The 2021 Britcar season will not just be a good year – in deference to our newly-rebadged major partner Goodyear – but a great year, with capacity grids for both our Britcar Endurance and Britcar Trophy Championships.

The successful Praga marque get their own discrete championship this year, run within the Britcar Endurance races, and reigning co-champion Jem Hepworth is likely to return, as are ex-servicemen Martin Compton and Warren McKinlay, while a healthy mix of established drivers and novices, interspersed with a number of high-profile driver coaches andguesting celebrities from the sporting and high-achievement world will ensure some great racing from these stunning machines.

Danny Harrison, reigning co-champion with Hepworth, moves to a beefy Nissan GT3, and will be a major contender for the Endurance title again, partnering Richard Wheeler, head of long-time sponsor Fox Transport, though Will Powell has signaledtitle aspirations in the Motus One McLaren 650S he will share with Dave Scaramanga, and for race wins, veteran campaigner John Seale, assisted by Jamie Stanley in a Lamborghini Huracan, cannot be discounted.

A good string of results from a car in the classes below could bag the crown, however, and in Classes 2 and 3 we will see representation from Ferrari, Porsche, BMW and Ginetta. Mike Moss’s BMW 1M has overall race-winning credentials, and last season’s Class 3 champions, Marcus Fothergill and Dave Benett, will be up against stiffer competition in their Porsche 991 now that the class system has been re-jigged. That stiffer competition will no doubt include the Digiplat and CRH BMWs, further Porsches from SG Racing, Valluga and Team Hard, and an FF Corse Ferrari 458 Challenge.

Class 4 now caters exclusively for GT4 and TCR machines, with last year’s title-winning Reflex Racing Ligier JS2-R returning, as is, with renewed vigor, the Newbarn Racing Jaguar F-Type, while the Woodman/Byford SEAT Cupra will be taking the fight to the RWD cars, which will feature Peter Erceg’s Cayman and the Team Brit Aston Martin Vantage.

The Britcar Trophy Championship has enjoyed enormous pre-season interest, with record registrations ensuring full grids for all rounds in this coming season, including a shed-load of new faces. Multiple entries from J W Bird and their VW Sciroccos, and the BMWs of Simon Green Motorsport in Class T1 will be up against some specially-constructed BMWs – the Team BRIT M240, and Simon Baker’s 1-series Coupe, built by Woodrow Motorsport, who claim to have a potential class winner.Potential, maybe, though with a number of returnees – the Smith/Campbell Peugeot, the MacG Racing Mazda RX8, Rob Baker’s Smart 4/4, and the infamous “Kester Fiesta”, they will have their work cut out.  Class T2 is no less competitive either; the “two Amigos” Richard Bernard and Anthony Hutchins are joined in the Porsche Boxster brigade by old hands Leigh Smart/Kevin Hancock, while the Ginetta G40 contingent will be led by returnees Peter Spano/Andrew Bentley and Charlotte Birch/Adriano Medeiros, and Saxon Motorsport return with a brace of SEATs, plus the Woodard Mini too. Class T4 features an eclectic mix of Alfa, Honda, Mazda, and the diminutive Ginetta G20, with father and son duo Steve and Edward Cook looking to repeat their 2020 class success in their Civic, against Team BRIT’s Luke Pound and Paralympian Nerys Pearce’s BMW 118, while the standalone Clio class sees multiple support once again from the prolific Westbourne Motors stable, and a concerted effort to succeed from Darren Geeraerts, now under the auspices of Anton Spires.

In the face of COVID adversity, the Britcar championships have never looked healthier as they enter their sixth season under the current management. The opening rounds will be onSilverstone’s International circuit on April 24th/25th.

WORDS: Steve Wood