page_title: 2001 British Touring Car Championship
section_title: New regulations
hierarchical_section_title: 2001 British Touring Car Championship / Changes for 2001 / New regulations
caption_attribution_description: English: BTCC 2001 Jason Plato Vauxhall Astra Coupe. Round 1, Brands Hatch
context_page_description: The 2001 theAA.com MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 44th British Touring Car Championship season and marked the beginning of a new era of lower-cost rules and regulations for the series.
context_section_description: The escalating costs of Supertouring in the late 1990s had seen manufacturers withdrawing as they were no longer able to justify spending the vast amounts of money required to stay competitive and in the British championship in particular independent entries had dropped to an all time low. In 1999 TOCA had begun looking at the next generation of touring car with changes that included simplified aerodynamics, less expensive carbon fibre and more common parts. In June 2000 BMP unveiled plans for the new look formula designed to be "both spectacular and cost effective..." this included allowing manufacturers to use 2 or 3 door cars, no complicated aerodynamics, and standardized parts such as brakes, wheels, gearbox and differential. It also initially stipulated that only front wheel drive cars would be eligible, however this was later changed to allow rear wheel drive cars.
  2001 saw the field divided into two classes: BTC-T (Touring class for the new specification cars) and BTC-P (Production for super production based cars, known previously as Class B).
  The race format for 2001 was slightly tweaked, there would be three races per weekend - two separate sprint races, one for the BTC-T class and one for the BTC-P class followed by a combined feature race where the BTC-T class would be required to make a 2 tyre stop between 15 and 75% distance as with the previous three seasons. The BTC-P class cars would not be required to stop. In part this format was introduced to allow the BTC-P teams to score and overall victory/podium and not be in the shadow of the BTC-T class. This format was implemented at the opening round however due to the low grid numbers in the BTC-T class (only eight cars completed qualifying) the sprint race was also combined for the remainder of the season. In order for BTC-P teams to still challenge for an overall victory they would have to complete one less lap, BTC-T teams would start first then after a time delay that varied depending on track length the BTC-P teams got the green light. The BTC-T teams would have to catch and effectively un-lap themselves which created a tortoise and hare style race. Across the season the sprint victories were evenly mixed with seven 'outright' victories for the BTC-P class.
  
  However both classes had their own points system so this made no difference in terms of the championship and it was seen as unnecessarily confusing to the casual fan and was ultimately dropped for 2002.
caption: Jason Plato, Vauxhall Astra Coupe during qualifying for round 1 at Brands Hatch
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