BTCC Media Day car livery picture special
With all of the teams debuting the final versions of their liveries for the 2012 British Touring Car Championship at Silverstone yesterday, we show you what they look like here.
Though few surprises in terms of driver announcements were made at the media day, there were some surprises in terms of car designs and teams with new title sponsor arrangements.
The headline photo is of Gordon Shedden’s Honda Yuasa Racing Civic, which is built to the Championship’s Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC) regulations, running with Honda 2.0 litre turbocharged engines by Neil Brown Engines.
This is one of the two customer cars of Honda, the Eurotech Racing Honda of Andrew Jordan, running in the colours of Pirtek.
This is BTCC newcomer Adam Morgan’s Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis, sporting the new Avensis front end and is a brand new car built by the team for this season.
The Triple Eight Race Engineering-built MG, the first new car type the team has built since 2007, which only ran in the morning. The car is built to NGTC specifications and is running with the ‘TOCA engine’ built by Swindon Engines.
The Proton Persona (formerly Gen-2) of Welch Automotive. The colour scheme has changed thanks to a change of sponsor. The car wasn’t ready to take part in the test nor was Frank Wrathall’s Dynojet Racing Toyota.
The Vauxhall Insignia VXR-R of John Thorne of Thorney Motorsport. The car was running with the older specification Swindon engine during the day. The team still plans to run two cars with the second car debuting later in the season.
Tony Gilham will be running his own team this season and is using one of the ex-works Honda Civics which are built to Super 2000 regulations with an NGTC engine, again from Neil Brown Engines.
The Motorbase Performance team’s Ford Focus STs will run in a black and red livery this year, with a matt black roof. Title sponsor changes from Airwaves to Redstone and the team enters three cars from the start for Mat Jackson, Aron Smith and Liam Griffin.
Speedworks will again run an updated Toyota Avensis for Tony Hughes this season, who enters his second season of racing. Both of the team’s cars will be powered by the Swindon engine.
Mark Hazell is the new signing at Rob Austin Racing, though the Audi A4 was driven on the test day by Rob Austin and Chris Swanwick, the team’s 2011 drivers as well with the second driver yet to be confirmed.
Chris James switches from the Chevrolet Lacetti with its normally aspirated engine to the ex-Triple Eight Swindon NGTC powered Vauxhall Vectra this season. The car was hastily repaired by Team ES Racing over the weekend after a heavy crash at Brands Hatch last week.
Lea Wood also makes the switch to the Vauxhall Vectra, with the team upgrading their old 2006-built Honda Integra Type-R for the ex-Triple Eight/Eurotech car. The team also features new title sponsorship this season from BINZ eyewear.
The Honda Yuasa Racing Team Civic, second and third fastest in the afternoon test session was promising but the team still feels there’s a lot of work required ahead of the opening round at Brands Hatch in two weeks.
Jeff Smith returns in the second Eurotech Racing car, also a brand new Honda Civic NGTC.
Nick Foster and Tom Onslow-Cole shared the second West Surrey Racing BMW 320si, now fitted with a turbocharged 2.0 litre BMW engine, which is built by Honda’s engine builder Neil Brown Engines. The car features full title sponsorship this year by Ebay Motors.
Ollie Jackson will race in his first full BTCC season with AmD Tuning. The team will field their Volkswagen Golf S2000 car for their third season with an NGTC engine from Liechtenstein-based Lehmann, which is also used in Rob Austin Racing’s Audis.
Rob Collard was fourth fastest in the West Surrey Racing BMW 320si.
Dave Newsham, driving for his third team in only his second season was fastest of all, beating last year’s pole position time at the Silverstone National circuit in his Team ES Racing-run Vauxhall Vectra.
