Yvan Muller: 61 not out!

61 not out. That is the remarkable record of Yvan Muller in the BTCC. What exactly are we talking about? It is not 61 race victories (not even Yvan is that good, although with 35 to his name he is currently the joint-third most successful BTCC driver of all time, and needs just one more to equal Alain Menu). It is not 61 skirmishes with Jason Plato. It is not even 61 Gallic shrugs so far this season.

Heading to Snetterton, Yvan Muller has scored BTCC Drivers’ Championship points at each of the last 61 BTCC meetings. The last time Yvan failed to get on the scoreboard was at Brands Hatch in 1999. Having won a race and pulled off one of the most impressive moves of all time at the Kent circuit’s Paddock Bend earlier in the year, Muller could only manage an 11th place finish and a DNF (after a first lap clash with Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini) at the August Bank Holiday meeting. Incidentally, he would have been ineligible for points even if he had finished inside the top ten – as a result of rolling his Vectra in the morning’s warm-up session, he was using the spare car for the second time that year, which ruled him out of adding to his points tally.

At Mondello Park, Muller equalled his best ever points haul in the BTCC, scoring a massive 40 points, which he also managed at the first meeting of the season at Donington Park. With championship leader Matt Neal scoring just 25 points in Ireland, Muller made up substantial ground on the Team Halfords driver in the title chase.

So with twelve races remaining, can we expect the see the new for 2005 Astra Sport Hatch edging out the Honda Integra, or was Mondello just a one-off?

Muller said, “We are still working, progressing with the car. It will be a bit difficult over the next few races because they are circuits with long straights. When there are long straights, our car…we know that it is not the best.”

“We are learning, but it is really…really tiny little details. We are not finding big things with the car, just little things. But these tiny things make a big difference. It is always difficult to work out these little bits of info, but at the moment we seem to be doing quite well.”

In the first half of the season, Muller has found himself in a somewhat unfamiliar position. For the past four seasons the Astra Coupé has been the car to beat, but starting from scratch in 2005, Vauxhall were beaten from the blocks by independent runners Team Halfords. After 18 races last year, Muller was three points ahead of eventual champion James Thompson. This year he is 13 points behind Neal.

“For the championship, we have learnt that it is never over until the end. I know that only too well. I think that at Croft [Team Halfords] didn’t have their best weekend, and they haven’t [at Mondello] either, and who knows, maybe it will continue.”

Things may have been different at Mondello, had Muller’s Triple Eight team not made an uncharacteristic mistake on the grid ahead of the second race. They changed the tyres on Muller’s Astra Sport Hatch after the three-minute signal had been shown ahead of the race. In the damp conditions SEAT Sport UK and Synchro Motorsport also fell foul of the same regulation and all were handed 30-second stop-go penalties. Starting from pole, Muller was forced to give up a likely top five finish.

It proved not to be too much of a hindrance for the Frenchman however, as he quickly began to make up time on the backmarkers, lapping up to eight seconds quicker than other cars on the track.

The top ten finishers in the second race of the day are reversed to form the grid for the third race and it soon became clear that Muller had tenth, and therefore pole, in his sights.

“It was hard to make up the time”, commented Muller. “And I made a mistake and went off into the gravel trap, which didn’t help. I managed to get out, and I got up into the top ten. At that point I said to myself, ‘what do I do? Do I play for 10th, or do I try and score as many points as possible?’ Personally, I always try and score, because you never know what will happen in the third race. If you don’t finish, you then haven’t scored in two races. Also, my job is to attack, to get the best results possible. Not to fight for tenth place. At least that way you will have scored in the first two races.”

My job is to attack, to get the best results possible. Not to fight for tenth."   - YM

Muller made his way through to sixth position which landed him five championship points and fifth on the grid for race three. This proved a race of attrition. There was excitement for the gathered crowd and live TV audience, but among the drivers, the action on track was frantic. Fortunately for Yvan, he made a strong start and managed to pull away at the front and get past Tom Chilton to lead the race, keeping out of trouble as a result.

Engulfed in a race of his own at the front, did Yvan know what was happening to his championship rivals behind him? Did he know that Matt Neal was fighting dicing with the gravel traps?

“Absolutely not”, said Yvan. “My engineer and my mechanic don’t say anything to me [during the race], unless I ask them something. The only time they came on the radio in that race was to say ‘safety car’. Safety car, ok, it is important to know that, but otherwise they only talk to me if I ask them for information. What do I need to know? I have the pitboard with my position and the gap back to the car following me. After that, knowing who’s behind me doesn’t help me. There is enough for me to do in the car.”

Keeping things under control at the front, Muller brought the Astra Sport Hatch home for his second win of the weekend, which completed a hat-trick for Vauxhall and making sure the Luton marque took away shining memories from the Emerald Isle.

“[It was] an excellent weekend for Vauxhall. Three victories, three races. We couldn’t have hoped for anything better. Pole position, two fastest laps. The only thing we didn’t get was the fastest lap in the second race.”

So will the success continue at Snetterton? Will Vauxhall be breaking out the bubbly once again, or will the championship pendulum swing back in the favour of Team Halfords and Matt Neal?

“It will be hard. It will be hard because it is another track with fast straights, and we know that our car is not best suited to that type of track. But, who knows?”

By Matt Lamprell