Sam Tordoff joins Jason Plato at MG works team for BTCC

Tordoff, a four-time Porsche Carrera Cup race winner, believes he can fight at the front once he has settled in to the Triple 8 Engineering-run squad.

"We've got to be on the podium and winning races," he told AUTOSPORT.

"Jason set the standard last year and the car will be capable of winning the championship. If I can win races in the Carrera Cup I believe I can win BTCC races.

"I've raced people like Dave Newsham in the BTCC support series and he's won touring car races."

Tordoff is also the seventh confirmed 2013 member of the KX Akademy, which aims to help young British tin-top talent.

Plato is the Akademy's mentor, but Tordoff does not believe that will hinder his BTCC chances.

"Jason's won more BTCC races than anyone else," added the 23-year-old Briton. "He's the perfect guy to learn from and I'll be using him as a benchmark.

"The team is quite happy for us to race each other - the Akademy will not have a bearing on us as team-mates, but the chances are he'll be up the road to start with."

"I'm thrilled to be joining Jason, Ian and the rest of the team and I'm determined to do well - even if it means beating Jason!"

Tordoff did not rule out helping Plato in his search for a third BTCC crown should the opportunity arise.

"If near the end of the year one of us can help the other in the championship I'm sure we'll do that," he said.

Tordoff made a one-off BTCC appearance in a Triple 8 Vauxhall Vectra at the 2010 Brands Hatch finale, qualifying within 0.3s of pole and taking a best finish of 10th.

2013 British Touring Car line-up so far:

Team                   Car                     Drivers
Honda (Team Dynamics)  Honda Civic             Gordon Shedden/Matt Neal
MG (Triple 8)          MG6                     Jason Plato/Sam Tordoff
Motorbase Performance  Ford Focus              Mat Jackson/TBA
WSR                    BMW 125 M               C Turkington/R Collard/N Foster
Team HARD              VW Passat               Tom Onslow-Cole
                       Vauxhall Insignia       Jack Goff/James Cole
Speedworks Motorsport  Toyota Avensis          Dave Newsham/TBA
Ciceley Racing         Toyota Avensis          Adam Morgan
IP Tech Race           Chevrolet Cruze         Andy Neate
AmD Tuning             VW Golf/Vauxhall Astra  TBA
Rob Austin Racing      Audi A4                 Rob Austin/Will Bratt
Eurotech Racing        Honda Civic             Andrew Jordan/TBA
Dynojet                Toyota Avensis          Frank Wrathall