Ricardo van der Ende tests for Team RAC

The Independents Trophy winning Team RAC has started its winter testing program today at Brands Hatch. At the wheel of the cars were the team’s regular drivers Colin Turkington and Stephen Jelley. The drivers pair were joined by Dutchman Ricardo van der Ende.

Van der Ende has been racing races in various national championships in the Netherlands in 2008. In 2006 he has taken the runner up spot in the Dutch BMW 130i Cup, and went on to take the championship in 2007.

Ricardo van der Ende is from a real racing family. His brother Jacky is a successful racing driver and his nephew Jimmy races as well. The family also owns a go-kart track near The Hague. But Ricardo has had international success as well. He won the British Formula Ford Winter Series in 1998, was third in the British Formula Ford Championship in 1999 and won the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch that same year. After a year of not racing the Dutchman won the Formula Chrysler Euro Series in 2001, but after that there were no international successes anymore.

But things could change next year, as the 29-year old driver could be challenging for a race seat with the Sunbury on Thames-based team. “ If we can genereate the sponsorship, then… let’s say he’s doing a very good job so far. He hasn’t put a foot wrong and we’re very impressed with him”, Steve Bennetts said to the official BTCC website.

Van der Ende’s performance was very impressive indeed, as he lapped inside Stephen Jelley’s pole position time at Brands Hatch at last month’s final round. “This morning Colin shook down the car and set a benchmark time. Ricardo took over and eventually got underneath Stephen’s pole time by about a tenth of a second” , Bennetts said. “ He then went quicker again in the afternoon. Colin also worked with Ricardo on getting the tyres up to temperature and also the conditions were nice and cool for the engine.”

But Van der Ende is not the only potential candidate for a race seat in the 2009 Team RAC squad. “We hope to hold another test in the coming weeks with another driver from Europe who would be new to BTCC. But that would be the end of our testing program as we need to start work on the cars back at base”, according to Bennetts. “Today’s test came about through Ricardo’s manager who also looks after Duncan Huisman, who we ran in Macau’s World Touring Car finale last year. Duncan had spoken very highly of us.”