This weekend at Thruxton marks the start of the 2010 season as the team’s compete at Britain’s fastest circuit, hoping to start the season with a bang.

Four of the drivers on the grid have all been past winners at the Hampshire circuit. Jason Plato and Mat Jackson have both scored a brace of wins with Matt Neal and Gordan Shedden having won once a piece.

Jason Plato will be heading into Sunday’s race with all eyes on him after he has been widely touted as the one to take the title even before a wheel had been turned. Plato left it late but signed a deal to stay with RML for a second consecutive year. RML will be this year running under the Silverline Chevrolet banner after the car manufacturer injected money into the team making them one of two works teams on the grid.

The Chevrolet Cruze, a new car to the British Touring Cars, has aleady shown it’s true pace as it topped the time sheets at the Brands Hatch circuit during the recent Media Day.

Matt Neal, as always, is another driver that will be at the sharp end of the field during all three of Sunday’s races. After moving back to his fathers Team Dynamics outfit, now renamed Honda Racing with the Honda Civic, he is more confident than ever and this will show in his racing.

BMW will be able to use their pace this weekend but we’re still yet to know how the longer 1st gear ratio will affect the three teams, Airwaves BMW, WSR and Forster Motorsport.

This weekend will see a return to the rear-wheeled drive BMW for Mat Jackson and Steven Kane in the Airwaves BMW team aswell as Andy Neate for WSR. The BMW’s will be strong but with inclement weather forecast for the whole weekend the rear wheel drive will become their downfall and hand it to the likes of the Cruze, Civic and Focus.

Talking of the Focus, it will be nice to see how the LPG fuel system works during a full race. At Brands Hatch the car seemed to have good initial pace but it’s yet to see whether they can convert the lap times into race pace. Another issue would be reliability but if they can overcome those issues then the Focus will be able to pick up where they left off at the end of last season where they took second.

Team AON will be continuing with the drivers that finished the back end of last season with the two Tom’s both driving for Mike Earles team. Tom Chilton will be looking to take his first win at Thruxton when he partners Tom Onslow-Cole, a driver looking to achieve the same feat.

I can’t expect much from the new teams at Thruxton where it would be merely a chance to assess their race pace as the likes of AmD Millteksport, Forster Motorsport and Central Group Racing all get to grips with the rough and tumble of the BTCC. Their first aim would be to simply get the end of the race in one piece, and keeping the sponsors happy.

The forecast weather for the weekend doesn’t read well. Rain, sleet and snow is forecast so you better have taken your waterproofs if you’re heading down to the race track. The rain never ceases to provide fun and excitement in the BTCC but we hope that that this time, the weatherman is wrong, and we can have a good day’s racing on a dry track.

Photo Credit: Pete Mainey

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.