Premier Pensions Management announced in August that they had signed a sponsorship deal with Surrey based driver Tom Ferrier who has secured a contract with Motorbase Performance, to drive one of their Seat Toledo Cupra’s in the BTCC for the remainder of the season - see August 2007 press release.

The Premier Pensions Management deal covers the remaining three rounds of the Championship at:

Brands Hatch	18/19 August
Knockhill	1/2 September
Thruxton	13/14 October

Each round includes three BTCC races and live TV coverage is provided on ITV4 and ITV1.

The Seat Toledo Cupra driven by Tom sports Premier Pensions Management logos on the bonnet and over both rear wheel arches.

Brands Hatch
The first outing for the car sporting its new Premier Pensions Management logos was over the weekend of 18/19 August.

On the Saturday Tom qualified 13th on the grid out of the 24 entrants, but this was only 0.72 secs behind pole man Colin Turkington.

However, race-day Sunday was to be somewhat of a disaster! As the cars approached Druids, only the second corner, on the first lap of the first race a multi-car pile up caused the race to be stopped. 10 cars were littered across the track, 3 so badly damaged that they could take no further part in the day’s activities - one of these being Tom’s Seat! Two drivers were taken to hospital for checks but thankfully were released later that day.

Tom’s Seat was brought back to the pits on the back of a recovery lorry but the front of the car was so badly damaged the team had to reluctantly admit that it would not be competing again that day!

Tom explained that the spinning car of Mat Jackson was immediately in front of him so he could not avoid him and then somebody else had careered into the back of him (the excellent pictures on the BTCC website show the extent of the crash!) - also see pictures from the day, including the damage to the car below.

The race was eventually re-started some 30 minutes later and was won by Vauxhall Works driver Fabrizio Giovanardi. He also won the second race with Colin Turkington winning the third.

Despite the huge disappointment of not being able to cheer on Tom during the day the Premier Pensions Management contingent enjoyed a full days racing and some excellent hospitality provided by Motorsport Performance.
This included access to the pits/garages, paddock, team members and catering, together with tickets to the Grandstand to watch the racing. In addition, Tom was on hand at various stages of the day to talk to the guests.

Tom was a bit battered and bruised by the experience but “nothing a hot bath can’t sort out!”

The team, Tom and Premier Pensions Management are looking for more luck at the forthcoming meetings.

More information can be found at:
www.btcc.net
www.motorbaseperformance.co.uk

Knockhill
Unfortunately due to the extensive damage to both the Team’s cars suffered at Brands Hatch the team could not repair them in time and so had to withdraw from this round

British GT Championship
Tom also participates in this Championship driving a Porsche 997 in the GT3 category for the Tech 9 team. In view of the difficulties with the BTCC car they agreed that Tom could carry the PPM logo in the final round of this Championship at Rockingham on 29/30 September. With co-driver Matt Frost they secured a 2nd place in Race 1 and 4th in Race 2, their best results of the season – see pictures below.