G50 Champion Wrathall confirms BTCC switch

Ginetta G50 Champion Frank Wrathall Junior has confirmed that he will race an NGTC-spec Toyota Avensis in next season’s BTCC. Wrathall’s Dynojet team, with whom he raced in the G50 series have put down a deposit on a car to be built by GPR Motorsport.

Speaking to the official BTCC website, Wrathall said, “It’s a major step up for our family-run team and myself but the BTCC is the big time and we feel, particularly with the benefits of the new NGTC regulations, that the timing is right.

“I enjoyed a terrific run in 2010 with the Ginetta G50 title but moving to a front-wheel-drive touring car in a championship that has millions of fans worldwide and is famed for its door-to-door action is going to require a different approach on and off the track.”

Wrathall clinched the Ginetta title heading off competition from sometime BTCC racer Carl Breeze. The Lancastrian has raced in Ginettas for all of his car racing career, having made his debut in the G20 series in 2007, before spending three years racing G50s, taking wins in each year. This year also saw Wrathall named as a BRDC Rising Star.

Dynojet and Wrathall now await delivery of their car, expected to be in late February before they can get “busy testing.”

At the moment plans are for just a one car team, though the 24-year-old did concede that, “We’d like in the future to expand to a two-car team but not until we’ve found our feet.”

Dynojet are the second team to confirm that they will enter a NGTC Toyota Avensis in the BTCC next year following the recent announcement that Speedworks would be stepping up to the series with Tony Hughes.