Colin Turkington prepared for “unpredictable” championship fight

Colin Turkington has admitted that he’s got a big task ahead of him to retain his British Touring Car Championship crown as he adapts to driving the front-wheel-drive Team BMR Volkswagen CC.

Turkington switched from West Surrey Racing to BMR over the winter, marking the end of a strong partnership between WSR and the now two-time BTCC champion.

“I’m delighted to be here with the number one on my car and to be back on the grid and racing again,” Turkington told TouringCarTimes at the official test session. “I’ve got a great opportunity with BMR and it’s a new chapter for me, moving to a different team. Every season bar one of my BTCC career has been with West Surrey. It’ a big change and I’m enjoying the new environment.”

With the team change comes a change of drivetrain for Turkington, who has become known as something of a rear-wheel-drive specialist, which was the subject of much debate over the 2014 season. As a result, he is now finding himself having to adapt his driving style to suit the front-wheel-drive VW.

“I’ve had to adapt a lot, it’s something I’m still working on,” he continued. “The driving technique is a little bit different for front-wheel-drive, how you approach a corner and your strategy for longer runs and the qualifying runs so there’s lots for me to get my head around.

“For me I need track time, it’s such a new car and it’s a strange feeling every time we bring it to a different track so for me laps under the belt is the most important thing. Today has been good in that department. I’d love to keep testing, but you just never have enough time. If you find one thing that’s good throughout the day then that’s a good day’s work. It’s very much just chipping away from it to understand what we’ve got.”

Joining Turkington at BMR are team owner Warren Scott, Aron Smith and, most notably, his biggest rival from the 2014 season, Jason Plato. Despite many expecting the fight to be strongest between Plato and Turkington to be the one to watch in 2015, the reigning champion refused to rule out having to battle with Scott or Smith on track as well.

“It’s much more open than just me and Jason,” he said. “Obviously we’re one and two from last year but there’s so many other contenders and the other guys in the team have been very fast as well in testing. I think we’ll be working together to move the team forward, that’s the priority, to get the car to the front of the grid and we’ll just see how it pans out.

“It’s really hard to know where we’ll be at the start of the season at Brands Hatch, but based on today we look fast. I don’t know if we’ll be fast everywhere and consistently good like it was with the BMW last year. You can’t predict this championship you just have to work hard and try your best.”