It seems 2014 will be a great year for the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) as a record of 31 cars with 7 champions will feature on the grid this season, including the returning Fabrizio Giovanardi in a Motorbase Ford Focus and Alain Menu in a BMR VW Passat.
MG driver and Fifth Gear host, Jason Plato, who is a two-time champion in 2001 and 2010, said: “It is going to be a brilliant season for the racing, and there is a real buzz about the championship. It’s tough enough as it is. I don’t think it is going to be any tougher. Whilst Fabrizio Giovanardi and Alain Menu are world class drivers, they are going to take some time to get themselves in gear – probably Alain more so than Fabrizio, because he has a hill to climb with the team.”
In last year’s battle for the BTCC driver’s title, the manufacturer entries from Honda were defeated by a privately-entered Honda Civic of Andrew Jordon of Eurotech. For this year, the Honda factory team will replace their Civic hatchbacks with the Civic Tourer wagon cars. Proton has two entries via Welch Motorsport, where the team is fielding two Proton Gen-2 saloon cars (aka the Persona, below), which was powered by the standard Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC) 2L turbocharged units.
The first race of the BTCC starts at Brands Hatch on 30 March 2014. With 13 different car models competing and 7 champions in the lineup, this could be the best touring car race in the world.
The confirmed 2014 British Touring Car line-up as below:
Team Car Drivers
Eurotech Honda Civic Andrew Jordan/Martin Depper
Honda (Team Dynamics) Civic Tourer Gordon Shedden/Matt Neal
MG (Triple Eight) MG6 J Plato/S Tordoff/M Hynes
Ciceley Racing Mercedes A-class Adam Morgan
Motorbase Performance Ford Focus F Giovanardi/J Clarke/M Jackson
AmD Ford Focus Dave Newsham
Rob Austin Racing Audi A4 Rob Austin/Hunter Abbott
Welch Motorsport Proton Gen-2 Dan Welch/Ollie Jackson
United Autosports Toyota Avensis James Cole/Glynn Geddie
Rotek Racing Audi S3 Robb Holland
Handy Motorsport Toyota Avensis Simon Belcher
Team BMR Vauxhall Insignia Jack Goff/Warren Scott
Team BMR VW Passat CC Alain Menu/Aron Smith
WSR BMW 125i M Sport C Turkington/R Collard/N Foster
Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis Tom Ingram
Houseman Racing Toyota Avensis Lea Wood
Moffat Chevrolet Cruze Aiden Moffat
BTC Chevrolet Cruze Chris Stockton
[Source: BTCC & Autosports]
