Over the last few seasons across various disciplines of motor racing – including the BTCC – the term ‘sabbatical’ has been thrown around by drivers and teams as they exit a championship, then fail to return after the gap of a year. The term has been taken to mean ‘done and dusted.’ For once, there is a bucking of that trend as One Motorsport announce a return to the BTCC, after a ‘pause’ in motorsport activities for a season.

Over the last few months rumours have placed the team as a contender for a return to action. From the moment that the BTCC dropped the TBL list for 2025 the squad has been at the centre of gossip surrounding whether the TBL slots would be retained, loaned out, or even returned – and if they were kept, which car they would use, and who would drive for them?

The Brackley based team have this evening revealed that they will return to the track to the track in the Honda Civic FK8, presumed to be the TOCA engined machines they ran until the end of 2022. The FK8 that the squad raced – as BTC Racing – until the end of 2022 saw much success with Josh Cook picking up 16 victories overall, and with 10 of those being with the TOCA engine in 2021/22. For 2023 the team used the Neil Brown/Honda powered machines previously raced by Team Dynamics, but the alternatively developed cars with different engine positions and weight distribution proved a challenge for Josh Cook and his teammates. That route was deemed to be a failure at the end of that season, suggesting that a step back to their own machinery, having been developed across 2024 is in order.

With the end of hybrid, the cars for this year will be around 60kg lighter, and it is believed that the Civic is a machine that will benefit greatly with the removal of the device, allowing for a weight distribution that will prove advantageous. It is expected that many of the idiosyncrasies, and the year less of running, will actually play into their hands, with less reverse engineering needed to step back to the 2021 pre-hybrid version of the machine as a starting point for this year.

The move may come as a surprise to naysayers, which was addressed as Team Owner Steve Dudman said: “It is with the utmost pride and excitement that I can officially confirm that One Motorsport will be making its return to the BTCC grid this season.

“When we announced that we would be sitting out the 2024 campaign I’m sure there were many people that thought we may never be back however that never entered my mind – the goal was always to come back and come back stronger than ever.

“It goes without saying that having to watch on from the sidelines last year was difficult but it was the right decision for the team in the long run. We certainly haven’t rested on our laurels while being away with significant investment and development going into the cars over the past year.

“The small team that we’ve had working back at base deserve a lot of credit because they’ve put in a tremendous amount of effort to get us to where we are currently. Now we’re growing that team back to what it was before we took our sabbatical.

“We’re putting the finishing touches on what is without doubt a very strong driver line-up and there are a number of commercial partners – both old and new – that we’ll be working with over the course of the year. It’s an exciting time behind the scenes at the moment.

“I’d just like to end by thanking all of our fantastic and loyal supporters for standing with us over the past year and to series organisers TOCA for their understanding and assistance.

“We’re very much back, we have a lot of exciting news to come and we’re ready to race!”