How a BTCC Alliance swept the field away in 2023

The team formerly known as Motorbase propelled Ash Sutton to a fourth BTCC title this year, with a Ford Focus that no one could make work in 2022. How did they do it? Time to sit down with some of the squad’s key figures

Motorbase Performance is no more. But, then again, it hadn’t really been pure Motorbase anyway. Since 2021, the team had been operating in the British Touring Car Championship with a significant contingent from the old AmD squad; since 2022, with the addition of the nucleus behind Ash Sutton’s three titles at BMR. ‘Time for a new name’, thought owner Pete Osborne as he neared the end of his third year at the helm of the company.

“We decided to sit down, looked at lots of different things, looked at everybody’s names and initials to try and put them together,” smiles Osborne. “And then we said, ‘Hold on, we’re an alliance of people, we’re together, and it works for us’. Hence why Oly came up with this great idea of Alliance Racing.”

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Author Marcus Simmons

Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.

Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.