So far in the pre-season we’ve seen a number of teams out testing before the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season opener at Brands Hatch a little under three weeks away.

Team AON, Airwaves Racing, West Surrey Racing, Silverline Chevrolet, Honda Racing, Special Tuning Racing, Pirtek Racing and more recently Tech-Speed have all been out on track testing their 2011 cars to give them the edge when it comes to the start of the season.

Team AON recently took delivery of the new ‘Global’ Ford Focus after the Geneva Motor Show and were out at Brands Hatch last Wednesday testing it out. Driving it was Tom Chilton and speaking to btcc.net he said, “The car feels just beautiful. We had some teething problems early on but they were fixed at lunchtime and in the afternoon it ran like a dream. But what an effort from the people in the team – it’s been a really big proper push on their part.”

“Without a doubt the base product is already a better starting-off point. The old car was great; this is just even better.”

Chilton will be looking to build on his Independents Championship Trophy win last season and go for the outright Drivers Championship after finishing 5th overall last season. Team AON are yet to announce a full driver line-up however Andy Neate has been testing for the team on numerous occasions.

Special Tuning Racing, who have already declared that they have access to four SEAT Leon’s for this season, have also been out testing. They were at Silverstone last Friday with one of their cars with four drivers all sharing the driving duties throughout the day. Those that were there were Tom Onslow-Cole, Martin Depper, Mark Hazell and their already confirmed driver for this season, Tom Boardman.

Speaking about his run in the car Onslow-Cole said, “It was only a short run but the handling was very strong and the new NGTC-spec engine they have is very good as well. I’ve not been in a car for six months so it’s difficult to compare to the others, but from what I experienced this looks like a very good package.”

Friday was also the first time the team had used the new NGTC engine. STR will be using the VW group’s TFSI engine as part of the NGTC regulations.

There was also a big shock last week with the sighting of Paul O’Neill not only in the paddock but actually in a race car at Brands Hatch. Paul O’Neill, who’s been one of the fan favourites for many years, took to the wheel of the ex-RML Chevrolet Cruze at Brands Hatch with the Tech-Speed team after it was looking unlikely that he would get a drive for this season.

Paul O’Neill was undoubtedly excited about his recent outing in the Chevrolet Cruze and said, “I now know what all the hype is about with RML. It feels like I’m in a different category with the Cruze. If this comes off we’ll be working hard to win some titles. It would be a great opportunity for a small team like ours.”

Paul O’Neill is yet to announce his intentions for this season with this just purely being a test session in the car.

All teams will be looking to be there come Media Day which is this year held at the Silverstone circuit on March 24th.

Before that there are expected to be a number of teams out tomorrow at Snetterton for drivers first chance to get a look at the new Snetterton 300 layout which will be used later on this year. Coverage of the test session will be brought to you from our LIVE twitter account at @BTCCCrazyLive from around 0800GMT till the close of play.

Quote Credit: BTCC.net
Photo Credit: Steven Knightley (www.sjkphotography.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.