Honda Racing Announces New BTCC Sponsors

The 2011 season of the British Touring Car Championship is almost here (the series kicks off this weekend at Brands Hatch) and Honda Racing is here to announce the appointment of multiple key sponsors, as well as a technical support agreement with Bosch Engineering GmbH Motorsport.

The new sponsors are CTEK, a global brand of care and maintenance of car batteries and Dread, the team's official clothing supplier, which covers both the corporate and the team clothing.

In addition to that, Honda Racing will join forces with Bosch Engineering GmbH Motorsport for this season.

"It's great to see some new faces onboard for the 2011 season and we're also delighted to see Marshall Motor Group sign up for their second year with us," Sarah Mayo, Partnerships Manager, Honda (UK) said.

"Combine these sponsors with Pioneer and Yuasa and the Honda Racing team has some exceptionally strong support behind it. We've already had very promising results in our pre-season testing with Matt Neal setting the fastest time at Snetterton last week - 2011 is promising to be a thrilling season. We can't wait for it to begin."

The first group test session of the 2011 BTCC took place at Silverstone last Thursday, with Honda drivers Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden joining the rest of the field for the four-hour test. Neal took the new two-liter turbocharged Civic to third place and is confident that the fresh hatchback has more to offer.

"The car ran brilliantly all day and we showed some really good pace," said Neal. "We're still working on the set up of the car because the weight distribution is different with the new engine but we found some really promising directions at Silverstone. We've only just begun to tap into the potential of the car so I'm very optimistic."