We’re incredibly excited to announce that 26 year old Ricky Collard returns to the top flight of British saloon car racing in a second consecutive season with Toyota in the British Touring Car Championship.
Speedworks, running as Toyota Gazoo Racing UK, will prepare three cars for the first time in its BTCC history, as it targets overall championship glory and Ricky will line up in car #37 alongside teammates Rory Butcher and George Gamble.
Although he had planned on retiring from motorsport at the end of 2022, Ricky reversed that decision and will continue with the team for a second successive season. Collard revealed that a frank conversation with the team convinced him to change his mind about retiring at the end of last season.
“It’s no secret that some tough times last year made me seriously question my future in racing and whether or not I should carry on,” explained Ricky.
“There were also a lot of positives and after talking very openly and honestly with Christian and John [Gilbert – Speedworks Managing Director] over the winter, I realised I wanted to give this my very best shot in a competitive package, which is what I believe we’ve got.
“The Corolla clearly has great potential and I really appreciate all the hard work that Toyota (GB) are putting in. The future looks very bright for this team, and I absolutely want to be a part of that.”
Having finished 16th overall last year with seven top ten finishes, our Demolition Estimator will enter into his third season in BTCC but only his second full campaign.
The team is also going to run its own engine for the first time. Having raced with a TOCA engine in the past, this year the outfit will benefit from a Neil Brown Engineering-tuned Toyota-derived engine.
“It’s fair to say we’re all extremely excited ahead of the new season,” said Team Principal Christian Dick. “It’s a significant challenge to expand from two cars to three, but at the same time, having three sets of data to cross-reference should allow us to make progress faster than we’ve ever done before.
“The new engine is also a key factor. The TOCA unit has played an important role in our success down the years in the BTCC, but to take the final step and really fight for the championship, we needed control over all elements of the package – and that is what we now have.
“On the driver front, Ricky can focus on turning the promise he displayed in 2022 into some really strong results.”
We’re looking forward to seeing him back on the track and wish him the best of luck!
