Motorbase Performance Team Principal David Bartrum has announced that the squad’s Ford Focus ST next generation touring cars will benefit from Ford EcoBoost engines for the 2015 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship campaign.

Starting with a standard Ford 2-litre EcoBoost engine; development work has been carried out during the closed season by mountune to ensure that the engine meets NGTC specifications, with technical partners Samco Sport, Pro Alloy and Speciality Fasteners all providing crucial background assistance throughout the process.

With the first engine build and preliminary tests now complete, the Motorbase squad is preparing to embark on a significant pre-season testing programme ahead of the opening round of the 2015 BTCC season at the team’s local Brands Hatch circuit on April 4/5.

“It’s been a busy winter for us behind the scenes, but I’m delighted to be in a position to finally go public with this very exciting development for Motorbase. The Ford EcoBoost engine has been a long time in the planning and it’s only really come together in recent months thanks to the great teamwork and input from mountune and our technical partners;” commented Team Principal David Bartrum.

This latest project marks another new era in the highly successful heritage between Motorbase Performance, mountune and the Blue Oval and initial tests on the direct injection system have produced some promising results.

“There’s still more development to do before the start of the season” explained mountune Technical Director, David Mountain. “Having said that, we’re confident that by the first round we’ll have a strong package available, from which we can build on during the course of the season.”

Bartrum added; “It’s early days yet and we’ve obviously still got a long way to go in terms of testing and development but it’s great news for Motorbase, Ford and the BTCC and I’m confident that we’ll be back in the thick of it once more when the flag drops in April.”

Having already confirmed that former sports-car driver Alex Martin will race one of the three Motorbase-built Ford Focus ST’s in 2015, the full driver line up and new team sponsors will be announced in the coming weeks.