Shedden is back. The three-time BTCC champion has made a second (to those being anal it’s a third, or even fourth if you include 2001-06 and the middle of 09) comeback to the championship that made his name. Gordon steps into a Toyota that has won races, but title wise it has not been a car that has been able – over a season – to step on the toes of the WSR BMW, Alliance Ford Focus or Excelr8 Hyundai since it was introduced in 2019.

This season it seems it could be a bit different. Shedden has compared the Corolla to the Honda Civic FK2 Type R that took him to the 2015 and 2016 titles. A decade on from that period and he’s motivated to add to his total and match Ash Sutton, Colin Turkington and Andy Rouse in the four-time club.

The smart money on where the 2025 title will go is on the top three from the last few years – Sutton, Tom Ingram and Jake Hill – which would ensure that the current club doors remain shut. Shedden has a pass to the bar thanks to his previous success in the championship, and if he was to grab another top of the table slot this year he’d make sure that the exclusivity of the BTCC crown remains away from the head of any ‘outsiders,’ but at some point someone new is going to kick the door in, start a bar fight and claim the golden hat, but who could that be?

For 2025 it appears that there are four possibilities to at least put pressure on the usual suspects. Four drivers who, if things were to go in the right direction, could be claiming the greater share of the sparkling wine across the season. Naturally Josh Cook is the first name that comes to mind.

When it was announced that Cook was returning to his old stomping ground with One Motorsport (formerly BTC) with a car that hasn’t run since 2022, there was an immediate reaction among some sections of the fanbase that he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Going back to a team that had sat out a season after a dismal year with the ex-Dynamics version of the Honda Civic FK8 with a ‘works’ engine, to jump back into action with their own version of that car with a ‘customer’ engine – that didn’t appear to bode well from the outside.

The Croft test – the first official re-install for the squad ran quite smooth. Teammate Stephen Jelley had an engine change, but it was almost as if the team hadn’t been absent. For Cook it was two days of running with more reliability than a couple of teams, and pace in spades. Then came the Donington Season Launch – with a qualifying run that topped the times. Cook put out there that the car – a chassis that he took to 16 wins over four seasons – is almost where he wants it. Along with the Cupra, losing the weight has given the Civic a new lease of life. Its on-track demeanour is different to its last outing with hybrid in 2022, and Cook looks so much more comfortable on track with the car – especially through the fast stuff – just looking compliant in every respect – and Cook in those two tests just looks so much more content out of the machine than he has at any point over the last three campaigns.

We all know Cook as a driver is a match for Ingram, Hill and Sutton. Last year in the Toyota was supposed to be his chance to have a car built around him that he’d steer for a couple of seasons, but it didn’t work out, and shorn of the politics surrounding the last couple of years, and with a new determination – and the team and car showing they still have pace – this old partnership could top the 2021 season where Cook scored his best championship position of third.

Over at Toyota the pre-season hype surrounded Shedden on his return, but many with sage thoughts consider Árón Taylor-Smith to be the one with the potential to disrupt the settled championship order. A decade back Smith (as he was then) was a ‘coming man.’ Two wins in 2014 in the VW CC had shown great potential, and staying with the car into 2015, he was about to team up with former champions Jason Plato and Colin Turkington. It was a chance for Smith to prove his worth, but for various reasons it didn’t quite go that way. Whether the performances of his illustrious companions, or politics, held him back does not matter now. He didn’t win a race, while those two challenged for the title – from that point on it was a tough climb back up the slope.

After a break, then two years being full of enthusiasm with the not too competitive Team HARD Cupra, Taylor-Smith joined Power Maxed, and over the last two seasons has made the ageing Astra sing. An almost win for the underdog setup came in 2023, and last year the Independent driver crown. with points finishes in all 30 races, was his payoff. Had it not been for the dismal decision by the owners of Evans Halshaw to drop PMR deep in the shit late on in pre-season, ATS might have been tasked with the same Indie job – but in an increasing arena where Restart Racing and One Motorsport would now be major opponents – making a repeat very questionable, but fate prodded Taylor-Smith into taking a different direction – to Toyota.

The car made huge strides in the middle of last season according to former drivers Rob Huff and Josh Cook. With further improvements over the winter there is a feeling that this could be the season where Speedworks really challenge, and the signing of Shedden has had tongues wagging. The performance of Taylor-Smith over 2023/24 has had fans wondering what he would do in a front running car, a decade on from his last perceived ‘big’ chance. It’s not the results from the last two years that matter – it’s the performance, and if that carries over into 2025, then it has to be Taylor-Smith who will be the favourite Gazoo Racing son, and if this car works this season, with ATS carrying his speed over, then he truly has to be a realistic prospect when it comes to breaking the status quo surely?

While Cook and Taylor-Smith are dependent on their machinery taking a step forward in addition to their abilities when it comes to breaking the circle, for the other two drivers, it’s mainly down to them. The #onlydans – Cammish and Rowbottom – have a car that is capable of winning the title. Ash Sutton is the de facto team leader, and has been since arriving with Cammish in 2022, but both Dan and Dan have shown that they, on any given day, can match and beat him. Admittedly they haven’t over a season been able to match the four-time champion, but Cammish has been beset by some of the worst luck in the paddock, and Rowbotton has fell down a couple of off-track black holes. Both however come into 2025 reinvigorated and armed for combat in a situation where most of the grid would have jumped to another team.

The ability of Cammish has never been in doubt. He proved that in 2019. Donington Park has bit hard in ruining his chances, since his NAPA move, with a huge brake induced crash and a fire prior to last season – but last year was neve going to be a NAPA year, the Focus was a step behind the Beemer and Hyundai. This season though the car seems alive, and Cammish seems to have the perfect headspace – which is the same with Rowbottom. Up and down pitlane there have been a few people peeking along and musing what will happen if a well-balanced Rowbottom puts all the pieces together – because the raw speed is there in spades.

The belief is still that Sutton has the edge – but if he takes a couple of hard hits to his points early on it’ll be a harder job to rebuild a championship charge than in previous years, given that the BTCC is growing in quality and quantity, but if Cammish or Rowbottom keep their noses clean and deliver, deliver, deliver, then there’s no reason why either should be ruled out from being a bridesmaid in their own team yet again to become the groom.

The general consensus is that of the pair Cammish has the upper hand, thanks in part to spending more time at the front of the field, and having a pre-BTCC career that has seen him involved in title battles. The psychology of those situations cannot be simply cast-off. Harking back to that 2019 season where Cammish almost clinched the BTCC crown, there are lessons that have been taken and one would expect that Cammish – a driver who wears his heart on his sleeve – will remember that but for a technical failure, he had that aspect bagged, which is something that Rowbottom doesn’t have in his armoury, but that doesn’t mean that the two-time BTCC race winner isn’t psychologically strong, because he appears to be far more focussed than previous years.

Rowbottom has confessed that pressures on the commercial side of the sport have affected him over the last couple of years, in the sense that he was too involved in that side of the deal on race days, and despite trying to alleviate that for 2024 he continued to live a double life on a weekend. Those of a racing driver and commercially involved representative, which he’s determined to fully separate for this season. With a clear mind and hunger a couple of wins is not enough, and there seems to be a little more clarity than there was 12 months ago. His vision is – he has the car, he has the speed, and he has watched the best at work from close quarters – add that together and the possibility of a breakthrough season becomes a realistic proposal.

With all of the pre-season hype now out of the way it’s time to see if any of these drivers can halt the repetitive pattern of the last few years with either Ash Sutton being toppled from within, or a different marque with Honda and Toyota possibly elevating a driver to the top of the tree for the first time since 2017, if the lead triumvirate of Hill, Ingram, Sutton are forced to give way that is!