The 1991 Esso RAC British Touring Car Championship season was the 34th

British Touring Car Championship The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by TOCA. It was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and was renamed as ...

(BTCC) season and marked the first year of the

Super Touring Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created ...

era.

Changes for 1991

*After a transitional year in 1990, the multi-class

Group A Group A is a set of motorsport regulations administered by the FIA covering production derived vehicles intended for competition, usually in touring car racing and rallying. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, Group A vehicles ...

regulations was fully dropped and replaced by the new

rules that had evolved out of Group A's Div. II category. Group A cars were still allowed to participate, but only as long as they were restricted to bring them down to Super Touring speeds.

Season summary

had towards the end of its existence been dominated by

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

and their Sierra RS500. Super Tourers had first appeared in 1990, and with BMW and

Vauxhall Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...

running their cars in that category they effectively had a years head start on their opposition for 1991. BMW also had the numerical advantage, the factory

Prodrive Prodrive is a British motorsport and advanced engineering group based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. It designs, constructs and races cars for companies and teams such as Aston Martin, Bahrain Raid Xtreme and Team X44. Its advanced technolo ...

team entering two cars and the semi-factory

Vic Lee Motorsport Vic Lee Racing (VLR), formerly Vic Lee Motorsport (VLM) was a UK auto racing team, most famous for running BMWs and Peugeots in the British Touring Car Championship, and most infamous for the drug-related convictions of its owner Victor "Vic" L ...

team entering four. Vauxhall had two cars, as had

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

, while Ford only appeared with a single car for Robb Gravett's Trakstar team. Nissan missed the start of the season but then ran a single-car effort for Keith O'Dor driving a 2.0 Primera entered by

Janspeed Janspeed Technologies Ltd is an automotive performance tuning company, specialising in exhaust systems. The company was founded in 1962 by János Ódor. With a workforce of 74 employees, Janspeed works closely with many luxury and performance car ...

, and was joined by ex-

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

driver Julian Bailey towards the end of the season and Mitsubishi was back, engineered by BTCC stalwart John McGuire Racing, fielding a one car team for Mark Hales, the team elected to run the Lancer GTI at the beginning of the season but was replaced by the larger Galant mid season The championship battle would stand between

Will Hoy William Ewing Hoy (2 April 1952 – 19 December 2002) was an English racing driver and the 1991 British Touring Car Champion, the highlight of a 20-year career in motor racing. Biography Born in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, Hoy did not begin racing ...

and

John Cleland John Cleland (c. 1709, baptised – 23 January 1789) was an English novelist best known for his fictional '' Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'', whose eroticism led to his arrest. James Boswell called him "a sly, old malcont ...

. Hoy won the first two races of the season and kept scoring consistently, but as the season progressed it was Cleland who came out on top more often than not. Hoy's consistency however put him in a position to claim the championship at the penultimate round at Thruxton, provided he scored a good enough result. Indeed, Hoy took the lead of the race thanks to BMW team tactics, but soon thereafter he was controversially tapped into a spin by works BMW driver

Jonathan Palmer Jonathan Charles Palmer (born 7 November 1956) is a British businessman and former Formula One racing driver. Before opting for a career in motor racing, Palmer trained as a physician at London's Guys Hospital. He also worked as a junior phys ...

. Hoy dropped down the field and later retired after contact with Cleland. Cleland would go on to finish 8th with a damaged car, taking the championship to the final race. There Hoy was able to finish ahead of Cleland, and thus claiming the first

championship win. Andy Rouse finished third for Toyota, and Steve Soper ended up fourth overall despite missing several races due to clashing commitments in the German DTM championship.

Teams and drivers

Race calendar and winners

All races were held in the United Kingdom. # – Race was stopped after 10 laps due to heavy rain. The race was not restarted and no points were awarded.

Championship results

Drivers Championship

*Note: bold signifies pole position, ''italics'' signifies fastest lap. # – Tim Harvey was docked 48 points in round 3 for not keeping within the limits of noise regulations. † Race was stopped early due to heavy rain, and no points were awarded. Note: Most fastest laps are unknown.

Manufacturers Championship

{{Super Touring championships 1991 Season Touring Car Championship season