Hamilton: "A dream come true"

BTCC rookie Nic Hamilton has hailed his drive for next season as a "dream come true", and is eager to get behind the wheel of his AmD Tuning Audi S3.

The 23-year-old, who has previously raced in the Renault Clio Cup and the ETCC, will enter the BTCC later on in the series at Croft, but is excited about the year ahead:

"It's been a long time coming - six months ago we never thought that it'd be possible but after a lot of determination and struggle we're finally here.

"We raced in the Clio Cup in 2011 and 2012, and obviously going into the BTCC now is going to be quite difficult; I don't have a lot of experience compared to the people that I'm going to be racing against, some drivers have been in here 10 years, and been racing for 20 years - I've only been racing two years, three max so I've got a lot to learn. I haven't been in the car yet for two years so it's going to be difficult, but it's also going to be interesting, and being on the package before has taught me a lot, and taught me what I've needed to know really in terms of the basics so we'll see where we end up with that".

With Nic being the first disabled driver to compete in the BTCC, he admits there are no real expectations going into this season, and is hoping to use 2015 as a development year.

"I have no idea how the Audi's going to get on, I don't know how fast we're going to be or how fast I'm going to be so there's no expectation at all this year. We'll just use it as a development programme, develop me as a driver, as a person and we'll see where we end up really with no stress. I'm just going to take it as it comes, be relaxed, be calm and learn as fast as possible and develop myself".

Written and interviewed by  Alan Faulkner
Photo Credit: Phil Laughton Photography

   

Cook looking to progress in maiden BTCC campaign

Josh Cook is aiming for progression in 2015, as he prepares to make his debut in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

The 24-year-old, who finished 2014 as runner-up in the Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup, has joined Power Maxed Racing in a two car assault on the championship, alongside former Clio champion and reigning Jack Sear's Trophy holder Dave Newsham.

Cook, though, is excited about the new campaign: "It's going to be tough, I haven't really had much running in the car until today, but it feels good, the first impressions of the touring car are good; I've never driven an NGTC car before so I don't have anything to compare it to but out of the box it feels like a stable car - it hasn't got any of the really weird characteristics that anybody's spoke about, it's comfortable to drive and I'll have to try and get a few more laps under my belt and see how it goes really".

"The cars are very different to the Clio, but it is a good training ground for touring cars. There are some big names on the grid this year but I'm not fazed by any of it, I've just got to get my head down and get on with what I've got to do and hopefully we can get this Power Maxed team to the front of the grid".

Reflecting on last season, Cook believes that events in the 2014 Clio Cup will help him progress in his maiden BTCC outing: "Last year obviously didn't go to plan, but it did it's job. We took six wins, the most podiums, the most laps lead, there were a lot of positives and we clearly had the pace but it just didn't go our way. This year we're going to bounce back from that and work as hard as we can to make sure that we can finish as high up the grid as we can".

Looking ahead to 2015, Cook's ambitions are modest: "I just want to crack on with it, learn as much as I can, and as long as we're progressing every time I get inside the car then I'll be happy".

Written and interviewed by Alan Faulkner
Photo Credit: Alan Faulkner

  

Goff raring to go for 2015 season

Jack Goff is hoping for a competitive campaign in the 2015 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship, after making the switch to Triple Eight Race Engineering.

Speaking at testing at Donington Park this week, Goff, who will be entering his third season in the championship after previously racing for Team HARD and Chrome Edition Restart Racing, is confident he can go head to head with the front runners and believes the MG will help push him further up the grid.

"I can't wait to get going now, it's my first day in the car today so it's all new to me; new team, new personnel at the team so for me it's a matter of getting into the car, getting used to everybody, getting to know how each other work and start clicking basically.

"The MG's a proven car and it's a proven package with Triple Eight, so if we come away at the end of this year and have not been fighting for podiums regularly I'll be disappointed in myself. The rules are changing this year too, we're going to have more ballast which is going to mix things up a little bit so I think it'll be an exciting year".

After an impressive maiden test at Donington, Goff is confident that he can build on his first run out in the car, as he gets to grips with the MG6.

"I had my first run out this morning and then went into a bit of a race run after that, and everything was good; it's a bit different to the car I'm used to so it's a matter of getting used to it all again, it's been a long winter so it's about getting my head back in it and learning about this new car.

"The MG differs in lots of ways really to what I've been used to driving in the past, it's different to the VW as that had a lower roof line, but the MG feels stronger all round really.Temperatures are quite cold today so we're struggling a little bit with rear tyre temps but it feels good".

Goff's move to Triple Eight saw him complete an impressive driver line-up, with him joining 2013 champion Andrew Jordan, something which gives him a confidence boost going into the new campaign.

"We can both work together, that's the plan anyway, and hopefully push the car on from where Jason [Plato] and Sam [Tordoff] had it last year; obviously it was quick last year so we're trying to work on a few bits and pieces of pace where it struggled last year, so fingers crossed we can put our heads together with the engineers and make it a package that's really going to be one of the top running cars".

With it being his third season in the championship, Goff is setting his sights high after impressive pace over the last two seasons.

"My main goal this year is to win some races, and then maybe the championship after that, we'll see what happens; if you'r winning races and are consistently at the front then in theory the championship should come to you, but who knows? We'll give it a good go and hopefully we'll be consistent".

Written and interviewed by Alan Faulkner
Photo Credit: Alan Faulkner

 

Jordan aiming for second BTCC title

2013 BTCC champion Andrew Jordan is hoping to reclaim the driver's championship this season, after an unsuccessful defence which eventually saw Colin Turkington take the crown for the second time in his career.

Jordan, who has recently signed for defending manufacturer's champions MG/Triple Eight, is looking forward to the challenge, saying "I'm really excited, it's a change, something different and sometimes you need a change and new motivations so I'm really excited to get going".

Despite taking the manufacturer title last season, the MG run by Triple Eight Race Engineering was not the car to beat, with the West Surrey Racing BMW 125i's dominating for the majority of the season and helping Turkington to his driver's title and also WSR's team crown, and Jordan knows that it'll still be a tough ask this season to win the title. "It's only going to be small gains going from the Honda to the MG but that car was very good last year so I think we'll be a strong package together which excites me, but equally I think we can probably improve the car a little bit in areas.

"I've not had chance to drive the car yet as we're still waiting on some bits for the car but I think we'll be out on track at the start of February, I think the plan is to try and get out within the first or second week of February".

With Jordan being in one of the front running cars for this season, he has made his objectives for 2015 clear. "I've got to try and win the championship back" he said, "I won it in 2013 and lost it last year so I want to get it back and I'll be working hard to do that".

It will be interesting to see how quickly Jordan adapts to the MG after three seasons behind the wheel of a Dynamics built Honda Civic, and I'm sure there will be a lot of interest over the course of the season to see if he can match his title ambitions.

Written and interviewed by Alan Faulkner
Photo Credit: Alan Faulkner

  

Neal looking to bounce back in 2015

Honda Racing's Matt Neal is hoping for an improved 2015 season, after a disappointing campaign for him and the team last season.

The three times BTCC champion struggled in the all new Honda Civic Tourer in 2014, finishing eighth in the overall drivers standings and over 200 points behind champion Colin Turkington. 

Speaking at the recent Autosport Show in Birmingham, Neal is hopeful that 2015 will be a better year both for him and the team:

"I had a rough 2014 so I'm looking forward to getting that behind me and hopefully having a much better 2015. It's a shame because the Tourer was a great car and I'm still a fan of it but that's finished now so we're looking ahead for 2015 and building new cars; it hasn't been decided exactly which model yet but I'm excited about it".

There haven't been many announcements from the team so far during the off-season, but Honda did confirm that Gordon Shedden will be running again with the team in the second car alongside Neal, something which he is very happy about:

"We know each other well and we got on with each other off the track as well as on it, and it's continuity which is good. It's great to have Honda back in too, Dynamics never seem to build a slow car, and my engineer reminded me that in every year ending in five we normally have a good year so I'm hopeful".

As well as MG, Honda have also been joined by another manufacturer, with the Infiniti Support Our Paras Racing team entering the series with Richard Hawken and Derek Palmer Jr behind the wheel. Neal, though, is confident that Honda can continue to compete at the front and in the hunt for the manufacturer's title.

"Hopefully the Infiniti won't give us too much trouble, but it's the established packages such as BMW and MG who will give us the most trouble, and it'll be tough because we're going to have a new car. Having said that I don't think the championship is going to be any less competitive than it has been over the last few years, it's just that those teams are going to be tough to beat, but whoever wins it is going to have a fight on their hands".

Neal also admits that he is looking forward to the opening round the most, with Brands Hatch being one of his favourite circuits, and with Honda running their new car both he and the team will be looking to get a result.

It will be interesting to see which model Honda choose to run for the 2015 BTCC campaign, and whether it will be a challenger after the disappointment of the Civic Tourer last season.

Written and interviewed by Alan Faulkner
Photo Credit: Alan Faulkner

Belcher aiming for competitive 2015 campaign

Handy Motorsport driver Simon Belcher is hoping that 2015 will be a much more competitive season for him, as he and the team prepare to enter their second full season in the British Touring Car Championship.

The former Renault Clio Cup Master's champion will run the Speedworks built Toyota Avensis again after his debut season last year, and believes that this year will be a progression year for him and the team: 

"Last year was a big learning curve for us with it being our rookie season in the BTCC, but this is our progression year now. We've got lots of new developments on the car, we've got new aero, new damping and we're possibly going to change the shell too; it'll still be a Toyota Avensis but we're looking on some improvements on the shell to try and take as much as 30kg of weight out of the car, we're doing a lot of work on making the car quicker and I'm in a completely different place this year to where I was last year and hopefully it's going to be a completely different season for me in 2015".

With a number of developments taking place with the car, Belcher has highlighted his targets for the forthcoming season:

"My targets are to progress, to move forward, to improve, I'm sure that goes for everyone else on the grid, even Colin Turkington. We had plenty of top 20's last year in what was a highly competitive 32 car grid with some of the best drivers in the world in the best touring car series in the world currently; it's tough but our first goal will be to break into the top 15, and once we're consistently in the top 15 then we'll start looking at the top ten. It's a three year plan, always was, and as I said this is our progression year so we'll be looking to progress and move further up the grid".

Belcher admits that it will be tough for the team to achieve their targets, mainly due to the age of the Toyota Avensis, the first NGTC car which debuted back in 2011:

"The car qualified well last year with Tom Ingram behind the wheel, but it never really raced well, and the problem is that these were the first NGTC cars that were built so a lot of the things that are around them now are a little bit dated and need to be redesigned, upgraded, changed because the whole chassis development has moved on with the NGTC cars and with the Toyota Avensis we're a little bit left behind currently, and that's what we're looking to address for 2015".

With the season launch coming up in just a couple of months, Belcher is looking forward to the opening weekend at Brands Hatch, when hopefully the car is set up right and he and the team have got a good amount of testing under their belts.

Written and interviewed by Alan Faulkner

Photo Credit: Alan Faulkner  

Austin confident ahead of 2015 season

Exocet Racing's Rob Austin believes that 2015 will be a good year for him and the team, after a mixed campaign last season.

The 33-year-old will enter his fifth season in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship this year, with his team continuing their partnership with Exocet Fuel Additives and DUO PLC, and is confident of taking big steps forward this season:

"I think 2015 is going to be good for us; we de-stabilised last winter and didn't get anywhere near the steps we needed to go forward that we'd hoped and I don't feel I did my best as a driver last year, but I've restructured the team and we've got fantastic support from our main sponsors which has really given us the stability we need to get to work - as soon as last season finished we've been flat out on the updates that we need, we know where we're going, we're all working in the same direction and we're going to be better prepared for this season than we have been for any season previous and I think these developments to the car are going to give us an extra little bit of pace, and you don't need much in this championship to make a big difference because it's so close.

"Last season wasn't our best, but we were on par with our best as we'd taken a big step forward during 2013, however over the winter unfortunately we didn't make that big step but we did make improvements; we got similar results in a much more competitive grid but we need results, we need to take a big step forward and we're progressing well towards what we want to achieve".

With  Austin and the team working extremely hard over the winter on the team's pair of Audi A4's, he admits that the team have not had any time to test the cars during the pre-season:

"We've not been able to do any testing yet due to the work we've been doing and unfortunately the Autosport Show snook up on us this year so we weren't ready to unveil the car here as we had hoped, but having said that it is all progressing very well, and come the end of the month/early February we should be in a position where we're ready to go testing.

We've done all the maths behind it so far and we're ready to test a whole new platform, the car is going to look very different, it'll be a lot different underneath and it's going to be quite a different beast".

Looking ahead to this year's campaign, Austin has set himself clear targets for what he wants to achieve during 2015.

"Your targets are always to win, I haven't really set anything solid. Obviously like everyone on the grid you're aiming to win everything and win the championship, but the realistic expectations for me are that I've got to win more than one race and I've got to win at somewhere else other than Rockingham which I think is highly achievable. I think for me though I want to finish the season knowing that I've given it my all and done my absolute best, and I do believe that if everything comes together and we give it our best we should be in quite a decent position in the championship".

With the season launch just two months away, Austin will be hoping that he and "Sherman" will soon be able to get some track time in preparation for their fifth season in the BTCC.

Written and interviewed by Alan Faulkner

Photo Credit: Alan Faulkner