Triple Eight Race Engineering

Triple Eight Racing have become one of the BTCC’s most established and successful names in the sport over the past 15 years, during which they have claimed a dominant eight manufacturer titles with the series former giants Vauxhall, all in the hands of some of the championship’s most well-known names.

Founded in 1996, Ian Harrison’s UK squad made their initial BTCC mark in 1997, where they took the helm of Vauxhall’s works squad with Formula 1 refugee Derek Warwick and former BTCC champion John Cleland. Over the first two seasons in a developing supertouring Vauxhall Vectra, success was varied as the duo took three wins between them in 1998, before Cleland moved into what would be his last season in BTCC in 1999.

With only one win in 1999 thanks to Frenchman Yvan Muller, the team’s three-car entry in 2000 also brought another star name into their line-up, Jason Plato, Triple Eight picking up five wins between the pair, who would fight for the title in the following season when the series switched from supertouring to BTC regulations – one that saw Triple Eight begin a spell of BTCC dominance with the Vauxhall Astra Coupe.

2001 saw the squad obliterate the opposition as they won every race that season thanks to both their works squad and customer egg: sport Vauxhall team, Plato claiming the team’s first of seven teams titles before being replaced by James Thompson, who also beat Muller to the title in another largely dominant year that saw the pair pick up 11 wins from 20 races, egg: sport picking up four with Matt Neal and Paul O’Neill.

2003 and 2004 saw a three-car Astra Coupe entry bring two more team and manufacturer titles in more hard-fought battles – won by Muller and Thompson – before switching to an Astra Sport Hatch for the following two seasons. Muller fought for the title but lost out – as did Triple Eight – to Dynamics and Neal, before they picked up a 100^th BTCC win at Knockhill the following year in a difficult season, finishing third in 2006.

Italian Fabrizio Giovanardi and a switch to the S2000 Vauxhall Vectra in 2007 saw rejuvenation for Triple Eighth however, Giovanardi clinching two drivers titles in 2007 and 2008, the squad claiming their sixth and seventh teams title in 2008 and 2009 – only for Vauxhall to pull the plug on their manufacturer support in 2010. With the team finding sponsorship from Uniq, Giovanardi won two of the three races he entered, while James Nash could only help the team finish seventh.

Nash then starred in 2011 as he took the now-independent effort to the Independents driver and team’s titles, before the team switched to a new challenge for 2012 with a full MG-backed effort with two NGTC-specification MG6 machines. Plato returned to the squad to finish third, although the now KX-backed MG team could only manage fifth in the team championship – an impressive performance in their first development season with the MG6 – thanks to six Plato victories.