News & Events
DSD help Turkington and WSR win BTCC 2009
On Sunday 4th October, a jubilant Colin Turkington was crowned the British Touring Car Champion 2009 in an extremely exciting season finale at Brands Hatch. Having led the championship since mid-season, Colin, in his WSR prepared Team RAC BMW 320si overcame huge pressure from his rivals Jason Plato and Fabrizio Giovanardi to finally take the honours in the very last nail biting race of the season. On clinching the championship, Colin’s first thanks went to Dick Bennetts, WSR and his race engineer, DSD’s very own John Morton.
John has been working with West Surrey Racing since their first pre-season test in February when he began as Colin’s race engineer responsible for the set up and operation of the race car. The role involves tuning the car through the infinite combinations of suspension adjustments to suit the driver’s requirements, the track and the weather conditions. The position also involves advising on race strategy and how to manage the tyres and fuel.
John’s experience in successful touring car design stood him in good stead for the challenge. Colin’s main opponent, Giovanardi was driving the VX Racing Vectra that John originally designed in 2007 so he certainly knew the competition.
On a less technical note the relationship between DSD and WSR has worked perfectly this season. The team have a real appreciation of how performance is affected by the technical and practical aspects of the car, from the mechanics all the way up to the Team Principal, Dick Bennetts. This coupled with the very strong emphasis on genuine team work has made it a pleasure to work with them.
Colin himself is a man of few words but few could argue that he has come a long way this season. His technique on track and his technical ability off track are now representative of a driver with much more maturity that his 27 years. He is now the man to beat in 2010.