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2000 British Touring Car Championship

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Start date
  
2000

2000 British Touring Car Championship httpsiytimgcomviNByHAOSZsn4hqdefaultjpg

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1999 British Touring C, 1998 British Touring C, 1997 British Touring C, 1995 British Touring C, 1992 British Touring C

The 2000 Auto Trader RAC British Touring Car Championship season was the 43rd British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season and marked the final year for Super Touring specification cars in the championship. The champion was Alain Menu driving a Ford Mondeo, while Alan Morrison won the newly introduced Class B championship in a Peugeot 306 GTi.

Contents

Changes for 2000

  • Nissan, Renault and Volvo retired their works teams, thus leaving only three manufacturers with factory supported entries: Ford, Honda and Vauxhall.
  • 1999 champion Laurent Aïello did not return to defend his crown, the Frenchman instead signing with Audi to compete in Le Mans and the newly revived DTM championship in Germany.
  • After a difficult 1999 season, former double champion John Cleland announced his retirement from the series.
  • Honda enlisted works JAS Motorsport drivers, 1994 champion Gabriele Tarquini and Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen to partner James Thompson, and signed off Peter Kox.
  • Rickard Rydell joined the Ford team from the departed Volvo squad.
  • At Vauxhall, Yvan Muller was partnered by Jason Plato and Vincent Radermecker, having joined from Renault and Volvo respectively.
  • A smaller Super Touring field for 2000 resulted in the introduction of "Class B" cars based on Super Production regulations.

    • Outside drivers and teams changes, some important regulations came into play.

    - With only three manufacturer teams left vying for the title, each ran a 3-car campaign for the 2000 season.

    - Michelin, now the sole tyre supplier, developed new compounds of tyres for the drivers but an intermediate option would no longer be available. The only choice for drivers was slick tyres or full wets which meant tyre choices in greasy or changeable conditions was more crucial than ever. To make matters even more difficult, tyre warmers were no longer allowed in advance of the race. As a result, the drivers had to take to the track on ill-handling cold tyres at the beginning of the race and after pit-stops.

    - Success ballast was introduced for the 2000 season. The top three finishers of the sprint and feature race at a meeting were allocated a ballast to be applied at the next meeting. It was distributed as 40kg for a winner, 30kg for 2nd place and 20kg for 3rd place, with the ballast capped at 40kg.

    - A dropped-scores system was put in place for 2000. This meant a driver would drop his four worst results from the season before tallying his overall points haul.

    Calendar

    All races were held in the United Kingdom.

    Championship results tables

  • No driver may collect more than one "Lead a Lap" point per race no matter how many laps they lead.
  • Drivers' top 20 results count towards the championship.

    • Note: bold signifies pole position in class (1 point awarded all races), italics signifies fastest lap in class (1 point awarded all races) and * signifies that driver lead feature race for at least one lap (1 point given).

    ‡ Retired before second start of race

    Touring Teams Championship

    ‡ Retired before second start of race

    References

    2000 British Touring Car Championship Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA