The Speedworks Racing team took to a damp and cold Donington Park circuit to carry out winter testing and development work on the car as they prepare for the 2012 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

The team, who made it’s debut in the championship last season, appointed two-time champion, James Thompson, as the person to undertake driving duties in the winter test session.

Speaking to btcc.net, Team Principal, Christian Dick commented, “The weather wasn’t ideal, but it could have been much worse and it didn’t hamper our progress too much. We moved on in lots of ways and have plenty of ideas as to where we want to go with the Avensis over the winter period.”

“It was great to work with James (Thompson). He’s a consummate professional and he settled into the car inside of three or four laps – it’s not totally new territory for him at all, having been involved in the development of the NGTC prototype. He has such a lot of experience and driving front-wheel-drive touring cars is his speciality. Tony (Hughes) was on hand, but didn’t get to drive in the end because the weather didn’t permit us to start as early as we’d hoped and darkness falls so early at this time of year.”

Tony Hughes made the step up to the BTCC last year after competing in the Ginetta G50 Cup for the previous two seasons where he took the Chairmans Cup in both years. However he and the team failed to carry their successes through into the BTCC and the team admit that they need a lot of development work over the winter period.

“Now we’ll get the car back to the workshop. We have plenty of food for thought, but we’ll strip the car down and rebuild it ready for next year with the view of having it back up and running at the end of January,” added Christian Dick. “We want to get plenty of testing miles under our belt, hopefully with Thompson, because we’ve got a lot more development work to do to get the car running properly before the start of the new season.”

Photo Credit: Chris Enion

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.