The Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship rolls into Thruxton this weekend for round three of the season at the fastest circuit on the calendar.

James Nash leads the championship in the Triple Eight Engineering Vauxhall Vectra after the first six races of the season and will be looking for a good solid weekend at a circuit which will be new territory for him.

“I’ve not been to Thruxton in a saloon car before. Mind you Triple Eight have always gone well with the Vauxhall and I’m driving with some confidence so yes, I’m really looking forward to it,” said James.

“Its great too to be leading the Championship but, it’s still early days and I’m not getting carried away with it all just yet. There’s a long way to go and some very good drivers to try and beat.”

Nash will be up against it this weekend which will be the first time he will have to race with the full 45kgs success ballast which the championship leader will have to carry for all free practice and qualifying sessions as well as race one. Not only that but the turbo pressure will also be capped at 0.1 bar less than the boost pressure they recorded at Donington Park following the TOCA rule change in order to regain parity between the normally aspirated and turbo cars.

The change to the regulations, which comes into force this weekend, has left a few of the drivers puzzled to why it has come about. Matt Neal, who currently sits 2nd in the championship and just 4 points adrift of James Nash, feels as if he and the Honda Racing team have been targeted by the change.

Matt commented by saying, “The organisers have changed the rules to peg back our two-litre turbocharged engine, which seems to me like it is a rule that has singled us out to penalise us more than anyone else. I just can’t understand it. It appears that we have been held back because we had been doing such good job so far this season, which isn’t fair.”

Tyre management will be a phrase which you will hear a lot this weekend. Thruxton is renown for being hard on the tyres wih it’s abrasive road surface as well as the harsh kerbs and fast corners mean that the tyres are working overtime for much of the weekend with some teams paying the price of a puncture.

Dunlop will be bringing their specially developed Thruxton tyre compound with them this week to try and combat the problems in which teams have been having. However the key to success will be to be careful on the tyres. The driver that can do that will be the driver that ultimately will be on the top of the podium come the end of the race.

Mat Jackson, who won his first race of the season last time out at Donington Park, knows all about the problems that the tyre wear gives but goes into the third round of the season with great confidence from lying third in the championship.

“Obviously we’re going to Thruxton off the back of a great win at Donington Park, so we’re confident in the potential of the Ford Focus and have shown that it’s capable of winning races,” said Jackson. “Thruxton will come down to tyre wear as it always does, but we know we have a good chassis that’s kinder on the tyres and a great Mountune engine so we’ll be looking for a strong result to push our Championship challenge further.”

Two drivers will be missing from the grid this weekend with another driver returning to the fray. Tony Hughes and the Speedworks Team have elected to spend the extra weeks on developing the Toyota Avensis chassis and ironing out recurring problems after sustaining heavy damage during race three at Donington Park. Dave Newsham will also be missing from the line up as his car wasn’t ready in time for this meeting. Dave, who switched to Special Tuning Racing earlier this week, will return to the series during round four of the season at Oulton Park.

A driver that will be returning to the grid will be Dave Pinkney. Pinkney, who missed out the last round of the season at Donington Park due to business commitments, will take to the wheel of the Rob Austin Racing Audi A4 replacing Rob Austin himself who drove the car to it’s first race finish of the season last time out.

It’s certainly going to be a good one this weekend for sure. Will James Nash carry on the recent success that Triple Eight had at Thruxton in 2010? How much will the turbo cars be affected by the restriction? And will the new Dunlop tyre compound hold up against the pressures that the drivers will throw at it.

All the questions will be answered this weekend!

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.