Cutting the apron strings – for a few seasons
Although Colin Turkington has spent 75 per cent of his career at WSR, he has enjoyed success with the two other teams that he has driven for: Triple Eight Race Engineering and Team BMR.
Although acknowledged as a rear-wheel-drive expert, Turkington founded his career in front-wheel-drive cars with the Wsr-run MG ZS, and it was this prowess that brought him to the attention of Ian Harrison, the Triple Eight boss.
He was plugged into the Astra Sport Hatch alongside acknowledged benchmark and team darling Yvan Muller and plonked the car on pole for his maiden outing with the squad. That was a false dawn and, despite a flourish in the middle of the year when he won at Croft and Mondello Park, he was unable to match the Frenchman and finished virtually 100 points behind the sister car.
After returning to WSR, he was tempted to leave by the big bucks that Team BMR chief Warren Scott was spending at the end of the 2014 campaign.
Turkington and his engineer Kevin Berry went over to the VW CC team and joined forces with Jason Plato. Turkington was back in a front-wheel-drive car alongside Plato, who had only ever raced that format of car since his BTCC debut in 1997.
Turkington struggled initially to readjust and Plato put him in the shade. The highpoints were a win at Donington Park, Silverstone and two mid-season triumphs at Snetterton, but he was overshadowed by his team-mate.
Last season, Turkington was right back at home in the rear-wheel-drive Subaru Levorg, which was newly developed by the team. Despite struggles at the start of the year with the project, he took five wins to Plato’s one.