Oliphant joins WSR for 2019 BTCC season
Tom Oliphant will switch to West Surrey Racing for the 2019 British Touring Car Championship.
The 28-year-old joins the reigning champion BTCC squad for his sophomore campaign in the series, having finished 22nd in the overall standings and 12th in the Independents Trophy with Ciceley Motorsport in his rookie year.
Tom Oliphant will switch to West Surrey Racing for the 2019 British Touring Car Championship.
The 28-year-old joins the reigning champion BTCC squad for his sophomore campaign in the series, having finished 22nd in the overall standings and 12th in the Independents Trophy with Ciceley Motorsport in his rookie year.
Oliphant achieved a best finish of seventh-place at the Knockhill round in August and qualified inside the top 10 on six occassions throughout 2018.
"It’s a dream come true to join WSR and I’m incredibly proud that Dick Bennett and the team have shown the faith in me to provide this opportunity," said Oliphant.
"WSR have been the Teams’ Champions for the past three years and their reputation is of the absolute highest standard, while BMW’s contribution to touring car racing in Britain and across the globe is immense, so I’m incredibly excited and proud to be a part of this programme.
"This gives me a great platform to achieve my targets in the BTCC, which are to take wins and podiums in 2019, finish in the top 10 of the points and compete for the Jack Sears Trophy.”
Oliphant won the 2015 Ginetta GT4 Supercup championship and was a race-winner in British GT before making the move into the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship, taking back-to-back fourth place finishes ahead of his switch to BTCC for 2018.
"We're very pleased to announce Tom as the first member of our 2019 line-up," added WSR team principal Dick Bennetts.
"We have a long history of working with young drivers and turning them into frontrunners and champions, and we're sure Tom has all the right attributes to achieve his potential with us.
"We were impressed with him in the BTCC support categories and the speed he showed in his rookie season in 2018 has convinced us that he'll be the ideal driver to help us push on and achieve our aim of even more success in 2019."
The BMW squad took Colin Turkington to his third drivers' title in 2018 as well as winning the teams' championship for the third year in a row.
