The BTCC will be eager for Turkington to return after news of 2025 departure

That is, it appears, a Marcus Rashford second. Probably the most celebrated home-grown member of essentially the most historic of groups finds himself out of the squad. From one pinnacle of UK sport, it’s the identical in one other. 

And, as with Rashford, Colin Turkington’s departure from West Surrey Racing and the British Touring Automotive Championship is strongly linked to cash – or lack of it. In a single case, it was right down to Manchester United’s cost-slashing American possession and a participant’s lack of ability to adapt to the dysfunctional regime that inevitably adopted; in one other, it’s West Surrey Racing’s more and more strangled industrial help. 

These are worrying occasions in most areas of contemporary life. For those who’re studying this, you’re virtually sure to be somebody who loves immersing your self in motorsport as a type of escapism. However that is an costly pursuit, extremely inclined to the woes of actuality. 

Rashford, after all, was capable of finding a brand new berth within the Premier League within the January switch window with a mortgage transfer to Aston Villa. There are one or two ‘Aston Villa’ groups within the BTCC – you understand, the type which might be knocking on the door of success after a means of constructing, however are but to reap the rewards – and naturally a expertise of Turkington’s stature would have been of nice curiosity. However realistically, it’s simply too late within the low season to make this occur for 2025. 

This isn’t nice information for the BTCC. OK, Turkington performed second fiddle to WSR BMW team-mate and eventual champion Jake Hill final season, in addition to Tom Ingram and Ash Sutton, but it surely simply feels fallacious to not have this talisman – 4 titles, 72 race wins – of the collection round, notching up extra victories and pole positions (don’t neglect, he claimed final yr’s Goodyear Wingfoot Award for qualifying factors). 

Put that to collection boss Alan Gow, and he responds: “Colin’s on the checklist of BTCC greats, however the one factor I’d counter is, this isn’t the primary time he’s needed to step away from BTCC.

“It’s occurred earlier than, and he’s come again earlier than, and I’ve received a sneaking suspicion that the identical factor will occur once more. I’m not waving goodbye to Colin is what I’m saying. 

“The truth is that BMW have pulled again on plenty of motorsport expenditure, not simply BTCC. They’ve accomplished the identical with DTM [where the squad is expected to reduced to two cars]. This is without doubt one of the repercussions of it.” 

Turkington’s earlier departure got here in 2010, simply after his first title success, when the RAC pulled its help from WSR. However again then, the staff was capable of pull one thing collectively for a restricted programme within the World Touring Automotive Championship, from the place Turkington then spent a yr battling it out within the extremely aggressive Scandinavian collection. 

The wonder again then was that the BTCC was a part of an total touring automotive pyramid based mostly on the Tremendous 2000 laws in drive on the time – or interpretations thereof – and it was extra practical for a driver or staff to hop from one collection to a different. Now, the BTCC has been ploughing its personal furrow with its NGTC ruleset for over a decade, and no such luxurious exists. 

The departure – even when it is just momentary – of Turkington is gloomy not solely as a result of he’s a category act within the cockpit, but additionally outdoors of it. He’s only a terrific, down-to-earth bloke; quiet, unassuming, courteous, a dream to cope with.

Everybody who works within the collection will miss him tremendously. 

And that’s not been the one dangerous information this week: Power Maxed Racing is struggling following the breaking of its five-season sponsorship contract from the Evans Halshaw parent company Pendragon, two years after its takeover by new American owners. 

Aron Taylor-Smith, CarStore Energy Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra

Photograph by: JEP / Motorsport Pictures

If West Surrey Racing is the BTCC’s equal of a much-better-run Manchester United, then Energy Maxed Racing is arguably Brentford. Not essentially the most glamorous of groups, however well-operated with good recruitment, punching above its weight and able to administering a bloody nostril to the elite. It’s additionally one thing of a poster little one for the NGTC laws – it entered the BTCC in 2015 when it took over the Chevrolet equipment of BTC Racing, earlier than embarking on its own-build Vauxhall Astras, which have served the staff so properly since 2017. 

Within the heyday of the BTCC, producer help was key.

Clearly that was unsustainable shifting into the twenty first century, however the groups, together with PMR, have been properly served by the overall automotive sector – one solely has to have a look at the massively profitable NAPA branding on Alliance Racing’s Ford Focuses. 

However is time working out for such ‘conventional’ sources of economic earnings for the groups?

“The groups, as with all types of motorsport, should look past their conventional areas of the place you get funding from,” argues Gow. “It was once producers, it was once automotive sellers, oil firms. Now there’s a wider vary of firms and sectors that groups want to have a look at and are taking a look at.

“You’ve solely received to have a look at among the names which have been on the automobiles for the previous two or three years – these usually are not conventional motorsport manufacturers, and that’ll proceed to evolve.” 

If the BTCC grid loses Energy Maxed, then that restricts numbers to 22. And that’s on the proviso that One Motorsport, which has been very quiet over the winter, does seem with its Honda equipment. 

(And to proceed our analogy, this staff might be the Leicester Metropolis of the BTCC – one yr in, the subsequent yr out, the yr after again in. However able to an underdog title with, as all anticipate, Josh Cook taking part in the Jamie Vardy function in main the assault).  

Josh Prepare dinner, One Motorsport with Starline Racing Honda Civic Kind-R

Photograph by: JEP / Motorsport Pictures

Some argue that the BTCC is just too costly, with £600,000 budgets bandied round. However isn’t the identical true of all types of motorsport? After you’ve paid overheads, employees, suppliers, journey and lodging… 

“What number of classes have you learnt the place the groups usually are not saying it’s too costly?” scoffs Gow. “It simply annoys me when individuals say the BTCC’s too costly. Too costly in comparison with what? Take a look on the profile of the BTCC – we now have 30 races a yr [he doesn’t even need to mention the crowds and live terrestrial TV coverage]. Which collection goes to provide a greater return on funding to any sponsor?” 

However, for Turkington and Dick Bennetts’s West Surrey Racing staff, that hasn’t proved sufficient for 2025. For those who don’t know what a deeply honourable and wonderful chap the Northern Irishman is, simply check out these previous few paragraphs from his assertion. 

“Thanks to the BTCC, thanks BMW and thanks to WSR. Thanks to all my mechanics and engineers for all the time giving me 100% and believing in me. Thanks to all my loyal supporters, unimaginable sponsors and companions who’ve shared the journey with me and eventually, thanks to my household who’ve been on this emotional rollercoaster with me. 

“Driving into parc ferme and seeing the completely happy faces on my Mum and Dad, Louise [Turkington’s wife], Lewis and Adam [their two sons] are the recollections I cherish most and can take with me eternally. 

“The BTCC will eternally depart an imprint on me, and I now be a part of lots of you as an enthusiastic fan of the collection as soon as once more. 

“That’s all for now. I want to want Dick and the complete WSR household the perfect of luck on this new season. 

“I usually say to my boys, ‘Don’t be unhappy it’s over, simply be grateful it occurred’.”

Colin Turkington, Crew BMW BMW 330e M Sport

Photograph by: JEP / Motorsport Pictures

For an previous softy like this author, which will have brought on a slight welling up, however is there an opportunity of a return in 2026 or past? 

What, perchance, if a staff – and it may even be WSR – ought to begin planning forward with a view to bringing Turkington on board? It should certainly be on the minds of others within the paddock… 

“He’ll all the time be an ideal ambassador for the BTCC,” states Gow. “He has been, and will be. He’s not going to vanish into the sundown. It has occurred earlier than for Colin and he has reappeared stronger than ever.  

“I don’t assume that is goodbye.” 

Let’s certainly hope that this isn’t a everlasting exile for Turkington to the motorsport equal of the Saudi Professional League; that that is extra au revoir than adieu.