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| West Surrey Racing | |
|---|---|
| Motor racing team | |
| Founded | 1981 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Team Principal(s) | Dick Bennetts |
| Current series | BTCC WTCC |
| Former series | Formula 3 International Formula 3000 A1 Grand Prix |
| Drivers' titles | 1981 British F3 (Palmer) 1983 British F3 (Senna) 1985 British F3 (Gugelmin) 1990 British F3 (Häkkinen) 1991 British F3 (Barrichello) 2004 Independent BTCC (Reid) 2007 Independent BTCC (Turkington) 2008 Independent BTCC (Turkington) 2009 BTCC (Turkington) 2009 Independent BTCC (Turkington) |
| Teams' titles | - |
Founded in 1981, 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 Eddie Irvine with his involvement in F3 and a racing academy in the 80s and 90s. WSR has won more than 70 races in Formula 3 and more than 20 class and outright wins in the BTCC.
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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. 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). The Mondeo had never really lived up to its hype since its inception in 1993, and Radisich ended the season 13th with 23 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 7th 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 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 7th in the Manufacturer's Championship, with 113 points.
Paul Radisich left the team at the end of 1997, to join MSD Peugeot. The man who filled the vacant seat was fellow New Zealander Craig Baird, 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 4th having allowed Derek Warwick through at the final corner, but was subsequently demoted to 5th, 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.
1999 and 2000 saw WSR running works Honda Accords, taking over from Prodrive, who in turn ran the Ford Team that West Surrey Racing had just ran.
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. None the less, both drivers had successes during the year; Thompson claiming 3 further victories at Donington, Croft and Oulton Park, with Kox bagging his only victory in the BTCC at Round 16 in the first night race at Snetterton.
Thompson ended 4th in the Driver's Championship with 174 Points and 3 Victories, and Kox finished 7th with 113 Points and 1 victory. West Surrey Racing finished 2nd in the Manufactures Championship [As Honda] with 296 points: Pipping Volvo by 1 point, but a long way off Nissan who crusied away with 464 points.
In the Year 2000, the last to be run under the Supertouring 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 3 cars. James Thompson stayed on for his 4th Year driving for Honda, whilst Peter Kox was replaced with Tom Kristensen and a 3rd car was available for Gabriele Tarquini, the 1994 Champion who partnered Thompson at Honda in 1997, and made 4 guest appearances in 1999. The season was a bit of a lost cause for WSR, with Ford romping away with superstarts Alain Menu, Rickard Rydell and Anthony Reid, with Vauxhall their 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 after a shunt at the 2nd race kept him out of action for a few weeks, but this did not stop him from winning round 11 at Silverstone. Kristensen claimed 3 victories over the course of the season. The feature race at Oulton Park and the final 2 races of the Supertouring era under the floodlights at Silverstone.
Tarquini finished 6th in the championship on 149 points, Kristensen 7th on 143 points with Thompson equal 8th on 129 points (Shared with Matt Neal).
West Surrey Racing ended the Supertouring era 2nd in the Manufactures championship, ahead of Vauxhall with 411 points.
After a brief hiatus WSR returned to the BTCC late in the 2001 season running the works MG team. 2000 runner-up Anthony Reid 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 win of 2001). 2002 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. MG finished second in the manufacturers and teams' championships, and Reid was the top driver, coming 4th overall. In 2003 "Team Atomic Kitten" was dropped, and the MG works team expanded to 3 cars to accommodate Turkington, although MG slipped to 3rd at the end of the season behind Vauxhall and Honda. 2004 saw the team lose official MG backing but they continued running Reid and Turkington to some success: the drivers finished 4th and 6th respectively overall, Reid took the Independent's title and WSR claimed 3rd 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 ZSs in the BTCC having secured title sponsorship from the RAC. Collard remained with the team, and Colin Turkington rejoined after a year driving for Vauxhall. The team switched to bio-ethanol fuel for the final 9 races of the 2006 season.
In 2007 the team ran BMW E90 320si with Colin Turkington and 2006 Clio Cup champion Tom Onslow-Cole employed as drivers, using the name Team RAC 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 and in doing-so made reference to the difficulties he had driving the rear-wheel drive BMW [1].
A possible replacement for Onslow-Cole was Duncan Huisman who raced for WSR alongside Turkington in the 2007 World Touring Car Championship event in Macau as part of Team Aviva [2]. However, in March 2008, Stephen Jelley was announced as Turkington's partner at WSR for the 2008 BTCC[3] Jelley and Turkington have 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 Driver's Championship, the first BTCC Driver's title for the team.
RAC reduced their 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 WTCC from Portimão onwards driving a 320si with sponsorship from eBay Motors.
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[4] and the new Singapore team[5].
| A1 Grand Prix Results[6] | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Car | Team | Wins | Poles | Fast laps | Points | T.C. |
| 2005-06 | Lola-Zytek | A1 Team New Zealand | 0 | 0 | 0 | 77 | 4th |
| 2006-07 | Lola-Zytek | A1 Team USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 9th |
| A1 Team Singapore | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 20th | ||
| 2007-08 | Lola-Zytek | A1 Team USA | 1 | 0 | 0 | 56 | 12th |
West Surrey Racing competed in International Formula 3000 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.[7]