Team Aon says it is planning to expand to three Ford Focus' in next year's HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship, with Tom Chilton guaranteed to drive one of the cars.

The Mike Earle-run concern made headlines pre-season by returning the iconic Ford marque to the BTCC, but the Focus hatchback would prove relatively slow during the early stages of the year.

However, despite its slow start, consistent development through the year helped the team ascend the grid, culminating in Chilton taking pole position at the Brands Hatch season finale before being denied victory by just 0.015secs.

With an encouraging platform from which to proceed, Team Aon are now hoping to progress by entering three cars in next year's championship for Chilton and possibly Tom Onslow-Cole, who joined the squad during the latter stages of the season.

“You simply cannot believe that the others aren't going to find something else again during the winter,” Earle told btcc.net. “Of course they are and we need to go with them. Our plan for 2009 was to enter three cars and we'd love to achieve that goal for 2010.

“Tom Chilton will remain on board and really deserves to – his attitude has been better than I could have hoped for. We'd also love to hang on to Tom Onslow-Cole – while he didn't get a full season with us he fitted into the team beautifully.”