Having spent ten years in the British Touring Car Championship, Team Aon’s Tom Chilton is optimistic of using his vast tin top experience to score regular top six finishes in his first season in the World Championship in 2012.
Chilton, 26, believes that an extensive winter testing programme and the fact that his Ford Focus S2000 TC is one of the newer models on the grid will give him a competitive advantage for the coming season.
“I’d like to be within the top ten for the first round and then in the top six throughout the season,” said Chilton. “I believe the car is capable of it so it’ll just be a case of bringing everything together as quickly as possible.”
However Chilton is aware that the challenge of the WTCC will be significant compared to the BTCC – especially as his Arena Motorsport squad have never raced their Ford Focus touring car at any of the venues and therefore have no set-up data to rely on. For Chilton the majority of the tracks will be new, adding an additional challenge.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” added Chilton. “After spending 10 years racing in the British Touring Car Championship I think I’ve already raced against a lot of the grid in the WTCC! The main challenge I’m expecting this season is racing on new circuits. I’ve not raced at about 80% of them so I have no experience. Even though it’s going to be a steep learning curve, I can’t wait to hit the track.
“The Ford Focus is one of the newest cars which will be lining up on the grid – we all know it’s a proven race winner so there’s no reason it won’t be competitive on the world stage. We don’t have any experience of the tracks so for a lot of the rounds we’ll be spending our time learning which the other teams won’t have to do. But I’m happy with the car and I enjoy driving it so hopefully we’ll have some great battles with the other teams this year.”
Team Aon will have youth but not experience to rely on for the coming season – James Nash, who lines up alongside Chilton in the second Team Aon car, is also making his début in the series, although Nash has slightly more experience of some European circuits due to his days in the SEAT León Eurocup.
Commenting on having Nash as a team-mate, Chilton added: “We’re getting on really well. Having competed against James in the BTCC we already know each other so we have a good base to work from! It’s great that Team Aon have the two most recent BTCC Independent Driver Champions in the team – I think James and I will really be able to get the most from the Global Ford Focus.”