Triple Eight to race in the UAE over winter

Six-times BTCC drivers’ champions Triple Eight Race Engineering are taking their current Vauxhall Vectras out to compete in the UAE Touring Car Championship during the BTCC off-season.

The team will miss the first two rounds of the 2011-2012 United Arab Emirates (UAE) Touring Car Championship due to a clash with the final two meetings of this year’s British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch and Silverstone. The Banbury-based team will therefore take part from the third round of the championship on November 4th at the Dubai Autodrome.

The UAE Touring Car Championship is an eight event (16 race) series which takes place at two circuits, the Dubai Autodrome and the Yas Marina circuit. The first round is provisionally scheduled for October 7th with the final round on April 13th 2012.

Triple Eight are yet to confirm their drivers for this programme, but the team’s current driver James Nash does have experience at the Dubai Autodrome after he raced a Barwell-run Honda Integra Type-R at the Dubai 24 Hours in January of this year. Along with former BTCC drivers James Kaye and Mark Lemmer, Nash finished ninth in class and 58th overall in the 84 car field.

“We have seen the UAE touring car series grow dramatically over the past couple of years and it’s clearly a series with a bright future,” said Triple Eight chairman Ian Harrison.

“The calendar fit works well for us around our BTCC activities in the UK, and we will be coming to the UAE to compete at the highest level. We will be bringing our core race team personnel from the UK to operate the cars because we do not underestimate the level that we will need to operate at to be competitive, but would also like to see some local technicians helping us out during the series.”