Andrew Watson joins TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK for 2024 BTCC Assault

Northern Ireland’s Andrew Watson – one of the standout stars of the 2023 British Touring Car Championship – has joined TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK for his second season in the country’s premier motor racing series.

Watson arrived in the BTCC last year off the back of a successful career in international sportscar competition – including stints in the FIA World Endurance Championship, British GT Championship, Blancpain GT Series and a brace of top six finishes in-class in the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours.

He might have been making his debut in both touring cars and front wheel-drive machinery, but the former Aston Martin Racing ‘Junior’ wasted no time at all in making his mark. Showcasing his versatile skillset – not to mention his scintillating raw speed – Watson qualified an excellent ninth for the curtain-raising contest at Donington Park in the high-calibre, 27-strong field, going on to convert that into a fourth-place finish, a whisker shy of a sensational podium first time out.

Possessing a particularly deft touch in inclement conditions, he proceeded to reach the rostrum twice later in the season – at Knockhill and Silverstone – and tallied 15 points-scoring finishes in total from 30 starts.  A member of the MBP talent management stable – founded by former Formula 1 driver, Mark Blundell – the 29-year-old Northern Irishman complemented that impressive set of results with a trio of victories in the Independents’ Championship, in which he wound up fourth overall. He simultaneously achieved no fewer than ten wins in the Jack Sears Trophy – open to drivers without a podium to their name prior to the beginning of the campaign – to clinch that particular crown.

In his efforts to build upon that promising start, Watson has now joined forces with the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK manufacturer outfit – run by Northwich, Cheshire-based Speedworks Motorsport – to pilot one of its pair of potent Toyota Corolla GR Sport hatchbacks in 2024.

The team’s second driver will be announced in the coming weeks. Racing will get underway at Donington Park on 27/28 April – home soil for the British-built Corolla, whose road-going cousins are produced at Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK (TMUK) just up the road in Burnaston. All of the action season-long will be broadcast live and in high-definition on ITV channels.

Images courtesy of Jakob Ebrey Photography