Andy Neate’s new British Touring Car Championship team, IP Tech Race Engineering, has announced that it will not make its debut until the second round of the season at Donington Park.
Neate announced in January that he was to form his own team, having competed for WSR, Arena and Triple Eight Race Engineering over the past three seasons. The team are currently building two NGTC-specification Chevrolet Cruze saloon’s – and it is the team’s desire for professionalism that has led to them delaying their BTCC entry.
“It’s very disappointing that we’ve had to take the decision to miss the first race meeting but with all the challenges we’ve faced so far, it’s absolutely the right thing to do,” explained Neate. “Arriving at Brands next week without any testing in a brand new car, with a new engine developed specifically for us, would be foolish. I’ve been in that position before and last year specifically the result was that I effectively lost half the season in getting the #44 car to where it should have been on day one.”
Neate insists that one of the reasons that he has taken the decision to postpone the team’s entry is due to his experience in previous seasons of a lack of testing – in 2012 he had not turned a wheel in his MG before the opening round.
“Putting together something like this is a huge undertaking and at no point have we underestimated the work involved. However, there is a massive reliance on a large number of elements coming together at each carefully planned stage in the development. For various reasons, that simply hasn’t happened as we’d intended, which inevitably holds the whole process up. The knock-on effect is that we’ve missed critical deadlines in our project and we’re not prepared to cut corners at this stage.
“We said from the beginning that this was a long-term project and the objective was to be competitive against the best in the business. Starting on the back foot is no way to achieve that ambition. We have secured an additional registration for the championship and that car is due to be finished for the second part of the season. Needless to say, we’ve got to get everything right from the start.”
Neate will be present at the official BTCC media day on Thursday 21st March 2013. Neate has also announced that the team will compete during the 2013 season as ‘Team Club 44’ with additional backing from One-LUX, who are involved in the lighting industry along with Neate’s Ceravision firm.