racing again in 2017, Rory received an unexpected chance to move into the BTCC with the Motorbase team mid-season and quickly got up to speed with a front-wheel drive touring car – scoring two top ten finishes on his debut. Having been a regular contender for points in 2018 at the wheel of one of AmD’s MG6 GTs, Rory will now seek to fight for podium finishes and race wins at the wheel of the Honda during the year ahead.
After a successful career in karting as a youngster, Sam moved into car racing in 2009 in the BTCC-supporting Renault Clio Cup, taking the Graduate Cup title in his second season before switching to the Porsche Carrera Cup GB. A two-year spell in the sportscar series yielded a best championship finish of third before he secured a move into touring cars with the works MG team in 2013 – three years after a one-off outing with the Triple Eight team at Brands Hatch. On the pace from the outset, Sam would score a podium first time out and secured his maiden win later in the year, adding more silverware to his tally before switching to West Surrey Racing. Two years with the BMW team saw Sam develop into a championship contender and he came agonisingly close to the title in 2016; ending up second to Gordon Shedden. Following a year away racing in the British GT Championship, Sam returned to the BTCC in 2018 in a Motorbase-run Ford and showed he had lost none of his speed – topping the qualifying averages and winning at Silverstone. Now at the wheel of a car he has dreamed of driving for a number of years, Sam heads into 2019 with his focus on challenging for his first BTCC crown.
The Drivers
Rory Butcher
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TV and Media
Understandably, the BTCC commands huge media coverage around the UK, including a TV package that virtually unrivalled by any series outside Formula One. An ever-increasing commitment from ITV has now given the championship a platform of which rival series can only dream, with well over 200 hours of coverage being provided by the broadcaster over the course of the year. That includes extensive live programming on both ITV4 and ITV4 HD alongside highlights shown on ITV1, ITV4 and ITV4 HD. Qualifying is also available live via the ITV website, with races available online and on demand following each race weekend Crucially, that means all coverage of the BTCC is available on a free-to-air basis, while an average of seven hours of live
coverage on race day puts all other forms of motorsport – including F1 – firmly in the shade. Outside the UK, highlights air in each of the six continents meaning potential audience figures running into the billions. In other forms of the media, national press coverage sits alongside extensive reporting in the traditional motorsport media – both on and off-line. At a time when the face of the media is changing, both the BTCC and its competitors have embraced the use of social networks, with the series invariably trending on Twitter on a race weekend as fans seek to keep up to date with the insider news being provided by those in the paddock.
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Statistics
2018 BTCC Global Television Coverage Country
Network
Australia Portugal Thailand USA. Canada
Speed Sport TV Grand Prix CBS Sports
Transmissions Homes
30 30 30 20
1,000,000 650,000 19,500,000 60,000,000
52-minute international highlight programmes from all ten BTCC rounds
BTCC Trackside Attendance Year Total
Year Total
2006 255,000 2007 275.000 2008 295,000 2009 310,000 2010 320,000 2011 366,000 2012 371,000
2013 373,000 2014 378,000 2015 382,000 2016 384,500 2017 385,100 2018 381,600
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Totals are cumulative three-day attendance at all ten BTCC meetings.
Graph to compare ITV BTCC coverage with the number of UK TV viewers 300
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UK TV Airtime
UK TV Airtime (hrs)
15 200 10 100 5
0
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
0
Year
* Cumulative audience number/hours weighted according to programme duration hours, which reflects sustained viewing of more than three minutes.
Total UK TV Audience* (million)
Total UK TV Audience
AmD Tuning
Unit 6 Cliffside Trade Park Motherwell Way West Thurrock Essex RM20 3LE Tel: +44 (0) 1708 861827 www.amdtuning.com
BTCC Motorsport Programme