Three-time British Touring Car Champion Gordon Shedden has been announced to race in the 2018 World Touring Car Cup with WRT Audi, alongside Frenchman Jean-Karl Vernay.
WRT will field the duo in a pair of Audi RS3 LMS TCR’s this season, with thirty-nine-year-old Shedden departing from British Touring Cars after forty-eight wins in three hundred and forty-seven starts, and three championships in 2012, 2015 and 2016.
“The switch to WTCR was quite unexpected but comes at a perfect time in my career,” said Shedden on his official website. “I had a fantastic time in BTCC winning three Championships and becoming only the third Scottish driver to win the Championship alongside Jim Clark and John Cleland.
“The Audi RS 3 LMS is a phenomenal piece of kit. And as the old saying goes, ‘if it looks good it will perform good’. The RS 3 saloon is a ‘global’ car, compared to the many ‘hatch backs’ competing. It has a unique silhouette which makes it instantly recognisable.
“Meanwhile WRT is a very successful team with a long and flourishing partnership with Audi Sport and its customer racing division. They’ve won the Spa 24Hrs and the Bathurst 12Hrs in the GT3 category and so for me it was a very logical decision to join the Belgian team.”
Shedden made his TCR International Series debut in the season finale and aided Vernay’s successful title bid, with the thirty-year-old Frenchman also moving to the newly formed WTCR championship in 2018, which will take them to ten events across four continents, starting with the Circuit Moulay El Hassan in Morocco at the beginning of April.
Comtoyou Racing will also field four Audi RS3 LMS TCR’s in the championship, with Belgian drivers Frédéric Vervisch and Denis Dupont being joined by Frenchmen Aurélien Panis and Nathanaël Berthon.
