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Team Hard adds second car for 2016 British Touring Car Championship

Team Hard will expand to run two cars in the British Touring Car Championship in 2016, and could switch away from the Toyota Avensis model that it ran last season

Team principal Tony Gilham has already signed Mini Challenge graduate Chris Smiley ahead of the 2016 campaign and talks are ongoing over the other seat.

"We are moving into the British GT world this year too, so we are really expanding," said Gilham.

"We are looking at what cars we will use in the BTCC.

"We want to have two of the same type of cars, but they might not necessarily be the Avensis that we ran in 2015. We have got some options for a different machine."

Autosport understands that Team Hard has already acquired a second TOCA BTCC Licence for the upcoming season.

There was spare capacity within the licence allocation for 2016 following the merger of Rob Austin Racing - which had two TBLs - with Handy Motorsport and the withdrawal of the Support Our Paras team.

Team Hard ran a single Avensis for Kieran Gallagher in 2015.

Gallagher curtailed his campaign before the final two rounds, with team boss Gilham returning to the driver's seat in his place, and has already announced he will compete in the new B-Tec Development Series feeder category this year, racing an ex-BMR Volkswagen for Team BKR.

2016 BTCC LINE-UP SO FAR

Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R: Gordon Shedden, Matt Neal, Andy Neate
Team BMR Subaru Levorg: Jason Plato, Colin Turkington, Warren Scott, James Cole
WSR BMW 125i Sport: Jack Goff, Sam Tordoff, Rob Collard
Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST: Andy Jordan, Mat Jackson
Triple Eight Racing MG6: TBA, TBA
Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type R: Jeff Smith, Martin Depper, TBA
Speedworks Motorsport: Tom Ingram (Toyota), Matt Simpson (Honda)
Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze: Hunter Abbott, TBA
Handy Motorsport Toyota Avensis: Rob Austin
Ciceley Racing Mercedes A-Class: Adam Morgan
Laser Tools Racing Mercedes A-Class: Aiden Moffat
Welch Motorsport Proton Gen-2: Dan Welch
Team Parker Racing Ford Focus ST: Alex Martin
Team Hard Toyota Avensis: Chris Smiley, TBA
Maximum Motorsport Ford Focus ST: Stewart Lines
AmD Tuning Audi S3: TBA

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