Season launch of the 2021 Kwik-fit British Touring Car Championship
Silverstone Circuit in sunny Northamptonshire was this year’s venue for the season launch of the 2021 Kwik-Fit British Touring Car Championship. That’s where we launched the 2021 Laser Tools Racing assault on the BTCC season as defending champions!
This season we see a three-car attack comprising Ash Sutton, Aiden Moffat and Carl Boardley in the all new Infinity Q50s. After a brief shakedown session at Donington Park last week, this was the first time we have seen the cars in their full new liveries and boy do they look good. The iconic Laser Tools Racing is refreshed every season and this year returns the classic look of our brilliant sponsors from last season as we also welcome on board GKR Scaffolding for the season. We never forget that without all our sponsors we couldn’t go racing and win championships, so thank you one and all.
Today’s testing was done as two different sessions and although times are interesting, they are really only test sessions for us as we continue to develop the cars ahead of the season. It was interesting that in neither session on the short circuit, no-one broke the 57 second lap time and all three of our cars were within a second of the fastest time.
The first session saw Ash producing a 57.598 second lap, just 0.18 of a second behind the fastest lap. Carl Boardley was 17th and Aiden was 18th, less than 1/3 of a second behind as the team looked at gathering data from various set-ups during the session. The second session saw Ash 6th fastest with a 57.600, Aiden 20th at 57.792 and Carl 24th at 57.875. Not only were these figures tremendously close, they were also incredibly consistent across both sessions. Now the hard work really kicks in as Ash, Aiden and Carl look to press on developing the cars ahead of the season opener in two weeks’ time.
Laser Tools Racing received another award today as Antonio Carrozza received his 2020 Engineer of the Year trophy, which was donated by BTCC technical partner, Penske Racing Shocks UK. The accolade, which was first introduced in 2016, recognises the achievement of the Chief Engineer behind the Championship winning car, with Antonio attaining the honour, for his work on Ash’s Infiniti Q50 during the 2020 campaign.
Securing an impressive ten podiums during the 27-race campaign, our Infiniti’s impressive pace throughout the season saw Ash bag points in all but one race, as the 27-year-old fought tooth and nail for his second title.
Antonio remains with us for 2021, as we continue to build on the car’s pace and success of last year.
Season Launch Video:
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