“We race to win whatever we’re in” say WSR drivers

West Surrey Racing are preparing a full on assault on the British Touring Car constructors’ championship and will be aiming to dethrone reigning champions Triple Eight Racing.

WSR has been reclassified as a constructor for 2015, and although the team receive no formal backing from BMW for their 125i M-Sport cars, teams which build their own cars are eligible to enter the constructors’ title race.

Following the loss of Colin Turkington to Team BMR and the retirement of Nick Foster, WSR have brought in former Triple Eight Racing MG racer Sam Tordoff and three-time World Touring Car champion Andy Priaulx to race alongside Rob Collard, who returns to the team for his sixth consecutive season.

“It’s kind of irrelevant whether we’re in the manufacturers’ or the teams’ championship,” Tordoff told TouringCarTimes. “Regardless of which we’re always out there to finish first or second. With regards to being in the manufacturers’ championship, we’re not really a true manufacturer if honest, but that’s how it is and we’ll try and put the fight to Honda and MG.”

“We have a lot of stuff the team want to try following on from Colin’s success last year and a lot of setups that are going in different directions at the moment just to try and see where we are and to see what’s going on with the car. We’re slowly getting there and the important thing is we go to Brands Hatch and do a good job there.”

“We race to win, it doesn’t matter what you call us or what competition we’re in, we want to win it,” added Collard. “The team’s going to work very hard to try and win another championship.”

Tordoff’s switch to WSR marks a complete change for him, going from the front-wheel-drive MG6 of Triple Eight Racing to the rear-wheel-drive BMW machines, but is confident that he’ll be up to speed quickly and will be able to learn from his team-mates, who both have plenty of BMW experience under their belt.

“It’s just about learning and getting experience, everything happens differently in a rear-wheel drive car,” he added. “Through warming up the tyres to putting new tyres on and how they come in so I’m just going through the motions, trying to get comfortable in the car, comfortable in the team. For me Andy and Rob are probably the best two to learn from, they’ve both driven BMWs for a long, long time.”

Collard shares Tordoff’s enthusiasm ahead of the new season and is particularly looking forward to sharing a garage with his friend Andy Priaulx.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Collard said, speaking to TouringCarTimes during the official test session. “It’s a big, big challenge and the competition is going to be very fierce at the front of the grid. We just need to get our head down, focus and get some good points to start the year off.

“I like Andy both on and off the track, I’ve been mates with him for years. It’s good to have somebody like that that you can be close with and have a bit of fun. He’s a world class driver, obviously and he’s very strong. Sam’s very fast as well, in the last couple of tests he’s been quicker than me, he’s been quicker than me today. We just went out to do a fresh tyre run and it’s started to rain so our true pace hasn’t been shown yet.”