The Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship got underway for the 2015 season at Brands Hatch this weekend and it didn’t disappoint.

While for some there was success and trophies and comebacks for others it was pure frustration as they couldn’t achieve what they had set out to achieve on Good Friday.

Ultimately each of the three races had its own drama with three different winners, mechanical failures, racing incidents and thrills and spills on almost every lap. The gap at the end was close with less than half a second between first and second as the chequered flag fell in every race.

Race one saw victory go to Rob Collard of West Surrey Racing in his rear wheel drive BMW, taking the early plaudits much like his teammate Andy Priaulx had done on Saturday by storming to pole position. He was followed home by the ever impressive Aron Smith who is turning into something of a BTCC favourite already this season, and the ever impressive Jason Plato for Team BMR.

The second race of the weekend looked to be going the way of Plato as he stormed into a commanding lead from pole position, but an unfortunate puncture saw him off and into the gravel. Then the battle really began to rage between Gordon Sheddon in the Honda Civic and Priaulx in the BMW, they would be separated if you could call it that as they crossed the line by 0.040s. With defending champion Colin Turkington now with Team BMR taking third place.

In the final race of the weekend, there was more success for Honda with the veteran Matt Neal taking victory. This time from Jack Goff who started on the front row and maintained that in an impressive drive. Aron Smith impressed once again with a drive to third position, which showed he could be a title contender in 2015.

Locally we went into the season with Wrotham based Motorbase Performance taking a sabbatical but that didn’t matter as there was still much Kent representation on the grid.

Mike Bushell from Tunbridge Wells making his debut in the BTCC having moved up from the Clio Cup for this season, netted the best result of the weekend for the local teams and drivers. He took an impressive 12^th place in the final race of the weekend, and with it he was the top rookie driver and the Jack Sears winner for the Brands Hatch round. Ultimately Mike didn’t look out of place and was competitive in all three races in his AMD Tuning prepared Ford Focus.

Team Hard made their long awaited return to the series, having been absent since 2013 and their Toyota Avensis is one of the best looking cars on the grid, and it was good to see the team run by Tony Gilham back on the grid. Kieran Gallagher is another driver in his rookie season in the BTCC and he acquitted himself well, with a best placed finish of 20^th. There ae plenty of positives for the team to take and build upon for round two at Donington Park.

Unfortunately for Andy Wilmot who was making his debut in the Welch Motorsport Proton, his weekend never really got going. He had issues in free practice and then qualifying, all of which meant that he couldn’t take to the grid for any of the weekend’s racing, which left the local lad devastated.

The season moves onto Donington Park in two weeks’ time and if the opening weekend is anything to go by, the BTCC round two is going to be just as entertaining.

Images courtesy of www.psp-images.co.uk