VX Racing adds Turkish tin-top tornado to driver line-up

Turkish touring car champion, Erkut Kizilirmak, is to join VX Racing for the next round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

The 36-year-old, who is currently second in his home championship, will drive the team’s fourth Astra Sport Hatch in a bid to expand his touring car experience.

"The BTCC is high competition," said Kizilirmak, who lives in Istanbul. "My aim is to have as much competition mileage as possible. As a driver that’s what I need – experience.

"BTCC is one of the most competitive championships on Earth and completely different from Turkey, where we do not have such a number of cars – something like 20 cars is not possible."

Kizilirmak has a diverse motorsport background, starting with rallying in 1992 and moving to touring car racing in 2002. Last year he won the Turkish Touring Car Championship driving an ex- Yvan Muller BTCC car, which he bought from Triple Eight Engineering – the company charged with running Vauxhall’s BTCC works team.

The team looked into shipping Kizilirmak’s race car to Britain for the BTCC, but in the end decided to convert the UK-based two- seater – currently used for PR.

"Our PR car is actually a race car with an extra seat, so it’s very simple to convert," said Raphael Caille, VX Racing’s special projects manager, who says Kizilirmak has shown promise as a driver in the Turkish championship. "It’s difficult to judge him in a context we don’t know, but he’s definitely competitive in Turkey.

"His biggest challenge in the UK will be to get used to the car and the track in only two sessions of 40 minutes before qualifying. Then the racing bit will be fairly similar to what he’s used to."

Kizilirmak, who made a guest appearance for SEAT in the World Touring Car Championship at the Istanbul Park Circuit last year, plans to race at Croft on July 15th 16th and possibly also Donington Park or Snetterton later in the year.