Having announced the new monthly Ask Alan feature at the end of March, the Official BTCC website has been collating your questions in order to gather exclusive answers from series Chief Executive Alan Gow on all the hot topics in the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship.

Here's the latest selection of questions (and answers of course!) with many more to come throughout the year:

Have you ever considered a one-off BTCC event abroad? (Joel Taylor)

There is simply no real benefit to the championship in doing so; it would cost the teams a lot more money and it would inevitably result in one less BTCC race weekend within the UK... which would be pretty nonsensical, given that we are a British championship.

How did you start off in motorsport? (Sharon Milburn)

I joined a car club (in Melbourne, Australia) and just started helping some teams/drivers at local club events.

Joining a club is such a great and inexpensive way to become involved in the sport. After all, if I can go from being a ‘gopher’ cleaning wheels on a 1967 Mini Cooper in a local club event, to running the BTCC then anything is possible…  

For more information: https://www.barc.net/membership

Will you ever bring back the end-of-season shoot-out? (Richard Edwards)

As that would be an additional race meeting, then it would also be significantly more budget for teams to find. But if the teams wanted to increase their budgets and have an additional event, then I imagine it would be better applied to having an extra race meeting of the BTCC.
 
Are there any discussions about taking the BTCC to other tracks in the UK or even maybe returning to Mondello Park in Ireland? (Colm McCrilly)

There are simply no other venues in the UK (that we don’t already visit) which have the infrastructure capable of handling the size of our events. There are no discussions regarding Mondello.

In an interview it was discussed that Team Dynamics tried to get a third car in the championship but couldn't; why is the limit on the number of cars what it is now when you could have more cars? (Colm McCrilly)

Limiting the size of the grid enables the teams to maximise their very considerable investment in the BTCC. It’s the same in most other major sports; there is usually a cap on the number of teams that can participate.

So increasing the size of the grid would really undermine their investment, as well as destroying the fundamental commitment that was made to all our teams that we would not increase it from the current level.

Are there any plans in the future to reintroduce races with pit-stops or a feature-length race once a season, like a finale at Silverstone GP or the like? (Jamie House)

Each time the subject of pit-stops/longer races is discussed with the teams, there is never a clear consensus. My own view is that, given we have relatively short sprint races which are always close and hard-fought, it actually makes little sense to break up an exciting race by doing a pit-stop for no real reason.

Of all the developments that you've instigated since you took over as BTCC Chief Executive, what's the one you are most proud of? (Wendda Knapp)

Without a doubt the current NGTC regulations. They have proven to be an outstanding set of technical regulations which have now been in place for ten years and are set to continue until 2027.

To my mind, they are the best technical regulations ever developed for the BTCC… and that is underlined by our capacity grids, the great diversity of such evenly-matched cars, the closeness of our racing and the longevity of the regulations.

Do you think that as we go into the hybrid/electric era, that you may start to see interest for the BTCC from companies such as Tesla? Would you be happy to see these manufacturers join the BTCC and the TOCA paddock? (Nicky Byrne)

As Tesla doesn’t make hybrid cars, then it’s highly unlikely they would be interested.  But of course, we would welcome manufacturers who are invested in hybrid technology.

We're giving fans the opportunity to send in their questions for Ask Alan on a monthly basis, with the next batch due to be published at the end of May. Click here to send in your questions now.