Frank Williams once said: “Next to Formula 1, the BTCC is the most important series in the world outside America.” He was right.
With more than a million people watching their favorite drivers battle it out in the British Touring Car Championship every Sunday, few other live sports programs have come close.
Having Williams lead Renault’s works team showed just how serious the French carmaker is about winning. At this point, Williams had many driver and constructor championships in Formula 1 to its name, and the level achieved in the field of touring car racing – both on a technical and commercial level – forced the rest of the BTCC field to catch up. Prior to this, Renault had little success with the R19 and the first year of the Laguna, so the involvement of Williams was badly needed.
At the recent Brands Hatch Super Touring Power event with two ex-BTCC Willams-Renault Lagunas, it was an opportunity to not only get a close look at the cars and see all the details, but also what it would have been like to watch them race. period against their rivals.
While the regulations had some limitations, Williams took the rule book and developed a car at the limit. First released in 1994, the new Lagunas were quick out of the box, but fragile. Despite this, Williams-Renault finished second overall in the championship.
For the next few years, Renault was consistently in the top half of the field, and the Lagunas excelled on the fast, flowing tracks. Success finally came in 1997 when Williams-Renault were so dominant that they won 14 out of 24 races and had the championship with six rounds to go. Alain Menu was responsible for 12 of these victories, while the other two belonged to Jason Plato, who was still a rookie at the time.
A look under the car shows how different the suspension is from the original. The pickup points and geometry have been radically changed for razor-sharp handling.
If you fit the car with the air lifts, you can see how small their suspension is.
Given the raised nature of the wheels, steering lock was also minimal. This meant that once the cars had passed a fairly shallow point, the drivers were just on their way.
Sodemo Moteurs, the supplier of Renault racing engines for the various motorsport sectors, has dry sump 1998cc engines with a power well in excess of 300 HP. That power went through a Hewland sequential transmission to 19-inch magnesium OZ Racing wheels.
The change of Nescafé’s main sponsor resulted in a completely new color scheme for Renault’s 1998 season. At that time, the competition was much more intense, which, according to many, resulted in the high point of the Super Tourer era. Unfortunately, success was more difficult for Renault and they ended up winning only four rounds.
In 1999, Renault managed only one round win, which led to their complete withdrawal at the end of the season. Nissan and Volvo did the same. The writing was on the wall and it wasn’t long before the Super Tourer era was consigned to the history books. By 2001, the TOCA rules had changed dramatically, abruptly ending what many look back on as the golden age of touring car racing.
Chaydon Ford
Instagram: chaycore
