Alex Martin: from touring car fan to touring car driver

Self-confessed British Touring Car Championship fan Alex Martin says he never misses a race – and now the GT convert is only seven weeks away from taking to that same grid himself.

Martin arrives in the BTCC via a varied background, which started in Motocross before injury forced him to stop, and later stints in the Porsche Carrera Cup and Ferrari Challenge.

Like many drivers who have competed in the support series on the TOCA package, the goal of touring cars was always at the forefront of the 27-year-old’s mind.

And this year he will make it happen, driving for David Bartrum’s Motorbase Performance team in a Ford Focus ST.

TouringCarTimes caught up with Martin during a break in testing at Brands Hatch, to talk racing backgrounds, motivation and hopes for his first season in the BTCC.

After being forced to give up Motocross Martin bought a Porsche 996, and the seeds were sown for a life with a roof over his head. His first full season in the Carrera Cup saw him competing against the likes of Tim Harvey, Tim Bridgman, Stephen Jelley and Euan Hankey.

“I took to it like a duck to water. I went into the Porsche Carrera Cup which probably for my first season in cars was a case of ‘in at the deep end’. But it has always been my attitude to pitch myself against the best,” said Martin to TouringCarTimes.

After the Porsches, Martin moved to the Ferrari Challenge, where he raced from 2012 to 2014 and finished third in last season’s championship. He also finished fifth in the world finals.

“The Ferrari Challenge was considered to be easy, but Ferrari consolidated it into one European championship, and all of a sudden the level went through the roof. The cars were quite easy to drive despite having lots of power, so you could push to the limit.”

Now the BTCC fan is set to join the esteemed company of that grid, and says he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t aiming for top 10s in his first season.

He said: “I am a fairly competitive character and if there is a benchmark to hit, I like to go a step further. I might go under the radar, so I will just knuckle down and drive.

“I’m super-excited. You can’t do any of the series on the TOCA package without wanting to do the BTCC. For me it’s not about the profile or making a name for myself, it’s about the racing.

“In Motocross there’s no grid. You’re all in a line. So I learned about spacial awareness then…”

Part of the change for Martin will be getting used to a front-wheel drive touring car, after years of powerful, rear-wheel drive machinery.

He said: “Everything I have raced before has been GT. I’ve never raced front-wheel drive and I’ve never raced a saloon car. But I’ve never struggled for out-and-out pace and I think a lot of people do with NGTC.

“It is a really tricky car to drive and being able to do that same lap again and again is the difference between the top guys, and the people down the grid.

“It is something quite alien, but it [the Focus] is really well built. We looked at a few different options, but we’ve been trying to put this together for a long time. [Former Porsche Carrera Cup racer] Barry Horne is my manager and driver coach. He’s great and has so much experience, and he has been really influential.

“I’m not just learning to drive the car, but also to engineer the car. Motorbase have a massive pool of information but it is down to me to give feedback.”

Time in the car is vital for all newcomers, and Thursday’s running at Brands saw Martin clock up more valuable mileage in the striking Focus, running under the Dextra Racing banner.

Martin struck a quietly confident tone ahead of the new season.

He said: “This [Thursday] is my sixth day in the car. I’ll have one-and-a-half days at Thruxton, another day at Brands Hatch, then it’s Donington and that’s it. It is all about getting used to the new car. I’ve got plenty of experience in GT and it is not completely worthless!

“I’m really looking forward to getting racing now. The car is capable and all the people around me tell me I am capable.”

Martin remains the only driver to have been confirmed for Motorbase to date, with two seats remaining in two other Focus STs. The season gets under way at the team’s home circuit of Brands Hatch over the Easter weekend of April 4 and 5.