Newly announced Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Gallagher driver Ollie Jackson spoke of a successful test session which lead to him being confirmed as Tom Chilton’s team-mate for the 2019 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship.

With the Motorbase squad offering test sessions to MINI Challenge champions Nathan Harrison and Ant Whorton-Eales, the chance to evaluate more drivers for a potential race seat was taken as Lewis Plato and Ollie Jackson were also given the opportunity to drive the race-winning Ford Focus RS.

As pictures emerged of the Plato or Jackson name printed on the rear windows of the Focus, social media went into a frenzy as fans started to think that driving duties were being performed by Jason Plato and former Motorbase man Mat Jackson. Ollie knows that he’s going to have to perform well in 2019 to appease the Mat Jackson fans who are still disappointed with the news that dominated the start of last season.

“I think there’s going to be a few people who are going to be disappointed.” Ollie told The Checkered Flag at Autosport International,

“Put it this way, I’m going to see what I can do this year and hopefully I’ll be able to win the supporters over.”

To give Ollie credit, his past few seasons at AmD Tuning in the Audi S3 has tended to show flashes of strong pace and the podium at the start of 2018 wasn’t just down to the conditions. With a quick car underneath him, he had the opportunity to prove to Motorbase Team Principal David Bartrum that he’d be worthy enough of a seat in 2019.

“I started talking to David just after the end of the season because I know him due to my past with him in Carrera Cup, he offered me a go in his car and the test went really, really well and it just kinda went from there. Compared to everyone else running on the day it went really well.”

His reward following the test was a top drive with a proven race winning car in the BTCC. An opportunity to finally score consistently and possibly increase his podium tally. Considering where he started from in the championship seven seasons ago, it’s nothing less than Ollie deserves.