2001 BTCC season

The 2001 theAA.com MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 44th British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season and marked the beginning of a new era of lower-cost rules and regulations for the series.

2001 saw a complete overhaul of the BTCC, aimed at reducing the cost of competition and making the series more appealing to the fans.

The spectacular but expensive Supertouring car regulations were finally ditched at the end of 2000. 2001 saw the field divided into two classes: BTC-T and BTC-P. The latter was a simple renaming of 2000's "Class B" Super Production specification cars, whereas BTC-T (T for Touring) was a completely new set of rules designed to produce closer racing and cheaper cars to build.

The new rules provoked different reactions from the three remaining manufacturers in the BTCC. Ford withdrew completely, Honda took a year out to develop a car to the new rules while Vauxhall immediately set to work on a new car and entered four new-regulation Astra Coupes built and run by Triple 8 Racing. Yvan Muller and Jason Plato remained in first two entries under the Vauxhall Motorsport banner, while James Thompson moved from Honda to partner Phil Bennett, debuting in the BTCC, in Egg Sport-liveried cars. Two new manufacturers were attracted to the series: Peugeot entered a trio of Vic Lee Racing-prepared 406 Coupes driven by Matt Neal (who left after the first round to compete in the European Touring Car Championship for Team Dynamics), Class B graduate Dan Eaves and touring car veteran Steve Soper. The team re-expanded to three cars for Donington, as superbike racer Aaron Slight made a guest appearance whilst evaluating a full-time switch to four wheels the following year. MG began development of a ZS built to the new regulations courtesy of West Surrey Racing, this made guest appearances in the hands of ex-Ford and Nissan driver Anthony Reid and former Formula 3 racer Warren Hughes during closing rounds of the season in preparation for a full campaign in 2002. Two small independent teams filled out the Touring class grid ambitiously entering new cars: JSM fielded a pair of Alfa Romeo 147s in an assault headed by 1992 BTCC champion Tim Harvey in a driver/team manager role. Across the year Tom Ferrier, David Pinkney and Mark Blair would all appear in the second car. ABG Motorsport entered a Lexus IS200 for Kurt Luby, with plans to expand to a second car for Brazilian GT racer Thomas Erdos later in the year. This did not come off and instead Erdos took Luby's drive mid-season while the running of the car was taken over by Total Motorsport. Driver-turned-motoring journalist Steve Sutcliffe drove the car as a guest entry in the final round.

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