Rotek Racing will make their British Touring Car Championship bow in 2014, with Robb Holland driving an all-new NGTC-specification Audi S3 saloon.
The Oakley-backed Rotek Racing squad, supported by Audi Customer Racing, will run a single-car entry in their maiden BTCC campaign this season, entering an Audi S3 saloon model built to the championship’s NGTC regulations.
Holland will be the team’s sole representative behind the wheel of the new car, the American entering his first full season in BTCC having previously raced part-time for Team HARD over the previous two years in Honda Civic and Vauxhall Insignia machinery.
“Being the first American full-time entry in the BTCC is a huge achievement for both myself and Rotek Racing,” said Holland. “This is the culmination of several years of hard work and, because the BTCC is what got me into racing in the first place, joining as a full-time entrant is definitely a dream come true.
“The BTCC rounds I’ve contested to this point were all done with the view of understanding what the series is about and what it will take for us to be successful in it. We still have a huge amount of hard work to do to make the grid at Brands Hatch and 2014 will definitely be a learning year.
Rotek Racing will join the touring car racing scene from a mostly GT racing background, having claimed the 25 Hours of Thunderhill most recently in December 2013.
Audi recently returned to winning ways in the BTCC for the first time since 1997 thanks to Rob Austin at Rockingham last year, and Holland believes that the S3 model can enjoy similar attention and success in the sport.
Holland added: “Trying to build a new car and develop it with very little testing is a tall ask for anyone and there are still many tracks for me to learn. That being said, I’m really looking forward to running the Audi S3 saloon.
“I think it will be a good fit – from a marketing perspective it’s great to be running the S3 at this time. Audi has just launched the car and, as the first of the new generation S3s to race anywhere in the world, I’m really hoping that it will attract a lot of attention from Audi fans across the globe.”
