Tom Chilton stays with Team Aon for 2010

Tom Chilton is going to remain with the Team Aon team in the British Touring Car Championship 2010.
“Tom Chilton will remain on board and really deserves to – his attitude was better than I could have hoped for. He’s never whinged once, just got on with the job and showed when we deliver a good car what a great job he can do,” said team boss Mike Earle to BTCC.net.

The team is aiming to expand to three cars next season, something that is not confirmed yet.

“Our plan for 2009 was to enter three cars and we’d love to achieve that goal for 2010,” said Earle.

Who the team mate(s) of Chilton is going to be has not been set either, but Tom Onslow-Cole could continue.

“We’d also love to hang on to Tom Onslow-Cole – while he didn’t get a full season with us he fitted into the team beautifully with some great results considering his lack of time in the car. And he and the other Tom like a similar car set-up which is always a bonus,” said Earle.

The Aon team enjoyed a remarkable performance boost in the last races. But the team is expecting it to be hard to stay on top over the winter.

“But you simply cannot believe that the others aren’t going to find something else again during the winter. Of course they are and we need to go with them.

The likes of the BMWs and Chevrolets are raced in other touring car series and that means lots of data and development being passed on to those teams that run them in the BTCC. That is what, as a team which has gone the local homologation route, we are up against so we need to be prepared for that and have a clear direction mapped out,” said Earle.

But the team has planned an extensive testing program that is going to start shortly.

“We start the week after next – it’s a huge development programme we have planned out.

It was very pleasing to achieve what we did at Brands Hatch earlier this month. Everyone involved deserved to end the season on a high and now we know we have a car that is capable of great success next year,” said Earle.