BTC-T Vauxhall Astra Coupe

The Vauxhall Astra Coupe is a BTC-Touring class racing car that was built for the 2001 British Touring Car Championship season by Triple 8 Race Engineering, who ran Vauxhall's official works program. It was the first BTC Touring-specification car to be unveiled in late 2000. Triple 8 had worked on the Astra in the summer of that year and as a result, with 4 cars - 2 with Vauxhall sponsorship (driven by Jason Plato and Yvan Muller) and 2 with Egg Banking sponsorship (driven by James Thompson, Phil Bennett, and a one-off appearance by Andy Priaulx) had given themselves a head start on the rest of the field at the start of the 2001 season. In the end, it was far more advanced in its development than anything else in the field, allowing to win 25 out of 26 races in 2001 (although the only non-Vauxhall win was a non-points scoring victory by Anthony Reid for MG, so they picked up maximum constructors points in every race). A 3-way battle for the championship lasted throughout the season, with Jason Plato emerging victorious by 18 points. In fact, so dominant were the cars that the lowest placed Astra driver, Phil Bennett, who finished 4th in the Driver's Championship, was 58 points clear of the next driver.

In 2002, the Astra Coupes proved less reliable, with multiple problems and failures for all 4 works drivers throughout the season. Triple Eight once again entered 2 Vauxhall-sponsored and 2 Egg-sponsored Astra's - with James Thompson replacing the departing Plato in the Vauxhall Motorsport car, and Matt Neal and Paul O'Neill replacing him and Bennett in the egg:sport cars. Despite the multitude of technical issues, a full time MG campaign, the return of Honda, and the arrival of Proton, Vauxhall won a clean sweep of the titles again, with all of the top 3 positions in the Driver's Championship filled by drivers of the cars - Thompson this time finishing the victor, by 20 points. Aaron Slight also came second in the Independent's Cup in his first and only full BTCC season.