Turkington stays as Chilton moves

Four-time British Touring Car champion Colin Turkington will remain with the West Surrey Racing BMW squad in 2022, while multiple race winner Tom Chilton has joined Excelr8 Motorsport to campaign a Hyundai i30 N.

Turkington and his 2021 team-mate Stephen Jelley are both confirmed today (Thursday) in the official BMW 330e M Sport squad alongside new WSR recruit Jake Hill. For 39-year-old Turkington, it’s a 16th season under the WSR umbrella.

“It’s a case of if it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it,” said the Northern Irish racer. “I’m excited about the new [hybrid] era of the BTCC, and there’s no other team and manufacturer I’d like to be going into that with than WSR and BMW. I’m sure they’ll do a great job with the installation of the hybrid package. The key is reliability and that’s always been a strength of the team.”

Turkington added that he hopes to be out testing the hybrid in “the third week of March, but it’s like every other team – we don’t have the hybrid kit yet”. He will be engineered for a third successive season by tin-top veteran John Waterman: “He’s very much leading the project in terms of design around the hybrid bits. He’ll be by my side again – he’s a big asset given the experience he has in the BTCC.”

WSR has been out testing, with Hill getting his first taste of the non-hybrid BMW at Brands Hatch (below).

Chilton, meanwhile, joins Tom Ingram and Dan Lloyd at Excelr8, his fourth team in four seasons. Last year he raced a Ciceley Motorsport BMW, but took time to get comfortable with rear-wheel drive. “I’m going back to what I know with a frontwheel-drive touring car,” said Chilton. “I’m particularly looking forward to working with Tom as I feel he is a quick driver who has a similar driving style to me.”