Mercedes-Benz A-Class for 2014 BTCC

Current British Touring Car Championship team Ciceley Racing have announced that they plan to build and race a new NGTC-spec Mercedes-Benz A-Class in the 2014 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

The team, which will become the first team to run a Mercedes in the series, took the decision to run the A-Class in conjunction with title sponsors Ciceley Commercials Mercedes-Benz Truck and Van dealership. 

Currently there is no works support for the project, Mercedes continue to focus their touring car efforts on the DTM, 2013 having been a reasonably unsuccessful year for the marque thus far. A successful debut season for Ciceley Racing's A-Class may well alert the Stuttgart marque to the BTCC.

The Ciceley Racing A-Class will be one of the few front wheel drive Mercedes to have ever taken to the race track, luckily the BTCC regulations balance FWD and RWD perfectly ensuring that Ciceley Mercedes and driver, Adam Morgan, could well be battling rival German marques Audi and BMW for race wins from the first race of the 2014 season.

With the BTCC being dominated by Honda Civics of late a Mercedes Benz A-Class could well be an inspired choice, it is certainly a very welcome choice with series boss Alan Gow welcoming the move “It will be great to see a Mercedes-Benz on the grid, to add to the already huge roll-call of other great brands competing in the BTCC."

Rockingham BTCC.

Rob Austin guided his WIX Racing Audi A4 to a maiden BTCC victory at Rockingham earlier today. Starting from third on the grid for the second British Touring Car Championship round Austin was able to use the A4’s traction to charge into the first corner and then establish a lead he was able to manage for the rest of the race. Despite backing off towards the end of the race the Audi driver was able to take an emotional victory to an ecstatic reception from not only his team but the spectators and fans as well.

British Touring Cars, Oulton Park.

In the heat of Oulton BMW teams enjoyed a successful 3 races as Colin Turkington took his Team RAC car to 2 victories and a disappointing 11th in the final race. Turkington’s BMW team mate Stephen Jelley enjoyed more limited success finishing 5th in the first race of the weekend before ending race 2 down in 14th and retiring from race 3.
Rob Collard and Jonathan Adam battled away all weekend in the Airwaves BMWs with good results coming to both drivers; Collard grabbed a hard fought 9th in race 1, retired in race 2 but drove brilliantly to take 4th in race 3 after having started from the pit lane! Adam finished 3rd, 5th and 13th as he continues to impress with his speed and determination is his first season of BTCC.

BTCC Donington.

A wet Donington Park hosted the latest 3 rounds of the British Touring Car Championship {link} last weekend with damp conditions being the order of the day.
Whilst Opel’s sister company Vauxhall retain the lead of both driver’s and team’s championship it is with reduced margins.
The non-factory BMW teams struggled a little in the first 2 races with Rob Collard (Airwaves BMW) picking up a 4th place in race 1 and Colin Turkington (Team RAC) collecting a 5th place in race 2.
It all came together well on the drying Donington Park track in race 3 where Collard lead home Turkington to a BMW 1 – 2.
Turkington leads the independent driver’s championship from Collard whilst Airwaves BMW leads Team RAC in the independent team’s championship.