This year’s Ginetta G50 champion Frank Wrathall Jnr will make the step up to next year’s British Touring Car Championship. The BRDC Rising Star will pilot a NGTC specification Toyota Avensis and will race for his family-run Dynojet Race Team with which he has progressed his racing career.
Wrathall first joined the BTCC support package in 2007 when he competed in the Ginetta G20 Championship. The following year he moved up to the G50 series featuring larger, more powerful cars. Wrathall immediately made an impressive and finished second in the championship. He finished as runner-up again in 2009, taking five race wins in the process.
The 24-year-old admits that it is a big step to take but is confident that the time is right to make such a move. It means his team are the second Ginetta/GT squad making the step up to the BTCC in recent weeks, as rival G50 outfight Speedworks Motorsport announced their plans last month, also with an NGTC Avensis.
“It’s a major step up for our family-run team and myself but the BTCC is the big time and we feel, particularly with the benefits of the new NGTC regulations, that the timing is right,” said Wrathall Jnr.
“I enjoyed a terrific run in 2010 with the Ginetta G50 title but moving to a front-wheel-drive touring car in a championship that has millions of fans worldwide and is famed for its door-to-door action is going to require a different approach on and off the track.
“Hopefully we’ll take delivery of our car in late February and get busy testing. We’d like in the future to expand to a two-car team but not until we’ve found our feet.”
Although the team have announced their chassis plans early they have not yet specified whether they will run the TOCA-provided NGTC engine or not.