Photo: PSP Images

27 cars entered for 2011 BTCC

A record 27 cars have been confirmed for this year’s British Touring Car Championship at the media day, with five cars running to the new NGTC regulations, and 13 additional cars running with the new turbo engine.

Many of the drivers are as previously announced, with the official confirmation today that Andy Neate will be Tom Chilton’s team-mate at Arena Motorsport for the 2011 season, moving across from West Surrey Racing. Arena have three cars on the entry list, but the third driver is still to be confirmed.

The only other TBC on the entry list is the second NGTC Audi A4 of Rob Austin Racing.

13 of the Super 2000 cars will run with the new Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC) specification 2.0 litre turbocharged engine. Four of these engines are built by Swindon Racing Engines, two by Neil Brown Engines for the Honda Racing Team, two Lehmann engines for Special Tuning Racing and AmD Milltek Racing, and five Mountune-built engines for Motorbase and Arena’s Fords.

There’s only one BTC-specification (2001 regulations) car on the grid, and that’s the Central Group Racing Honda Integra of Lea Wood.

Eight cars will still run fully to the Super 2000 regulations which were added to the BTCC in 2004. Five of those cars are the Chevrolets of RML, Tech-Speed and Team ES Racing. The other three are the BMWs of Geoff Steel Racing and West Surrey Racing.

The five full NGTC cars are the two Toyota Avensis cars of Speedworks Motorsport and Dynojet Racing, and the two Audi A4s for Rob Austin Racing. Welch Motorsport will join later in the year with their Proton Gen-2.

Special Tuning Racing, despite previously indicating they could run up to four cars, have only entered one car for Tom Boardman. Similarly Bamboo Engineering, who had previously planned to run two cars, one of which was for Harry Vaulkhard are absent from the entry list.

No – Driver – Team – Car – Specification
1 – Jason Plato – Silverline Chevrolet – Chevrolet Cruze – S2000
2 – Matt Neal – Honda Racing Team – Honda Civic – S2000/NGTC
5 – Tom Chilton – Arena Motorsport – Ford Focus – S2000/NGTC
7 – Mat Jackson – Motorbase Performance – Ford Focus ST – S2000/NGTC
8 – Robert Collard – West Surrey Racing – BMW 320si – S2000
11 – Frank Wrathall – Dynojet Racing – Toyota Avensis – NGTC
12 – David Pinkney – Rob Austin Racing – Audi A4 – NGTC
13 – TBC – Rob Austin Racing – Audi A4 – NGTC
14 – James Nash – Triple Eight Race Engineering – Vauxhall Vectra – S2000/NGTC
17 – Dave Newsham – Geoff Steel Racing – BMW 320si – S2000
18 – Nick Foster – West Surrey Racing – BMW 320si – S2000
20 – Alex MacDowall – Silverline Chevrolet – Chevrolet Cruze – S2000
22 – Tom Boardman – Special Tuning Racing – SEAT León – S2000/NGTC
28 – John George – Tech-Speed Motorsport – Chevrolet Cruze – S2000
29 – Paul O’Neill – Tech-Speed Motorsport – Chevrolet Cruze – S2000
34 – Tony Gilham – Triple Eight Race Engineering – Vauxhall Vectra – S2000/NGTC
42 – Daniel Welch – Welch Automotive – Proton Gen-2 – NGTC
43 – Lea Wood – Central Group Racing – Honda Integra – BTC
44 – Andy Neate – Arena Motorsport – Ford Focus – S2000/NGTC
50 – Tony Hughes – Speedworks Motorsport – Toyota Avensis – NGTC
52 – Gordon Shedden – Honda Racing Team – Honda Civic – S2000/NGTC
55 – Jeff Smith – Team Eurotech – Vauxhall Vectra – S2000/NGTC
66 – Liam Griffin – Motorbase Performance – Ford Focus ST – S2000/NGTC
77 – Andrew Jordan – Team Eurotech – Vauxhall Vectra – S2000/NGTC
78 – Chris James – Team ES Racing – Chevrolet Lacetti – S2000
99 – Tom Onslow-Cole – AmD Milltek Racing – Volkswagen Golf – S2000/NGTC
TBC – TBC – Arena Motorsport – Ford Focus – S2000/NGTC