Sporting Highlights 2023: Bristol Street Motors
Our sporting partnerships had an important role to play in 2023, with Bristol Street Motors once again supporting the EXCELR8 Motorsport team and also embarking on a new relationship with the English Football League.
On the race track, it was a busy season for the BRISTOL STREET MOTORS with EXCELR8 team as it looked to try and defend the championship title it secured in 2022 thanks to Tom Ingram.
Ingram was part of a revised four-strong line-up that once again included Tom Chilton, with the pair joined by newcomers Ronan Pearson and Nick Halstead.
Although there was no title win, there were plenty of highlights for the quartet across the ten round campaign, which kicked off at Donington Park in April and ended in October on the Brands Hatch GP circuit.
The highlights for Ingram would include race wins at Snetterton and Donington Park as he proved to be the biggest rival to eventual champion Ash Sutton in the standings, whilst he would produce one of the drives of the season at Silverstone as he fought his way from 22nd on the grid in race two to finish on the podium.
For Chilton, the undoubted highlight would come in the opening meeting of the year as he returned to the top step of the podium for the first time since the middle of the 2019 season.
Mastering challenging wet conditions, Chilton made the right call on tyres as he switched from slick rubber and hit the front to grab a 15th win in the series.
Halstead’s highlight would come in the same race as he too benefitted from changing tyres at the right time to break into the points for the first time. A seventh place finish that would prove to be his best result of the campaign by far, although he would again take a top 15 finish in similar conditions at Knockhill later in the year.
Pearson’s seasonal highlight came on home soil at Knockhill as he secured his best overall result of the season with a fine fourth place, and also took home victory amongst the Jack Sears Trophy – resulting in a trip to the podium at the end of the weekend in front of a partisan Scottish crowd.
Our new partnership with the English Football League is still very much in the early stages, with the Round of 16 in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy to come in the New Year.
Whilst there have been a number of highlights on the pitch – such as Max Woodford’s debut for Stevenage at just 15 years old, Bradford’s demolition of a youthful Liverpool and Burton’s chaotic away win at Wrexham – our most memorable moments came following the opening round of fixtures after our partnership was launched in early November.
The reaction from the various community groups that benefitted from our offer of free tickets to attend matches showed the immediate impact of the new partnership as fans embraced our involvement with the competition.
Worthy causes that have benefited from the free ticket initiative so far include PL Kicks Programmes at both Forest Green Rovers and Portsmouth designed to help inspire young people, the Get Vocal men’s mental health programme in Blackpool, the Peterborough Dementia Research Centre and the Fit Dragons in Wrexham.
We’ve got a lot more planned as the partnership develops over the coming months, all leading up to the first Bristol Street Motors Trophy Final at Wembley Stadium in early April.