Handy Motorsport fielding two new Toyotas in 2016

Handy Motorsport will field two new Toyota Avensis cars in the 2016 season, although one will not make its debut until Oulton Park at the earliest.

Team boss Simon Belcher, speaking at the unveiling of Rob Austin as the team’s lead driver for the coming season, told TouringCarTimes that plans are currently ongoing for the second car, both in building and in who will sit behind the wheel.

“We had to do everything in a certain order”, explained Belcher. “First thing was to build a brand new car, using our TBL with Rob Austin driving. That box we’ve ticked. We’re now moving on to the second car. We’ve got an option to lease a licence from Rob Austin Racing and that has been approved by TOCA so we’re now working on the financial package with sponsors. As long as we can get everything in place we can then start building another new car.

“Because of the Subarus [of Team BMR] jumping in the shell building queue in front of us it does mean that we’re not going to build another new car until Oulton Park, however what we will do is run my existing car for the first three events in GPRM spec whislt we’re building the new car. We’re at the beginning of January, it’s still very early in the big scheme of things but by the end of January we should be able to announce definitely if we’ve got, or not got, a second car on the grid.”

With a second car in the works the obvious question lies in who will be the man behind the wheel, and although Belcher would relish the opportunity to continue his driving career in the BTCC, he admits he may have to take a year out for the benefit of the team.

“It’s still in negotiations,” he told TouringCarTimes. “At the end of the day everything comes down to money. It’s a combination of what resources we’ve got, what sponsors we’re bringing on board and if we can tick all the boxes I’d love to be on the grid. This isn’t an end of me in the BTCC even if it ends up that I do end up sitting out for a year, my plan would be from day one to be back in the car for 2017.

“Bigger than me as a driver is the team and that’s more important. If I have to make a personal sacrifice to reach the goals that we’ve set quicker then I’m prepared to do that and I think if I wasn’t saying that I wouldn’t be doing my job as a team owner and that probably wouldn’t be exciting Rob either. He wants to see me primarily as team owner, secondary as driver. But I love racing in the BTCC, I want to continue doing it, if we can get it together for 2016 that’ll be great if not I will be working as hard as I can for 2017.”