[BTCC] BTCC 2023 season discussion, News and Rumours!

[PlatoFan89]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Believe he said unless a huge, well paying manufacturer turns up he’s not interested.

Spoke to him yesterday at the Race Retro event, he said he was trying to strike a deal with Dynamics or BTC (OneMotorsport) he said if that doesn’t work out then it will be British GT and Goodwood meetings in a GT40.

[mphplastering]

Originally Posted by PlatoFan89

Spoke to him yesterday at the Race Retro event, he said he was trying to strike a deal with Dynamics or BTC (OneMotorsport) he said if that doesn’t work out then it will be British GT and Goodwood meetings in a GT40.

Interesting

[InYourMirrors45]

Originally Posted by PlatoFan89

Spoke to him yesterday at the Race Retro event, he said he was trying to strike a deal with Dynamics or BTC (OneMotorsport) he said if that doesn’t work out then it will be British GT and Goodwood meetings in a GT40.

We all know, if Plato wants to be there, then he will be. My money would be in Dynamics.

[Robin Marriott]

https://www.btcc.net/2023/02/28/tayl...itch-for-2023/

ATS to PMR.

[BtccLee]

Looking at the grid so far this year, this has to be one of the best strength/depth line-ups for a while, with race winners across every team.

Really intrigued to see how the running order shapes up.

[Evantra]

From Autosport. Too many talented drivers not being able to secure a place, guess that’s motorsport… seems like PMR can’t keep their drivers either.

“Hand impressed during his rookie season, and Autosport sources indicate that he has been put into a situation whereby he will be forced to sit out the coming campaign while working on a BTCC return in 2024.”

Once again we learn that multi-year deals mean absolutely nothing in the BTCC!

[Evantra]

Originally Posted by Robin Marriott

https://www.btcc.net/2023/02/28/tayl...itch-for-2023/

ATS to PMR.

Glad he’s had the sense to get out of HARD. Assumed he had if it had taken this long for an announcement!

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by Robin Marriott

https://www.btcc.net/2023/02/28/tayl...itch-for-2023/

ATS to PMR.

so much for long term contracts

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

so much for long term contracts

Or faithfully believing press releases.

[SSmith]

Who saw ATS to PMR coming?! Hopefully the move can help him move back up the grid.

Means that (at the moment) HARD only have 4 cars, and means that once again we don't know if certain TBLs will be used or not.

Was interesting to read from posters on here about JPs potential plans for '23 - I honestly would like to see him back in the BTCC.

With just 6 weeks until Media Day, there's still a lot to unravel for this season.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Glad he’s had the sense to get out of HARD. Assumed he had if it had taken this long for an announcement!

It does seem an interesting move to go from a 2-year-old car that got a podium last year to a 6-year-old car that had a best result of 5th......

[crmalcolm]

2023 TBL	Team	Car	Driver	Status	Jack Sears
EXCELR8-1	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	Ingram	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
EXCELR8-2	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	Chilton	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
EXCELR8-3	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	Pearson	Confirmed in press release	Elig.
EXCELR8-4	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	Halstead	Confirmed in press release	Elig.
Team Dynamics-1	Halfords?	Civic?	Shedden?	Talked about next year with the team	Inel.
Team Dynamics-2	Halfords?	Civic?	???	Talked about next year with the team	Inel.
Aiden Moffat-1	One Motorsport?	Civic	???	’One’ Reported as looking to expand to four Civics	???
Aiden Moffat-2	Aiden Moffat Racing?	???	???	Infiniti described as being end of life by the team	???
Motorbase-1	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	Sutton	Confirmed as 3-year deal in press release	Inel.
Motorbase-2	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	Cammish	Confirmed as 3-year deal in press release	Inel.
Motorbase-3	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	Osborne	Confirmed in press release	Elig.
Motorbase-4	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	Rowbottom	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
HARD.-1	HARD.	Cupra León	Butel	Confirmed in press release	Elig.
HARD.-2	HARD.	Cupra León	Thompson	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
HARD.-3	HARD.	Cupra León	Patterson	Confirmed in press release	Elig.
HARD.-4	HARD.	Cupra León	Lloyd	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
Speedworks-1	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK?	Corolla?	Butcher?	Talked about wanting another year with the team	Inel.
Speedworks-2	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK?	Corolla?	???	???	???
Speedworks-3	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK?	Corolla?	???	???	???
WSR-1	Team BMW/Ciceley Commercials?	BMW 330e M Sport	Morgan	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
WSR-2	Team BMW?	BMW 330e M Sport	Turkington	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
WSR-3	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	Hill	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
WSR-4	MB Motorsport?	BMW 330e M Sport	Jelley	Confirmed in press release - MB talked about a 2-car entry for 2023	Inel.
PMR-1	PMR	Vauxhall Astra	Taylor-Smith	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
PMR-2	PMR	Vauxhall Astra	Watson	Confirmed in press release	Elig.
BTC-1	Starline Racing by One Motorsport	Honda Civic FK8	Moffat	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
BTC-2	Starline Racing by One Motorsport	Honda Civic FK8	Cook	Confirmed in press release	Inel.
BTC-3	One Motorsport	Civic FK8	???	Reported as looking to expand to four Civics	???
Boardley-1	???	???	Boardley?	Has described 2022 as a sabbatical	Elig.
TOCA-1	Not allocated
TOCA-2	Not allocated
TOCA-3	Not allocated
???	Parker Motorsport?	Alfa Giulia?	???	Press release states a planned return after hybrid is introduced	???
???	Parker Motorsport?	Alfa Giulia?	???	Press release states a planned return after hybrid is introduced	???
???	Bert Taylor Racing?	???	???	Talked about getting a TBL for 2023	???
???	???	???	Proctor?	Has described 2022 as a sabbatical	Inel.
???	???	???	Smelt?	Has described 2022 as a sabbatical	Elig.
???	???	???	Hamilton?	Talked about being in a car for 2023	Inel.
???	???	???	Hand?	Previously confirmed as multi-year at PMR in press release	Elig.
???	Volvo	Kia	T.Harvey	Rumoured in threads every year, has to be true one day	Inel.

[porsche962fan]

why do you keep Parker Motorsport listed ? it's kinda obvious they won't show up

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

why do you keep Parker Motorsport listed ? it's kinda obvious they won't show up

I would guess/assume that the reason is similar to why Harvey, KIA and Volvo are on the list. Similar to many media reports by that well known journo Phil Space!

[Matt K]

Quite a bummer to lose Ash Hand only after one season... Just a few weeks ago he seemed certain he'd be on the grid.

[antnee]

I really think that is a backward move for ATS. That Astra is way passed its best, along with PMR advertising on FB for a race engineer - I get the feeling he won't be troubling the points much this year. Surely if he had a bit more budget, then they could put a focus on reliability at Hard?

[Evantra]

Originally Posted by antnee

I really think that is a backward move for ATS. That Astra is way passed its best, along with PMR advertising on FB for a race engineer - I get the feeling he won't be troubling the points much this year.

To be fair he wasn’t either with two years in the Cupra!

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

It does seem an interesting move to go from a 2-year-old car that got a podium last year to a 6-year-old car that had a best result of 5th......

Originally Posted by antnee

I really think that is a backward move for ATS. That Astra is way passed its best, along with PMR advertising on FB for a race engineer - I get the feeling he won't be troubling the points much this year. Surely if he had a bit more budget, then they could put a focus on reliability at Hard?

It's an older car but it might be one that's run properly? HARD seem to have a lot of DNF and DNS that are mechanical issues rather than accident damage. They run on a shoestring (in BTCC terms) so I assume they run parts longer than other teams and that leads to failures. That said it'll certainly be interesting to see how the results compare between the Cupra and the Astra this season.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

why do you keep Parker Motorsport listed ? it's kinda obvious they won't show up

The reason is based on the comments from Stuart Parker that said:

"Would we come back to touring cars? Yes we would. Are there criteria we'd need to fulfil? Yes - we need to be masters of our own destiny. Our thought process was to build our own car, but then COVID struck and it took the wind out of our sails. We were looking at the Alfa Romeo equivalent of the BMW 3-series [the Giulia], and we'd spoken to a company about drawings for us, but it wasn't to be. If you're going to build a car, you've got to look at a two-car team [to make it viable]. We've enjoyed BTCC, but our business is as a race team - we don't have anything else - and our decision to have a bit of a regroup and concentrate our British efforts on Carrera Cup and Caymans isn't going to hurt us. So we'll let hybrid settle down [on its introduction to the BTCC in 2022] and then look at coming back."

So while it might seem highly unlikely for them to return this year, their public statement indicated a possible.

Do I think they will be on the grid? - No.
Is there a credible rumour that sees them on the grid? - Yes.

[S griffin]

I wouldn't be surprised if they came back. Just need the right deal. Maybe a nice deal with a car manufacturer. And with there being a few spaces on the grid there is an opportunity there

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

It's an older car but it might be one that's run properly? HARD seem to have a lot of DNF and DNS that are mechanical issues rather than accident damage.

I do wonder how much truth is in that thought.

For reference (and not taking into consideration the cause) the respective DNF/DNS ratios for the two cars in 2022 were:

PMR Astra - 23% DNF/DNS
HARD. Cupra - 22% DNF/DNS

[Matt K]

Originally Posted by S griffin

I wouldn't be surprised if they came back. Just need the right deal. Maybe a nice deal with a car manufacturer. And with there being a few spaces on the grid there is an opportunity there

Unfortunately 'nice deals with manufacturers' don't happen in today's BTCC. Have a feeling BMW/WSR and Toyota/Speedworks are the last 'factory' teams in the BTCC, at least for quite some time.

[t4tinks]

Autosport seems to have missed the Butel confirmation at HARD, and indicates the vacancies are Dynamics x2, One (BTC) x2 Speedworks x3 and Hard x2 (though Butel should one of those). Could be some interesting moves/announcements over the next few weeks.

Motorbase Performance: Ford Ash Sutton, Dan Cammish, Dan Rowbottom, Sam Osborne
West Surrey Racing BMW: Jake Hill, Colin Turkington, Adam Morgan, Stephen Jelley
Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai: Tom Ingram, Tom Chilton, Ronan Pearson, Nick Halstead
Team Dynamics Honda: TBA, TBA
One Motorsport Honda: Josh Cook, Aiden Moffat, TBA, TBA
Speedworks Motorsport Toyota: TBA, TBA, TBA
Team Hard Cupra: Dan Lloyd, Bobby Thompson, Dexter Patterson, TBA, TBA
Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall: Aron Taylor-Smith, Andrew Watson

[antnee]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

It's an older car but it might be one that's run properly? HARD seem to have a lot of DNF and DNS that are mechanical issues rather than accident damage. They run on a shoestring (in BTCC terms) so I assume they run parts longer than other teams and that leads to failures. That said it'll certainly be interesting to see how the results compare between the Cupra and the Astra this season.

Running on a shoestring is down to driver budget though. If someone turns round to Tony and says I really want to drive a Cupra and my budget is 50% more than you are charging for it but I want it to be maintained to a higher standard, parts swapped out more often, etc - I'm sure we would see a much more reliable car.

[thetool]

Originally Posted by Matt K

Unfortunately 'nice deals with manufacturers' don't happen in today's BTCC. Have a feeling BMW/WSR and Toyota/Speedworks are the last 'factory' teams in the BTCC, at least for quite some time.

No there will be plenty more factory teams if that is your definition. The last genuine factory effort is probably Vauxhall in 2009. You only have to look at the liveries of the "works" entries since then to see the money was coming elsewhere. Yuasa for the Honda entry, Silverline for Chevrolet, Tesco KX Momentum for MG, Power Maxed for Vauxhall's "return", etc.