Lea Wood will race rebuilt Toyota at Silverstone

Lea Wood has confirmed he will be racing at Silverstone in a rebuilt Toyota Avensis this weekend, and praised the BTCC’s current rules which have allowed him to do so.

A huge accident with Warren Scott put pay to Wood’s Rockingham weekend, leaving his Toyota Avensis with significant rear-end damage after a high-speed impact at the Deene hairpin.

But Wood says the flexibility of the NGTC rules have allowed his  JWT Performance team to simply remove the damaged rear end, and bolt on a new one.

And the reigning Jack Sears Trophy champion says the rebuild has also allowed the team to shed some excess weight the Avensis was carrying.

“The build has gone very well,” said Wood. “It’s been completed in good time and everything is ready for Silverstone.

“The fact that we’re now running an NGTC certainly helped. We were basically able to bolt a new rear on without having to replace the shell, which would have been very costly.

“In fact there is a silver lining to the accident. When rebuilding the car were able to shave off a fair bit of excess weight we’d been carrying, so that should help us over the remaining two rounds.”

Wood and the team are hopeful the British Grand Prix venue’s National layout should suit larger machines like the Avensis.

He said: “Once again the first target is to qualify well and get away from the battles taking place towards the rear of the field. If we can do that it should be possible to make progress in each race. There are just two rounds to go now and it would be great to sign off with some strong results.

“More so than usual, I have to say thanks to the team and our partners for getting the Avensis ready for this weekend. A lot of hard work has gone into it so I hope we can finish the job on-track.”