West Surrey Racing has announced the signing of Tom Oliphant for the 2019 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship.
The Leamington Spa-based driver will compete for the team in what will be the 62nd running of the UK’s most popular motor racing series.
Oliphant, 28, made his BTCC debut in 2018 with Ciceley Motorsport and qualified inside the top 10 at his second event at Donington Park.
He repeated this achievement five more times across the season, recorded a best finish of seventh at Knockhill in August and scored his maiden fastest lap in the series at the final round on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit.
His CV also counts a Ginetta GT4 Supercup title and British GT race wins, while he finished runner-up in the Porsche Cup Middle East and has scored a podium finish in both the Carrera Cup GB and the global 24H Series’ showpiece event, the Dubai 24 Hours.
“It’s a dream come true to join WSR for next year’s British Touring Car Championship and I’m incredibly proud that Dick Bennetts and the team have shown the faith in me to provide this opportunity," said Oliphant.
"WSR have been the Teams’ Champions for the past three years and their reputation is of the absolute highest standard, while BMW’s contribution to touring car racing in Britain and across the globe is immense, so I’m incredibly excited and proud to be a part of this programme.
"This gives me a great platform to achieve my targets in the BTCC, which are to take wins and podiums in 2019, finish in the top 10 of the points and compete for the Jack Sears Trophy.”
WSR’s BMW 125i M Sports scored 18 podiums and three wins in 2018 as the Sunbury-on-Thames team steered Colin Turkington to the Drivers’ title and claimed the Teams’ and Manufacturers’ crowns to complete a championship clean sweep with the help of fellow drivers Rob and Ricky Collard and Andrew Jordan. The team has won 10 overall BTCC titles in the past 10 seasons; all with BMW cars, plus nine Independents’ crowns.
Dick Bennetts, Team Principal, added: “We’re very pleased to announce Tom as the first member of our 2019 line-up. We have a long history of working with young drivers and turning them into front-runners and champions, and we’re sure Tom has all the right attributes to achieve his potential with us. We were impressed with him in the BTCC support categories and the speed he showed in his rookie season in 2018 has convinced us that he’ll be the ideal driver to help us push on and achieve our aim of even more success in 2019.”
