Diesel Beemer is back!

The unique car will again be run by Team AFM Racing which oversaw its development during its debut BTCC season in 2007. Driver then Rick Kerry will this time act as team principal and hand over driving duties to Leason who also raced in 2007’s BTCC, albeit briefly for a rival team.

The entry takes the number of confirmed drivers to 20 with a further two – at Team Aon and Tempus Sport – still to be announced.

Leason, from Northampton, told btcc.net: “Some people race on a shoestring budget – well this is a flip-flop budget! We’ve had a quite incredible adventure putting together the funding. We’ve been really badly affected by the recession which, one by one, has cost us numerous sponsors.

“But in the last few weeks and days we’ve managed to rescue the programme and now we’re going to be at Brands Hatch and are looking reasonable for the rest of the season.

“We have several potential sponsors who want to see us out there so we’re going to put on the best show we can for the crowds at the track and watching on ITV. We’re under no illusions – it’s going to be incredibly tough, that’s what the BTCC is all about, but we’re not the sort of people to give up. After all the bad luck we’ve had, we now just need that little bit of good luck to come our way…”

Leason acknowledges that the whistling 1-Series needed further development after its debut BTCC season in 2007 and is hopeful that progress has been made.

He added: “Last year Rick and I both continued testing the car and with the resources we’ve had we hope we’ve found some more performance. I still consider him a team-mate and it’s very much still our ambition to eventually run two cars. One thing that is unknown is how the car with the development it’s undergone in recent months will go in the dry – every time we’ve tried testing recently it’s rained so if it stays dry it will be a bit of an unknown.