HYUNDAI TO JOIN THE BTCC LINE-UP
South Korean firm represented on the grid for the first time in 2020
Hyundai will join the British Touring Car Championship grid in 2020 with a pair of i30 N Performance Fastbacks.
Ambitious team Excelr8 Motorsport is in the process of building up two of the coupe-style machines for its second campaign in the UK’S highest profile championship.
The cars are expected to be ready to take to the circuits in February next season. No drivers have yet been announced for the programme.
Hyundai will be represented on the British Touring Car Championship grid for the first time in 2020 as Excelr8 Motorsport fields two i30 N Performance Fastbacks in the category.
The cars are currently under construction at the team’s
Suffolk base and are expected to be ready in time to begin a pre-season testing programme in mid-february 2020.
Excelr8 Motorsport, which runs the Mini Challenge Ukthat joins the BTCC support bill next year and has built and distributed more than 70 machines globally, joined the BTCC in 2019 with two MG6S. It says the running done by Rob Smith and Sam Osborne across the 30-race campaign was all geared up towards learning as much as it could before its first new-car build.
Bosses of the team say that the i30 N Performance Fastbacks will be created in consultation with Cosworth Electronics experts to make sure the chassis are fully able to adopt the series’ hybridisation, which will come on stream in 2022.
Excelr8 has strengthened its engineering team ahead of the new challenge. No drivers have yet been confirmed for the attack.
Perfect choice
Excelr8 team principal Oliver Shepherd said there were several elements of the Hyundai that made it an appealing prospect to convert into a Ngtc-spec challenger.
The front-wheel-drive car will feature a coupe-like bodyshell, which it is hoped will offer strong aerodynamics, and the team says that lessons learned and incorporated into the MGS over the course of the past 11 months will be transferred to the i30.
“The build of the Hyundais marks the next stage in our multi-year plan to become a title contender in the British Touring Car Championship,” said Shepherd. “The i30 Fastback N Performance offers a very favourable combination of wheelbase, track width, drag coefficient and torsional stiffness, so we are extremely excited about the prospects of this project.
“It’s going to be an extremely busy winter, but the whole team is extremely motivated to get the cars out on track as soon as possible.”
Learning process
Team owner Justina Williams said that the team’s maiden season in the British Touring
Car Championship has helped it gear up operationally for the next stage in the squad’s development and it was pleased with the 2019 performance.
The team bought the MG6S from Amdtuning.com at the end of 2018 and introduced a number of upgrades to the machines, which were first built in 2012 when they were run by the
Triple Eight Racing operation.
Excelr8 Motorsport finished 10th in the Independents Teams championship in 2019. Smith and Osborne each scored two points over the course of the 30 races.
Williams said: “[This year] has been a real success for the team having achieved all the goals we set for ourselves at the start of the season. On track, we scored points with both drivers in our first season, and from operational, commercial and presentation points of view we were able to compete with the
established frontrunners.
“With the development of these new cars we should not only be achieving better results, but also deliver increased value for our brand partners, especially as we are first out of the blocks with the introduction of hybrid technology.”
Variety show
Hyundai will add to the diversity on the BTCC grid. The entry list featured five works teams in 2019, with 10 manufacturers in the lineup and 12 different models racing.
This will mark Hyundai’s debut in the category and it is hoped that the firm’s UK dealer network will get behind the programme.
Alan Gow, BTCC chief executive, added: “It’s fantastic to see another new marque join the BTCC, this time with Excelr8 Motorsport. When we set the NGTC regulations it was for precisely this purpose, to allow this sort of diversity between teams and drivers. Hyundai is a globally recognised brand, which has made a big impact in other forms of motorsport already. This new project from Excelr8 should make a great addition to the grid.”