Fan-funded race team, YourRacingCar.com, enjoyed an impressive debut in their first ever race in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship with three race finishes in the NGTC-turbo engined SEAT Leon.

It was confirmed a little under two weeks ago that the Milton Keynes based team would make the step-up from the Renault Clio Cup to the BTCC and it was a successful weekend despite a minor hiccup in Saturday’s qualifying session.

A broken driveshaft meant that he would start the first race of the day from the back of the grid, alongside Martin Depper and Martin Johnson who both missed the session.

Starting from 19th following Hollamby’s withdrawal, Phil was able to make up four places on the opening lap and cross the line in 15th place. He would then make a further overtaking move on the championship winning BMW of Andy Neate to finish YourRacingCar’s first race in 14th place, just 20 seconds behind race winner Tom Chilton.

Phil would now start the second race of the day from 14th on the grid and would make good progress with the car admitting that today was just a case of “acquiring data from the car to compare against Tom’s (Boardman) S2000 Leon”. Phil would finish the race in 13th, just behind the Seat on Tom Boardman.

Race three was the pick of the bunch for the team but it was also the biggest disappointment too as a chaotic start to the race allowed the Sheffield-based driver to move up to as high as tenth place at the end of the opening lap. A points finish looked on the cards as he moved up to ninth but a drive-through penalty ensued as a result of running off-track at Copse – a decision which was highly protested with many other drivers having done the same without punishment.

The resultant drive-through penalty meant that Phil would slip down to 13th and miss out on the top 10 finish which he aimed for at the start of the day.

Phil spoke after the race and was upbeat despite the disappointment of the final race. “It had definitely been a productive weekend for us. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy and it was frustrating to start with as we had some niggles with the car, but we have done well to get into a position where we were able to fight for points,”said Phil. “It’s just disappointing that we have been penalised for running wide when others have done the same and nothing happened. Personally, there was nothing I could do to prevent it as we were suffering from understeer with the car and I was drifting wide as a result.”

Hannah James, the YourRacingCar.com team manager also added, “The result of the final race is
a disappointment as I feel like we were robbed of a top ten finish, but the weekend as a whole has been everything that we hoped for from the BTCC and more besides. The support from the YRC members has been fantastic and the sponsors who have been with us for the weekend have all been impressed by what they have seen. The guys from Special Tuning have been brilliant with the car and Phil has done exactly what we expected behind the wheel.”

Hannah also went on to say, “This isn’t the last you’ll see of YRC in the BTCC!”

Photo Credit: Pete Mainey (www.psmmotorsportimages.co.uk)

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.