The countdown has begun! Less than two weeks remain before the Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire greets Britain’s biggest motor racing series – the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship – on Sunday 18 September.

Broadcasting live from the event will be Britain’s most popular commercial terrestrial television channel ITV1 – Silverstone is one of the seven BTCC race days receiving live coverage in 2005.

This is without a doubt one of the Midlands’ biggest sporting events, with many thousands of spectators expected to use the nearby M1 and M40 motorways and A43 dual carriageway as they flock to Silverstone.

The Northamptonshire circuit hosts the penultimate round of this year’s BTCC and, with the title race on a knife edge, there are bound to be plenty of frayed nerves and tempers among the top drivers. That in turn is bound to lead to some of the closest racing of the 2005 BTCC season.

Team Halfords Honda Integra driver Matt Neal currently leads the championship. Neal took his sixth win of the season last time out and stretched his lead over Vauxhall’s Yvan Muller to 30 points. Muller, though, refuses to give up and on Luton-based Vauxhall’s home circuit is confident he can take a big bite out of Neal’s lead and force the title to go down to the wire at Brands Hatch on 2 October.

Making it impossible to predict how Neal and Muller will fare at Silverstone is the fact that five other drivers have all won races this season and are all out to score as many points for themselves. Keep a close eye out for Team Halfords’ Dan Eaves, SEAT Sport UK’s Jason Plato, Vauxhall’s Colin Turkington, Arena Motorsport Honda Civic driver Tom Chilton and Rob Collard, in the WSR team’s MG ZS.

For SEAT, Silverstone is also a home race – the company’s UK headquarters are in Milton Keynes and its Toledo Cupra BTCC cars are prepared at SEAT Sport UK’s workshops in Northampton. Lead driver Plato, the 2001 BTCC champion, will be hoping his team-mates James Pickford and Luke Hines can outscore rival Vauxhall’s drivers Muller, Turkington and Gavin Smith as SEAT seeks to topple the Luton marque as manufacturer champion.

For the all-important spectators, there will be three BTCC races and a chance to meet the championship’s hero drivers during a paddock autograph session on race day. In addition, there will be eight more races on show from the BTCC’s exciting, high-profile support championships run by prestige manufacturers BMW, Porsche, Renault and SEAT.

Discounted race day tickets – £15 instead of £20 on the gate – can be booked in advance by visiting Silverstone’s website silverstone-circuit.co.uk.