West Surrey Racing is a UK-based motorsport team run by
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...
er Dick Bennetts. He is responsible for masterminding the careers of such names as
Ayrton Senna
Ayrton Senna da Silva (; 21 March 1960 – 1 May 1994) was a Brazilian racing driver who won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in , , and . Senna is one of three Formula One drivers from Brazil to win the World Championship and wo ...
,
Mika Häkkinen
Mika Pauli Häkkinen (; born 28 September 1968), nicknamed "The Flying Finn", is a Finnish former racing driver. He won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1998 and 1999, both times driving for McLaren. Häkkinen is one of three For ...
,
Jonathan Palmer,
Rubens Barrichello
Rubens "Rubinho" Gonçalves Barrichello (, ; born 23 May 1972) is a Brazilian professional racing driver who competed in Formula One between and . He currently competes full-time in the Brazilian Stock Car Pro Series, driving the No. 111 T ...
,
Maurício Gugelmin and
Eddie Irvine
Edmund Irvine Jr. (; born 10 November 1965) is a former racing driver from Northern Ireland. He competed in Formula One between 1993 and 2002, and finished runner-up in the 1999 World Drivers' Championship, driving for Scuderia Ferrari.
He ...
with his involvement in
F3 and a racing academy in the 80s and 90s. Founded in 1981, WSR has won more than 70 races in
Formula 3
Formula Three, also called Formula 3, abbreviated as F3, is a third-tier class of open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia form an important step for many prospective Formula One dr ...
and more than 100 class and outright wins in the
BTCC.
British Touring Car Championship
Ford
WSR moved to the
BTCC in 1996 having been chosen to run the works
Ford team, with Andy Rouse having left running the team to attempt to establish his own Nissan team. WSR worked in cooperation with
Reynard Motorsport
Reynard Motorsport was the world's largest racing car manufacturer in the 1980s. Initially based at Bicester and latterly at Reynard Park, Brackley, England the company built successful cars in Formula Ford 1600, Formula Ford 2000, Formula Vaux ...
, who built the chassis while WSR ran the race team itself. The 1996 season was one of limited success, with Ford stalwart
Paul Radisich partnered by Steve Robertson, (The man who is now the manager of
Kimi Räikkönen
Kimi-Matias Räikkönen (; born 17 October 1979), nicknamed "The Iceman", is a Finnish racing driver who competed in Formula One between 2001 and 2021 for Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus, and Alfa Romeo. Räikkönen won the 2007 Formula One W ...
). The Mondeo had never really lived up to its hype since its inception in 1993, and Radisich ended the season 13th with 27 points, and Robertson 20th, with a paltry 2 points, even finishing lower than Independents Gary Ayles, Owen McAuley, Lee Brookes and Richard Kaye. The peak of this disappointment was possibly achieved at Round 1, when Radisich, who was running well down the order, crashed into teammate Robertson at turn 1, after Robertson had spun the car.
WSR Ford finished seventh in the Team's Championship, just ahead of the factory Peugeots of
Tim Harvey and Patrick Watts.
For 1997, Radisich was partnered by departing Renault no. 2
Will Hoy, the 1991 British Touring Car Champion. Initially, an improved facelifted Mondeo was far from competitive. However, as the year continued, Hoy and Radisich were consistently fighting for points, and Radisich ended with 41 points to finish 13th, and Hoy 15th with 27 points in a mildly competitive season.
The team finished seventh in the Manufacturers' Championship, with 113 points.
Still working with Reynard, the 1998 season was much more promising. Paul Radisich left the team at the end of 1997, to join MSD
Peugeot
Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis.
The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and then ...
. The man who filled the vacant seat was fellow New Zealander
Craig Baird
Craig George Baird (born 22 July 1970) is a New Zealand former racing driver
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.
Auto racing has e ...
, but after poor performances, Baird was occasionally replaced by
Nigel Mansell, who at round 12 at a rain soaked Donington, provided one of the best races the Championship had ever witnessed. Having crashed off in race 1, and languishing at the back in race 2, Mansell gained his focus and charged through the field, and thanks to a safety car, was briefly leading. Eventually, Mansell finished fourth having allowed
Derek Warwick through at the final corner, but was subsequently demoted to fifth, having passed under waved yellows. For Will Hoy, 1998 was a much improved year. In the still unfancied Mondeo, Hoy managed to finish in the top 10 of the Championship with 69 points, which included a brilliant race win at round 4, which was to be his last before his semi-retirement at the end of the season, and shock death in 2002. This was WSR's first win in Touring Cars, but it was not to be their last.
Mansell and Baird finished 18th (7 points) and 20th (6 points) respectively, with WSR rounding off their 3-year stint running the Ford team with their best ever season.
Honda
1999 and 2000 saw WSR running works
Honda Accords, taking over from
Prodrive
Prodrive is a British motorsport and advanced engineering group based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. It designs, constructs and races cars for companies and teams such as Aston Martin, Bahrain Raid Xtreme and Team X44. Its advanced technolo ...
, who in turn ran the Ford Team that West Surrey Racing had just run.
The 1999 season saw no changes to the driver line up, with
James Thompson and
Peter Kox keeping their drives. Thompson made an excellent start to the season, winning the opening race of the season from pole position. This was Kox's second full season in the championship, having made his debut in select races for BMW in 1996, and struggling the previous year. Nonetheless, both drivers had successes during the year; Thompson claiming three further victories at Donington, Croft and Oulton Park, with Kox winning his only victory in the BTCC at Round 16 in the first night race at Snetterton.
Thompson ended fourth in the Driver's Championship with 174 Points and three victories, and Kox finished seventh with 113 Points and one victory. West Surrey Racing finished second in the Manufacturers' Championship
s Honda
S, or s, is the nineteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ess'' (pronounced ), plural ''esses''.
History ...
with 296 points: Pipping Volvo by one point, but a long way off Nissan which cruised away with 464 points.
In the Year 2000, the last to be run under the
Supertouring
Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created ...
regulations, many of the previous year's teams dropped out leaving Ford, Honda and Vauxhall as the sole works entries. In order to beef up the grid, each team ran three cars. WSR partnered with
JAS Motorsport to run the factory Honda team. James Thompson stayed on for his fourth year driving for Honda, whilst Peter Kox was replaced with contracted JAS drivers
Tom Kristensen and
Gabriele Tarquini, the 1994 Champion who partnered Thompson at Honda in 1997, and made four guest appearances in 1999. The season was a bit of a lost cause for WSR, with Ford romping away with superstars
Alain Menu,
Rickard Rydell and
Anthony Reid
Anthony Reid is a British auto racing driver, born on 17 May 1957 in Glasgow, Scotland. He was educated at Loretto School in Edinburgh. He lives in England.
Formula cars
He spent many years in Formula Three and other junior single-seater cham ...
, with Vauxhall the only (if distant) challenger. Tarquini was the strongest Honda driver, claiming victories at round 8 at Knockhill and round 18 at Donington Park and finishing more consistently. Thompson was replaced for rounds 3–4 and 5–6 by Peter Kox and
David Leslie respectively, after a shunt at the second race kept him out of action for a few weeks, but this did not stop him from winning round 11 at Silverstone. Kristensen claimed three victories over the course of the season – the feature race at Oulton Park and the final two races of the Supertouring era under the floodlights at Silverstone.
Tarquini finished sixth in the championship on 149 points, Kristensen seventh on 143 points with Thompson equal eighth on 129 points (shared with Matt Neal).
West Surrey Racing ended the Supertouring era second in the Manufacturers' Championship, ahead of Vauxhall with 411 points.
MG
After a brief hiatus WSR returned to the BTCC late in the 2001 season running the works
MG team. 2000 runner-up
Anthony Reid
Anthony Reid is a British auto racing driver, born on 17 May 1957 in Glasgow, Scotland. He was educated at Loretto School in Edinburgh. He lives in England.
Formula cars
He spent many years in Formula Three and other junior single-seater cham ...
and
Warren Hughes were signed to drive for the British marque, and despite only contesting six races Reid took a victory in the penultimate race of the year (the only non-
Vauxhall
Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...
win of 2001). The 2002 season saw the team continue with Reid and Hughes in addition to running
Colin Turkington and
Gareth Howell in a 'satellite' independent MG squad backed by the pop group
Atomic Kitten
Atomic Kitten is an English girl group formed in Liverpool in 1998, whose current members are Liz McClarnon, Jenny Frost and Natasha Hamilton. The group was founded by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) members Andy McCluskey and Stua ...
. MG finished second in the manufacturers' and teams' championships, and Reid was the top driver, coming fourth overall. In 2003 "Team Atomic Kitten" was dropped, and the MG works team expanded to three cars to accommodate Turkington, although MG slipped to third at the end of the season behind Vauxhall and Honda. The
2004 BTCC season saw the team lose official MG backing but they continued running Reid and Turkington to some success: the drivers finished fourth and sixth respectively overall, Reid took the Independent's title and WSR claimed third in the team's championship. A single car was entered for
Rob Collard in 2005, in which he took his first win at
Knockhill.
In 2006 WSR ran two
MG ZSes in the
British Touring Car Championship
The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by TOCA. It was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and was renamed as ...
(BTCC) having secured title sponsorship from the
RAC
RAC or Rac may refer to:
Organizations
* Radio Amateurs of Canada
* RATCH-Australia Corporation, electricity generator
* Refugee Action Collective (Victoria), Melbourne, Australia
* Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, US
* Rent-A-Center, ...
. Collard remained with the team, and Colin Turkington rejoined after a year driving for
Vauxhall
Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...
. The team switched to
bio-ethanol fuel for the final nine races of the 2006 season.
BMW
In 2007 the team ran
BMW E90 320si cars with Colin Turkington and 2006 Clio Cup champion
Tom Onslow-Cole employed as drivers, using the name
Team RAC
West Surrey Racing is a UK-based motorsport team run by New Zealander Dick Bennetts. He is responsible for masterminding the careers of such names as Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen, Jonathan Palmer, Rubens Barrichello, Maurício Gugelmin and ...
following a continued sponsorship deal with
The RAC.
Onslow-Cole left the team at the end of the 2007 season to join rivals
VX Racing.
A possible replacement for Onslow-Cole was
Duncan Huisman who raced for WSR alongside Turkington in the
2007 World Touring Car Championship
The 2007 World Touring Car Championship season was the 4th season of FIA World Touring Car Championship motor racing. The championship, which commenced on 11 March and ended on 18 November, after twenty-two races, was open to Super 2000 Cars, Die ...
event in
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
as part of Team Aviva. However, in March 2008, Stephen Jelley was announced as Turkington's partner at WSR for the 2008 BTCC Jelley and Turkington continued with the team for 2009. A third car was entered at the final few rounds of the season, driven by the returning Anthony Reid. In the final race of the season, Turkington clinched the Drivers' Championship, the first BTCC Driver's title for the team.
RAC reduced its backing of the team for 2010, and the team failed to find a replacement title sponsor. This meant that Turkington did not have the necessary funding to continue driving for the team and retain his title. Instead, they re-signed Rob Collard from
Motorbase Performance and
Andy Neate, a director of team sponsors
Ceravision, to replace Jelley. However, Turkington signed a deal to compete in the
World Touring Car Championship
The FIA World Touring Car Championship was an international touring car championship promoted by Eurosport Events and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It has had several different incarnations, including a s ...
(WTCC) from
Portimão
Portimão () is a city and a municipality in the district of Faro, in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. The population in 2011 was 55,614, in an area of 182.06 km2. It was formerly known as Vila Nova de Portimão (). In 1924, it was ...
onwards driving a 320si with sponsorship from eBay Motors. Collard was joined by former Mini Challenge racer
Nick Foster for the 2011 season, but neither driver won a race. Collard finished eighth in the Drivers' Championship, taking six podiums during the season, and Foster finished fourteenth with his best result being second at
Croft.
For the 2012 season, eBay Motors rejoined the team as title sponsors. The cars were fitted with NGTC spec turbocharged engines and were by driven by Collard and Foster who were also joined by
Tom Onslow-Cole, who had driven for the team in 2007. The team enjoyed a competitive season, eventually finishing as runners-up in the Teams' Championship. Collard won the opening race at Brands Hatch, followed by two more wins at Knockhill later in the year, taking him to fifth place in the final drivers' standings.
For 2013, WSR once again retained Collard and Foster in their line-up. The 2009 champion Colin Turkington managed to secure a comeback for the team, replacing Onslow-Cole. The team also replaced the
BMW 320i with the
BMW 125i M Sport. Turkington fought until the final meeting at Brands Hatch before ultimately finishing in fifth place.
For
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
, WSR retained Turkington, Collard and Foster for the second year in a row. Turkington won the championship with eight wins in thirty races, Collard ended sixth and Foster sixteenth.
Andy Priaulx
Andrew Graham Priaulx, MBE ( born 8 August 1974) is a British professional racing driver from Guernsey. In 2019 he raced for Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and Cyan Racing Lynk & Co in the FIA World Tour ...
and
Sam Tordoff joined WSR for the 2015 BTCC season. The team secured their first ever 1–2–3 finish at
Croft Circuit
Croft Circuit is a motor racing circuit located near Dalton-on-Tees in North Yorkshire, England. The tarmac circuit is long and is based on the lands of an airfield, but has long since moved on from being a basic airfield circuit. The circu ...
in Round 13.
Jack Goff joined WSR for the 2016 BTCC season, along with team mates Rob Collard and
Sam Tordoff. Goff drove under the Team IHG Rewards Club banner while Collard and Tordoff raced as Team JCT600 with GardX. A successful season brought the Teams' Championship for Team JCT600 with GardX and the Manufacturers'/Constructors' title for WSR while Tordoff was second in the Drivers' points table.
For 2017, WSR became the manufacturer entrant on behalf of BMW. Colin Turkington and
Andrew Jordan joined the team to partner Rob Collard. Turkington and Collard combined to help BMW become Manufacturers' Champion and to make Team BMW the Teams' title winner. Turkington was second in the Drivers' Championship and Collard - who had to miss the final five races following a high-speed accident at Silverstone not of his own making - finished fifth. Three wins for Jordan brought him to eighth in the Drivers' table for BMW Pirtek Racing.
For the
2018 Championship the team retained the trio of Turkington, Collard and Jordan for a second year. Turkington would go on to win round 11 at
Oulton Park
Oulton Park is a hard surfaced track used for motor racing, close to the village of Little Budworth, Cheshire, England. It is about from Winsford, from Chester city centre, from Northwich and from Warrington, with a nearby rail connection al ...
on the way to his third BTCC Drivers Championship win with Jordan and Collard also picking up a win each on their way to 5th and 19th in the championship respectively. Rob Collard was replace by his son,
Ricky Collard, after round 18 at
Snetterton Circuit. Ricky Collard would go on to finish in 25th place in the drivers standings and 13th in the
Jack Sears trophy standings. The team would win both the constructors and the teams championships for the second season in a row.
For
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
the team switched to fielding 3
BMW 330i M sports while retaining Turkington and Jordan and adding
Tom Oliphant
Thomas Oliphant is an American journalist who was the Washington correspondent and a columnist for '' The Boston Globe''.
Life and career
Oliphant was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from La Jolla High School in California and in ...
to replace the
Sterling Insurance with Power Maxed Racing bound Collard. Turkington would win 5 times on his way to his 2nd Drivers Championship in a row and 4th of his career, while Andrew Jordan would win 6 times on his way to 2nd in the drivers standings, 2 points of Turkingtons total of 320. Oliphant would finish 11th in the standings at the end of the year achieving a career high of 3rd in race 1 at
Donington Park
Donington Park is a motorsport circuit located near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England. The circuit business is now owned by Jonathan Palmer's MotorSport Vision organisation, and the surrounding Donington Park Estate, still owned ...
. The Team finished 1st in the Constructors Championship and Team BMW finished 2nd in the teams championship with BMW Pirtek Racing finishing 6th.
A1 Grand Prix
WSR were selected by
A1 Team New Zealand to run their car for the inaugural 2005–06
A1 Grand Prix season, taking the "Black Beauty" machine to 4th overall. Despite New Zealand contracting SuperNova to run their car for the
2006-07 A1 Grand Prix season WSR remained in A1GP running
A1 Team USA and the new
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
team.
*
T.C. = Teams' Championship position.
Formula 3000
West Surrey Racing competed in
International Formula 3000
The Formula 3000 International Championship was a motor racing series created by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) in 1985 to become the final preparatory step for drivers hoping to enter Formula One. Formula Two had become t ...
in
1986, running a single car for
Maurício Gugelmin. Although performances improved throughout the year, results were unspectacular and the team returned to Formula 3 for 1987.
References
External links
*
Team Profile at btccaction.co.ukWSR Supporters Forum{{Spelthorne
British auto racing teams
A1 Grand Prix racing teams
British Touring Car Championship teams
International Formula 3000 teams
World Touring Car Championship teams
Sport in Surrey
British Formula Three teams
British racecar constructors
Auto racing teams established in 1981
German Formula 3 teams