Dave Pinkney and Richard Marsh have announced they will race as team-mates in latest-specification Alfa Romeo 156s in this year’s Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship. The cars have arrived UK this week and are built to the same 2007 specification as the machines that will fly the flag for the official Alfa Romeo team in the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC). The cars will be the only factory-sanctioned Alfas racing in the UK this season.

The deal is the work of Pinkney and former BTCC racer Gary Ayles who have spent a considerable amount of time in discussions with officials at Alfa Romeo’s headquarters in Turin, Italy. The brand new cars will be run under the banner of a newly-formed team that has been created after Pinkney and Marsh pooled the considerable resources they have accumulated during their respective careers – spanning more than 100 BTCC starts. The new team name and structure will be announced at BTCC Media Day at the Rockingham circuit, Northamptonshire next Tuesday 13 March.

Pinkney and Marsh are delighted that they will be behind the wheel of Super 2000-specification cars that have been developed from the 156s that won four rounds of last year’s WTCC. Pinkney, aged 49 from Harpenden, Hertfordshire said: “This is an extremely exciting deal for everyone associated with the team and we can’t wait to get the job started. There were a number of people chasing these cars but I’m thrilled that the people in Italy have chosen to place them with us.”

Marsh, aged 39 from Ashbourne, Derbyshire added: “Dave and I both wanted to make a step up in machinery this season and getting hold of a brace of cars that are will be the same specification as those that will be used by the factory team in the WTCC is a massive coup.”
 

The British Touring Car Championship was established 49 years ago and in that time has grown into this country’s biggest motor racing show, with massive audience appeal. From the start, in 1958, it was a huge success with the public, who would pack into Britain’s racing venues to watch drivers compete in racing versions of their road cars at simply unbelievable speeds.

Traditional, great British names of the times, such as Jaguar, Austin, Ford, Mini, Lotus, Sunbeam, Hillman and Triumph, were all winners in the first 20 years, each aware of the importance of using the BTCC to showcase their latest models. By the Eighties, the BTCC was moving with the times and beginning to attract a truly international flavour. Mazda, Toyota and Alfa Romeo were the first three winners of the decade as the championship continued to be run for different sized classes of cars, but the mighty Ford Sierra RS500 and BMW M3 are probably the two most evocative models of the period.

It was in the Nineties, however, that the BTCC boomed. The championship was already beginning to grow in stature with regular television coverage on the BBC’s flagship sports show Grandstand on Saturday afternoons. When the decision was taken to make the BTCC exclusively for two-litre cars, it instantly created closer racing and attracted a host of high-profile manufacturers and teams to the series. Combined with enhanced television coverage and marketing genius, this made the BTCC essential viewing for millions throughout the UK – and many millions more worldwide.