Tom Chilton believes that his planned dual campaigns in the World and British Touring Car Championships have come at the ‘perfect time’ in his life.
Chilton will be lining up on the BTCC grid in a brand new Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra on the 2nd April, before flying out to Marrakech for the WTCC season opener in his independent Citroën C-Elysée less than a week later.
It will be a busy year for the Brit, who has to work on developing the new works-backed NGTC Astra, as well as fight for the WTCC title with Sébastien Loeb Racing.
Despite the difficulties, Chilton feels that the opportunity has come along at just the right time for him, even though he also has a young family.
“I love a good challenge; I think that actually it’s the perfect time in my life right now,” said Chilton to TouringCars.Net. “Commercially everything came together with both championships really well, from manufacturers to sponsors.
“The fact that both championships don’t clash is perfect, and I thought ‘ I can make history here’ and hopefully have a damn good year.
“Obviously if I’m having a really bad season in both championships it’ll be the most miserable year of my life, I’ll be having 50 races at the back of the grid, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen and I’ll be at the front.
Chilton has previously spent ten years competing in the BTCC, and five years in the WTCC. He admits that one of his considerations this year was with revenue and sponsors, with the Brit being backed by both UK-based and global companies.
“Fundamentally, you can’t be short minded and look for which one you can make the most money in one year, you also have to look ahead over three years which one is going to work best.
“The British championship is always strong, we all know that, but the question is with the WTCC, is it going to get bigger or is it going to get smaller? I’ve seen things where I think the WTCC is going to get a lot bigger in a couple of years’ time, but you don’t know until nearer the time if it’s really going to happen or not, so you need to always bear this in mind.
“At the moment I’m very 50-50 and I love both championships to pieces, hence I’m doing both. I love the racing in the British and World touring cars, and I love the race-craft in them.”