Oliphant joins WSR for 2019

Tom Oliphant is to join the WSR team for the 2019 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship season.

The Leamington Spa-based driver is the first of the team's three drivers to be announced for next year.

Tom, 28, made his BTCC debut in 2018 and impressively qualified inside the top 10 at just
his second event at Donington Park.

He repeated this achievement five more times across the season, recorded a best finish of seventh at Knockhill in August and scored his maiden fastest lap in the series at the final round on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit.

The 2015 Ginetta GT4 Supercup Champion; Tom is also a race winner in British GT, a series
runner-up in the Porsche Cup Middle East and a podium finisher in both the Carrera Cup GB and the global 24H Series’ showpiece event, the Dubai 24 Hours.

WSR’s BMW 125i M Sports scored 18 podiums and three wins in 2018 as the Sunbury-on-
Thames team steered Colin Turkington to the Drivers’ title and claimed the Teams’ and
Manufacturers’ crowns to complete a championship clean sweep with the help of fellow
drivers Rob and Ricky Collard and Andrew Jordan.

The team have won 10 overall BTCC titles in the past 10 seasons; all with BMW cars, plus
nine Independents’ crowns.

Tom Oliphant said: “It’s a dream come true to join WSR for next year’s British Touring Car
Championship and I’m incredibly proud that Dick Bennetts and the team have shown the
faith in me to provide this opportunity.

"WSR have been the Teams’ Champions for the past three years and their reputation is of the absolute highest standard, while BMW’s contribution to touring car racing in Britain and across the globe is immense, so I’m incredibly excited and proud to be a part of this programme.

"This gives me a great platform to achieve my targets in the BTCC, which are to take wins and podiums in 2019, finish in the top 10 of the points and compete for the Jack Sears Trophy.”

Dick Bennetts, Team Principal, said: “We’re very pleased to announce Tom as the first
member of our 2019 line-up. We have a long history of working with young drivers and
turning them into front-runners and champions, and we’re sure Tom has all the right
attributes to achieve his potential with us.

"We were impressed with him in the BTCC support categories and the speed he showed in his rookie season in 2018 has convinced us that he’ll be the ideal driver to help us push on and achieve our aim of even more success in 2019.”