Motorbase look back on 250 BTCC races
It all started out as a phone call between two Davids. One, Bartrum, had no plans to compete in the BTCC. Another, Pinkney, had just bought an all-conquering Honda Integra from 2005 champions Team Dynamics, and wanted someone to run it for him.
But what started on a whim has evolved over the next eight years into one of the most colourful and popular teams in the paddock.
Motorbase Performance marked their 250th race in the BTCC at Oulton Park, now as an established constructor running their own cars in the most competitive iteration of the series for many a year.
Their rise to become one of the mainstays of the paddock has not been without its challenges – most notably a year with two recalcitrant SEATs with a magnetic attraction to crash barriers. But the persuasive, popular team boss Bartrum then convinced Schnitzer’s Charly Lamm to sell him two BMWs, and the rest, as they say, is history.
TouringCarTimes caught up with David Bartrum at Oulton Park to talk about the journey from one-car customer team to a manufacturer of multiple touring cars.
The adventure started at Brands Hatch in 2006, with David Pinkney, who Bartrum knew from previous exploits in motorsport. He took a podium at Knockhill in the Integra, but his most memorable race was arguably his charge to fourth at Thruxton.
Bartrum said: “I went on holiday at the end of 2005 after a fairly tough year, which was only our second year as a team. I got a text from David saying ‘we’re doing touring cars next year’.
“I said we’re not, because we haven’t got a car. And he said ‘We have – I’ve just bought one from Dynamics’. I came back, went up to Dynamics and he had bought an Integra.
“We did that year and it was a learning year for all of us. David had a reasonably good year as a privateer. We got to the end of the year, and I thought ‘I’ve got to do this touring car thing better.’
“At the Carrera Cup dinner, Alan Gow spoke to me. I’ll never forget his words – he said ‘there’s no point you going anywhere with that Integra, it’s all going to Super 2000 now. Go and buy those SEATs.’
“If you get a quote from Alan, he’ll say he told me never to buy those SEATs. Anyway, I bought the two Toledos, which was the biggest mistake I ever made in my touring car career.”
The ex-works car first appeared at Silverstone at the end of 2006 in the hands of Tom Ferrier, before Gareth Howell, Matt Allison, and later Ferrier, campaigned them in 2007. The cars were not without speed, but it was a disastrous season in many ways, with both cars being written off at the second Brands Hatch meeting.
Bartrum said: “We persevered with them, but everything that could have gone wrong with them, went wrong. We went right to the end of the year and I thought ‘I don’t know if this touring car thing is for me.’
“It was never something I wanted to do, because I’d been involved with it on the peripherals with another team years ago, and saw how much work they had to put in. I thought if I’m going to do it justice, I’m going to do it with the best car I can find.”
So Bartrum took a trip to Brands Hatch in September 2007, when the World Touring Car Championship was in town. And despite an initial knock-back, he ended up with what he came for – two Schnitzer BMW 320si E90s, then being driven by Augusto Farfus and Jörg Muller.
He said: “I found Charly one of the best guys I’d ever met in touring cars. He said ‘I can’t sell you the cars, because there are other people waiting on them.’ I said I was going to drive him mad, and I did.
“He wouldn’t do anything until he’d been to Macau, and I remember phoning him from my holiday and asking him if I’d got my cars. He said ‘yes, you can have a car’. So I said, ‘right, I want two.’
“I got one in the December and one in the January, and I didn’t have a clue how I was going to pay for them. It was proper money. But we found a way, and that was the start of what I consider our proper touring car attempt.
“We were a 300 grand customer team. We had three great years with BMW. One of my favourite years was 2008 with Rob Collard and Steven Kane, because that was me running the team on my own.
“Rob was coming back to touring cars and he had a bit of a tough start, but it ended up a really good year in its own way. We had our ups and downs, but I really miss that level of intensity.”
Collard took two podiums and Kane one, before the latter was replaced by Jonathan Adam for 2009. It was a significant year, as it was the first under the Airwaves banner, the first with team manager Oly Collins, and most significantly – the first win.
Collard won the second race of the season at Brands Hatch, taking another victory at Donington Park, while Adam won on the road at Brands before being demoted to second for an incident with Jason Plato.
This was followed by a 2010 season which started the team’s long association with Mat Jackson, who replaced West Surrey Racing-bound Collard. Kane was also back in the second seat, and the team took two wins and 11 podiums.
Bartrum said: “I got to know Olly quite well. He was leaving Dynamics to go and work with his dad, and it started out as a part-time role. It still is really.
“He came in back in 2009, and that was the start of the rise. We had Jonny Adam and Rob, and I enjoyed that as a period. Jonny’s a really nice guy, and I still deal with him at Aston Martin.
“In 2010 it changed again and Mat came on board. That was probably one of the most significant things, because Mat has turned out to be one of my longest serving drivers. Him and Michael Caine have been with me longest.
“We got to the end of 2010 with the Beemers and it became apparent that they weren’t going to be fast enough any more. I was going to try and turbo the engine, but that was too much money.”
After running a Honda, SEAT and BMW, the team moved to a fourth marque – Ford. It had looked at one stage that a first championship was on the table, with Jackson leading the standings after four wins in the first six meetings.
But it wasn’t to be, after a disastrous Knockhill round which sowed the seeds of a fall to fourth in the table, behind champion Matt Neal, Gordon Shedden and Jason Plato.
The following season, the team surprised a fair few people by arriving at Snetterton with their own Ford Focus, which was built to the new NGTC regulations.
Jackson took a fourth place in the final race of the weekend, before taking a memorable win at Silverstone, after driving from the back of the pack.
Bartrum said: “We did a deal for the Fords with Arena, and we had a year in 2011 with Liam and Mat, and it was OK. At one point we were leading the championship, and then it went wrong. Mat had a bit of a crashing session and we lost that, which was a real shame.
“In 2012 we had Aron Smith on board, with Mat and Liam. We got halfway through the year and we could see NGTC was coming. That was probably the biggest decision I’ve made [to build a car], and some of it I like, and some of it I don’t.
“Once we start winning again with it, I’ll like it! It was a decision to go from being a touring car team which goes out and purchases exactly what I wanted, to a touring car team which is a constructor.
“We built the Ford – I wish I’d built a BMW! But it was an easy decision to build the Ford, because the Ford engine was already in the car we’d bought. We already had an NGTC-specification engine, so some of the work was done for us.
“That side I really like. Mountune, who we have a long association with, are on our doorstep. They are very good to us.
“We rolled the car out in August 2012 at Snett, and I have to say there was a bit of pride, because that was the first thing we’d ever built from scratch.
“The boost favoured us – we had the boost and the rules were slightly different. It’s getting harder now, and in 2013 with Aron and Mat, it didn’t go as it should do.
“But we learnt a lot about our own car, and in the second half of the season we scored lots of points. I think we scored 338 points – if we’d scored that in the first half, we’d have been well up there.
“We had Michael and Nick Tandy to help with the development, and it helped turn a corner. Coming into 2014, knowing that we’d turned a corner with the car.”
That brings us to 2014 – a season which has started promisingly for the team, in a car which has shown genuine front-running pace in Jackson’s hands.
Touring car legend Fabrizio Giovanardi has taken time to get up to speed, and tin-top rookie Jack Clarke is very much learning the ropes. But the future is bright, and as Bartrum revealed to TouringCarTimes on Sunday, it could again feature a BMW.
He said: “It didn’t quite go to plan at the first round this year – we had a bit of aggro with BMR – but Mat’s been on it all season. When you’re not on the podium you get overlooked a little bit, but at Thruxton they were both on the podium.
“Mat’s P4 in the first race, he was going for the win with the three Hondas. From that point of view, we’ve turned a corner. As I sit here looking down the barrel of my 250th BTCC race, I’m hoping we might get the win I want. That’s our journey.”
