With its current Lexus IS200 producing some encouraging results this season, BTC Racing could elect to upgrade to the new look version of the car for the 2008 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.
The team, which has run the rear-wheel drive cars since the penultimate round of last season, had endured mixed fortunes throughout the season with the ex-Speed Equipe machinery, with some impressive performances from Chris Stockton being mixed in with a series of issues that have sidelined the car on more than one occasion.
Indeed, the
Snetterton weekend last weekend was one of the those where nothing went to plan, with problems on Saturday forcing the team into an engine change overnight. An early retirement in race one left Stockton at the back of the field for race two and he then found himself caught up in shunt off the line that left the Lexus heavily damaged – not helped by Richard Marsh going off into the side of the black machine behind the Safety Car.
With the team working miracles to repair the car, he could then only finish 14th in the final race to cap a tough weekend.
"It's been a down weekend, a really rotten one," Stockton admitted to
Crash.net. "We know we are improving and narrowing the gap but the results and the times don't reflect it. We knew we had time in hand after practice but look like we are as far away as ever but we'll just forget this weekend and write it off as one that went pear shaped.
"I haven't seen the footage of race two, but several people have said things that agree with what I thought. I had a great start and was blasting up the outside and I had Eoin Murray on my inside with Fiona inside him. Mike Jordan was slow away and Fiona swerved to avoid him, Eoin darted to miss her and tapped me which turned me into a spin and speared me in front of them. I hit the barrier, Fiona went over me and the car was in bits.
