Former double British Touring Car champion James Thompson will replace Formula 1 driver Jenson Button in this weekend’s star-studded Race of Champions event at Paris’s Stade de France.
Yorkshireman Thompson, the 2002 and 2004 BTCC title-winner, has been called up after Button withdrew with a rib injury.
Thompson will partner current World Touring Car title-winner and former BTCC racer Andy Priaulx in the England team. Other nations’ squads include the likes of F1 drivers David Coulthard and Heikki Kovalainen and World Rallying greats Sebastien Loeb, Marcus Gronholm and Colin McRae. Frenchman Yvan Muller, Thompson’s former Vauxhall team-mate in the BTCC, will also be on the grid.
Thompson ranks as one of touring car racing’s hottest properties in the world. He has been in the BTCC since 1994 and racked up 33 career victories, putting him fifth overall on the championship’s all-time race winners’ roll of honour that dates back to 1958.
This year he made six appearances for SEAT in the BTCC - helping it to win a first-ever Manufacturers’ crown - in between also racing for the WTCC crown with the Spanish make. He won both opening BTCC rounds at Brands Hatch and added a third, hugely popular victory in front of his home crowd at Croft.
Just a fortnight ago, Thompson starred in front of 25,000 people in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium during the MPH Show – part of Wales Rally GB.
Source: www.btcc.net
Be First To Comment
Related Post
Leave Your Comments Below