Having campaigned the venerable MG ZS in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship for a number of years, WSR will switch to the
BMW 320si for its second season running under the Team RAC banner.
The car is more than proven on the world stage having carried Andy Priaulx to the 2006 WTCC title and the team will now hope that
Colin Turkington and his yet-to-be-announced team-mate can repeat the feat in the British series.
Crash.net caught up with team director Mike Ewan at the launch of the new car to look forward to 2007…
Q:
Mike, it’s the BMW for the team for 2007, how did the deal come about?
Mike Ewan:
Well, initially we were looking at running the MGs again, but once the rules were announced that we couldn’t win the overall title with them, we were forced to go down the Super 2000 route. We looked at building our own cars but at the end of last season we decided not to do that and then evaluated all the available options running in the WTCC. From those, we decided that the BMW was the best route.
Q:
The car looks very striking again in the RAC colours. Are you confident of being right up there at the front with it?
Mike Ewan:
It’s going to be a steep learning curve for us as obviously the BMW is rear-wheel drive and we have only ever run front-wheel drive cars in the BTCC. But it is already successful,
very successful, in the WTCC and we are confident that we will quickly be on the pace.
Q:
The cars you have acquired, what is the history behind them?
Mike Ewan:
They will be brand new cars and we have two kits being delivered next month. We will then build those cars up in our workshop.
Q:
You’ve confirmed Colin Turkington as one of the drivers, you must be thrilled to have him back onboard for another season?
Mike Ewan:
Yeah it’s great to have Colin as part of the team. He has been with us since 2001 although he had a year off with another team in 2005 [with VX Racing], so we let him have a little holiday. He is a big part of the team, very popular with everyone in it and produces the results on track.
