THIS MONTH… • DAN CAMMISH BOWS OUT • WHAT HAPPENED NEXT FOR ROBB HOLLAND • LIVERY DESIGN WITH NICK MOSS • REMEMBERING MURRAY WALKER • TEN YEARS OF NGTC • THE LATEST BTCC NEWS
MARCH 2021 EDITION
NEWS IN BRIEF THE LATEST UPDATES FROM THE BTCC PADDOCK… new season is getting T he ever closer and although there is still a month (at the time of publication) until racing gets underway, the grid is now set for the 2021 campaign.
Here’s our quick re-cap of the latest news headlines that have broken since the February edition went on sale…
DAN CAMMISH LEAVES TEAM DYNAMICS Despite having nearly twelve months still to run on a twoyear deal, Dan Cammish won’t be part of the Team Dynamics line-up for 2021.
Cammish will leave the Honda team after three seasons that saw him emerge as the leading front-wheel drive runner in the championship twice finishing third in the standings.
With the split coming at a time when the grid was already pretty much set, Cammish will return to the Porsche Carrera Cup with Redline Racing for the new season - setting up the prospect of a fascinating title battle with defending champion Harry King.
“Whilst it is really disappointing for me, I have to thank Dynamics for their faith in bringing me into the
Championship three years ago," he said.
“If it weren’t for them, I probably wouldn’t have got my ‘big break’ in the BTCC and managed to do what I have done. We have parted on exceptional terms and I will be keeping in contact going forward.
“It is great to be returning to Redline Racing ahead of the 2021 Porsche Carrera Cup GB season. In a way it feels like I never really left, having worked for the team as a driver coach in recent seasons.
“I have a fantastic relationship with Simon Leonard, and the
whole team showed me a lot of support throughout my time in the BTCC.
"I am thankful to Simon for the opportunity to return to Porsche racing in the highly competitive Carrera Cup GB and I look forward to the season ahead."
2022 TOCA ENGINE SET FOR TRACK DEBUT Testing of the latest version of the TOCA engine continues apace, with new supplier MSport having successfully run a series of dyno tests.
The new engine, which will be introduced next year for the start of the hybrid era, will now be fitted to the Hybrid Test Car for on tracking testing to begin.
That initial work will be carried out at M-Sport’s Dovenby
base, with the company having invested heavily in the circuit in recent years alongside a multi-million pound technical facility.
“Things are progressing very well on the design and testing of the new TOCA Engine," MSport’s head of engine development Nigel Arnfield said.
"The engine development phase is now complete with over 50 successful power tests and 40 simulated laps of Oulton Park having been undertaken.
"We have also finished the ECU calibration on the all–new Cosworth Antares platform and in the next couple of weeks will begin initial in-car calibration work in the Hybrid test car.
"Despite all of the additional challenges that all businesses
are facing at the moment, I am happy to say that the development is on time and going to plan.”
GORDON SHEDDEN MAKES RETURN On the back of the news that Dan Cammish wouldn’t be back for 2021, Team Dynamics revealed that threetime champion Gordon Shedden will lead its assault on the championship.
Shedden will make his return to the championship for the first time since 2017, having then moved into the World Touring Car Cup with Audi.
A tough two year spell in the series saw Shedden secure just one win, on the streets of Wuhan, before Audi’s decision to withdraw support from the series saw him lose his seat with the WRT squad.
"I CAN BOW OUT HAPPY WITH WHAT I’VE ACHIEVED" DAN CAMMISH LOOKED TO BE A SHOE-IN TO REMAIN WITH TEAM DYNAMICS FOR 2021, BUT THEN EVERYTHING SUDDENLY CHANGED….
I
t was back in October 2019, as the clock ticked down to the BTCC title decider at Brands Hatch, that the announcement was made that Dan Cammish had agreed terms on a new two year deal with Team Dynamics.
The Yorkshireman had enjoyed a stellar second season in the series to launch a championship challenge as he took the fight to the West Surrey Racing-run BMWs.
And just a few weeks later, he would go agonisingly close to lifting the title in one of the most dramatic finales the series has ever seen.
Overcoming the disappointment of losing out with just a handful of miles of the 2019 season left to run, Cammish bounced back well last year to pick up a personal best points haul as he secured
a top three championship finish, and the honour of being the best placed driver using a front-wheel drive car, for the second season in a row.
Having firmly established himself as a championship contender, Cammish was widely expected to be a figure in the title fight again in 2021 and was the first name to appear on many entry lists, thanks in no small part to that deal announced some 15 months before.
It therefore came as a surprise to many when the announcement was made that rather than fight for the title, Cammish wouldn’t even be on the grid after his deal with Dynamics was brought to an early end.
The reasons why would become clear in the weeks that followed as news
emerged of the departure of both Honda and long-time team sponsor Yuasa, with Cammish instead making a return to the Porsche Carrera Cup, where he will chase a record-breaking third title during the year ahead.
It’s not however what the 31year-old expected to be doing as he prepared for the new season to come around…
"I knew quite early on that Honda wouldn’t be continuing, but I was working under the impression that I would still be part of the team," he reflected in conversation with Inside BTCC.
"To be honest, I did see that there could potentially be some issues coming along quite early, and I brought that up in conversation with Matt [Neal] and I was told not to worry.
AN EYE FOR DESIGN THE MAN BEHIND THE TEAM BMW COLOUR SCHEME REVEALS MORE ON DESIGNING A RACE CAR LIVERY ith the grid for the 2021
W campaign having now
been set with all 28 drivers officially confirmed, focus has turned towards the cars they’ll be racing with launch season in full flow.
Alongside a raft of new cars that are being introduced for the year ahead, teams have also started to show off the new liveries that will adorn their machines.
West Surrey Racing was the first to officially show off a 2021 colour scheme complete with sponsors - on the BMW 330i M Sports that will be driven this season by
Colin Turkington, Tom Oliphant and Stephen Jelley.
The new livery is something of an evolution of the one seen on track last season, and features the iconic BMW M stripes on a matte-black base.
It’s a livery that has been designed - as has been the case with a number of WSR cars in recent years - by Nick Moss, a man with over 25 years of experience in graphic design who has spent the last decade specialising in the motorsport field.
However, whilst WSR operates from a base in
Sunbury on Thames on the edge of London, the man responsible for the BMW livery resides on the other side of the world in Australia, where he has been heavily involved in the Supercars Championship for a number of seasons.
In his career to date, Moss has had the opportunity to working alongside some of the leading teams in the series, with the likes of Garry Rogers Motorsport, Walkinshaw Racing, Erebus Motorsport and Ford Performance Racing all making use of his services to design their racing colours.
With the latter - now known as Tickford Racing - his liveries enjoyed back-to-back wins in the Bathurst 1000 in 2013 and 2014, and also won the overall Supercars Championship title with Mark Winterbottom in 2015.
It’s a run of success that any budding livery designer would be proud of, but how did he become involved in the first place?
"As a young child growing up in Australia, my favourite driver was Peter Brock," he reflects, referring to the multiple Australian Touring Car champion and nine-time Bathurst winner.
Image: Supercars
"I was forever drawing his cars with pencils and markers and was passionate about motorsport, but I left high school not really knowing how I could fulfil that passion.
"I studied design at the TAFE Design Centre in Sydney and then ended up working in the signage industry for 15 years, which gave me the chance to learn everything there is to know about applying graphics onto vehicles whilst also honing my graphic design skills all the time.
"Like many people, I would work on doing livery designs in my spare time and would regularly post my concepts onto fan forums, such as V8Central.com.
"That led to them starting to come to the attention of race teams and led to me getting my first professional livery design roles.
"My big break came towards the end of 2010 when Ford Performance Racing contacted me asking if I would
pitch some livery design concepts for the 2011 season, and I ended up getting the job.
"They were the client that really launched my career and we worked together for eight years, sharing wins at Bathurst and in the championship.
"In total, I’ve ended up doing work with ten different Supercars teams."
The famous Supercar liveries that Moss had designed across the last decade include the Supercheap Auto Racing, Pepsi Max and Monster Energy-backed Ford Falcons, the Mobil 1 HSV Holden Commodore and the Valvoline Racing GRM Volvo S60.
But how did someone based in Australia end up transferring
BORN IN THE USA IT’S BEEN A FEW YEARS SINCE ROBB HOLLAND LAST FEATURED ON THE GRID - BUT DON’T GO CALLING THE AMERICAN AN EX-BTCC RACER JUST YET….
I
t was back in 2012 when Tony Gilham’s Team HARD announced the somewhat left-field decision to draft in Robb Holland for two rounds of the season.
washout, Holland was able to pick up three points finishes to kick off a four-year spell competing in the series albeit without contesting a full season.
Running an ex-Team Dynamics Honda Civic, the team had scored its maiden podium finish earlier in the year at Donington Park thanks to Gilham himself, but the team boss would switch into an NGTC Vauxhall Insignia for the second half of the campaign.
"I’d always wanted to do the BTCC, and it was one of the reasons why I got into racing in the first place," he recalls in conversation with Inside BTCC.
Holland would be the first of three drivers to step into the Honda for the second half of the season, agreeing a deal to compete at both Snetterton and Knockhill.
Despite his lack of experience of the UK circuits, and the fact that his only real test at Snetterton proved to be a
"I remember watching the Super Touring era on TV here in the USA and that to me was real racing. I loved F1 like a lot of other people do, but watching the guys go out on track in cars that looked like those you could drive on the street and seeing what they were doing with them just blew my mind.
"From that point on, it was always in the back of my mind that I’d love to have at go at
the BTCC if the chance came along."
The chance would arrive on the back of what had been a successful season in the Pirelli World Challenge, where Holland was part of the K-PAX Racing team running a factory Volvo programme with the C30 in the Touring Car class.
A win at Mid-Ohio would be the highpoint of the year, with further podium finishes at the same venue and then at Laguna Seca helping him to finish third in the standings behind Lawson Aschenbach and his Volvo team-mate Aaron Povoledo.
However, at the end of 2011, the PWC programme came to an end and left Holland to evaluate his options for the new campaign.