This is, it seems, a Marcus Rashford moment. The most celebrated home-grown member of the most historic of teams finds himself out of the squad. From one pinnacle of UK sport, it’s the same in another.
And, as with Rashford, Colin Turkington’s departure from West Surrey Racing and the British Touring Car Championship is strongly linked to money – or lack of it. In one case, it was down to Manchester United’s cost-slashing American ownership and a player’s inability to adapt to the dysfunctional regime that inevitably followed; in another, it’s West Surrey Racing’s increasingly strangled commercial support.
These are worrying times in most areas of modern life. If you’re reading this, you’re almost certain to be someone who loves immersing yourself in motorsport as a form of escapism. But this is an expensive pursuit, highly susceptible to the woes of reality.
Rashford, of course, was able to find a new berth in the Premier League in the January transfer window with a loan move to Aston Villa. There are one or two ‘Aston Villa’ teams in the BTCC – you know, the kind that are knocking on the door of success after a process of building, but are yet to reap the rewards – and naturally a talent of Turkington’s stature would have been of great interest. But realistically, it’s just too late in the off-season to make this happen for 2025.
This is not great news for the BTCC. OK, Turkington played second fiddle to WSR BMW team-mate and eventual champion Jake Hill last season, as well as Tom Ingram and Ash Sutton, but it just feels wrong not to have this talisman – four titles, 72 race wins – of the series around, notching up more victories and pole positions (don’t forget, he claimed last year’s Goodyear Wingfoot Award for qualifying points).
Put that to series boss Alan Gow, and he responds: “Colin’s on the list of BTCC greats, but the only thing I would counter is, this is not the first time he’s had to step away from BTCC.
“It’s happened before, and he’s come back before, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the same thing will happen again. I’m not waving goodbye to Colin is what I’m saying.
“The reality is that BMW have pulled back on a lot of motorsport expenditure, not just BTCC. They’ve done the same with DTM [where the squad is expected to be reduced to two cars]. This is one of the repercussions of it.”
Turkington’s previous departure came in 2010, just after his first title success, when the RAC pulled its support from WSR. But back then, the team was able to pull something together for a limited programme in the World Touring Car Championship, from where Turkington then spent a year battling it out in the highly competitive Scandinavian series.
The beauty back then was that the BTCC was part of an overall touring car pyramid based on the Super 2000 regulations in force at the time – or interpretations thereof – and it was more realistic for a driver or team to hop from one series to another. Now, the BTCC has been ploughing its own furrow with its NGTC ruleset for over a decade, and no such luxury exists.
The departure – even if it is only temporary – of Turkington is sad not only because he is a class act in the cockpit, but also outside of it. He’s just a terrific, down-to-earth bloke; quiet, unassuming, courteous, a dream to deal with.
Everyone who works in the series will miss him tremendously.
And that’s not been the only bad news 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.
If West Surrey Racing is the BTCC’s equivalent of a much-better-run Manchester United, then Power Maxed Racing is arguably Brentford. Not the most glamorous of teams, but well-operated with good recruitment, punching above its weight and capable of administering a bloody nose to the elite. It’s also something of a poster child for the NGTC regulations – it entered the BTCC in 2015 when it took over the Chevrolet machinery of BTC Racing, before embarking on its own-build Vauxhall Astras, which have served the team so well since 2017.
In the heyday of the BTCC, manufacturer support was key.
Clearly that was unsustainable moving into the 21st century, but the teams, including PMR, have been well served by the general automotive sector – one only has to look at the hugely successful NAPA branding on Alliance Racing’s Ford Focuses.
But is time running out for such ‘traditional’ sources of commercial income for the teams?
“The teams, as with all forms of motorsport, have to look beyond their traditional areas of where you get funding from,” argues Gow. “It used to be manufacturers, it used to be car dealers, oil companies. Now there’s a wider range of companies and sectors that teams need to look at and are looking at.
“You’ve only got to look at some of the names that have been on the cars for the past two or three years – these are not traditional motorsport brands, and that’ll continue to evolve.”
If the BTCC grid loses Power 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 appear with its Honda machinery.
(And to continue our analogy, this team could be the Leicester City of the BTCC – one year in, the next year out, the year after back in. But capable of an underdog title with, as all expect, Josh Cook playing the Jamie Vardy role in leading the attack).
Some argue that the BTCC is too expensive, with £600,000 budgets bandied around. But isn’t the same true of all forms of motorsport? After you’ve paid overheads, staff, suppliers, travel and accommodation…
“How many categories do you know where the teams are not saying it’s too expensive?” scoffs Gow. “It just annoys me when people say the BTCC’s too expensive. Too expensive compared to what? Have a look at the profile of the BTCC – we have 30 races a year [he doesn’t even need to mention the crowds and live terrestrial TV coverage]. Which series is going to give a better return on investment to any sponsor?”
But, for Turkington and Dick Bennetts’s West Surrey Racing team, that hasn’t proved enough for 2025. If you don’t know what a deeply honourable and lovely chap the Northern Irishman is, just take a look at these last few paragraphs from his statement.
“Thank you to the BTCC, thank you BMW and thank you to WSR. Thank you to all my mechanics and engineers for always giving me 100% and believing in me. Thank you to all my loyal supporters, incredible sponsors and partners who’ve shared the journey with me and finally, thank you to my family who’ve been on this emotional rollercoaster with me.
“Driving into parc ferme and seeing the happy faces on my Mum and Dad, Louise [Turkington’s wife], Lewis and Adam [their two sons] are the memories I cherish most and will take with me forever.
“The BTCC will forever leave an imprint on me, and I now join many of you as an enthusiastic fan of the series once again.
“That’s all for now. I would like to wish Dick and the entire WSR family the very best of luck in this new season.
“I often say to my boys, ‘Don’t be sad it’s over, just be thankful it happened'."
For an old softy like this writer, that may have caused a slight welling up, but is there a chance of a return in 2026 or beyond?
What, perchance, if a team – and it could even be WSR – should start planning ahead with a view to bringing Turkington on board? It will surely be on the minds of others in the paddock…
“He will always be a great ambassador for the BTCC,” states Gow. “He has been, and will be. He’s not going to disappear into the sunset. It has happened before for Colin and he has reappeared stronger than ever.
“I don’t think this is goodbye.”
Let’s indeed hope that this is not a permanent exile for Turkington to the motorsport equivalent of the Saudi Pro League; that this is more au revoir than adieu.
