Restart Racing has acquired two of Team Hard’s Cupra Leons – the new-for-2023 chassis used this year by Bobby Thompson and Dan Lloyd – and will step up from the TCR UK championship with 2022 title winner Chris Smiley.
Northern Irishman Smiley is a one-time race winner in the BTCC, in which he has notched up 162 race starts.
His victory at Rockingham came in 2018 at the wheel of a BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R. BTC was founded by Bert Taylor and it is Taylor’s son Ben, who has engineered Smiley going back to 2016, who is team principal at Essex-based Restart as it makes the step up to the BTCC.
“It means a lot to get back into the BTCC,” Taylor Jr told Autosport.
“We’ve worked blooming hard to get it all to where we are. I did a bit of work with Chris at Excelr8 [in 2021, Smiley’s last BTCC season], then we went and did TCR and won that.
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“The BTCC is where are our hearts lie; we’ve done it for so many years and we can’t wait to get going.
“We’re getting the ball rolling now with some development for the cooling package; we’re full steam ahead, trying to take it to the next step.”
Smiley added: “This was the right time to get back into the BTCC – that was more important than anything, and everything fitted together nicely.
Source: Autosport