page_title: 2003 British Touring Car Championship
section_title: Team and driver changes - Touring
hierarchical_section_title: 2003 British Touring Car Championship / Changes for 2003 / Team and driver changes - Touring
caption_attribution_description: English: BTCC 2003 Rockingham - Yvan Muller pitting in the Vauxhall Astra
context_page_description: The 2003 Green Flag MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 46th British Touring Car Championship season.
context_section_description: For 2003 all three main manufacturers in the premier Touring class ran three cars.  Reigning champions Vauxhall cut down to three Astra Coupes by axing its Egg Sport squad and entering three VX Racing-liveried cars, run once again by Triple 8.  2002 champion James Thompson and runner-up Yvan Muller remained, and Paul O'Neill moved across from Egg Sport to take the third seat.
  MG expanded to three West Surrey Racing-run ZSs, with Colin Turkington joining 2002 drivers Anthony Reid and Warren Hughes after impressing in his debut season with the Team Atomic Kitten MG squad, which had also been run by WSR.
  Arena Motorsport ran three Civic Type Rs for Honda, with only Irishman Alan Morrison remaining from the 2002 line-up. Matt Neal replaced Andy Priaulx (who left to contest the European Touring Car Championship with BMW) after moving from Vauxhall, and teenager Tom Chilton filled the third seat after an impressive debut year in the Barwell Motorsport-run Astra.  Proton again returned as a fourth manufacturer, retaining both David Leslie and Phil Bennett in its two Impians.
  Vic Lee Racing switched from the ex-works Peugeot 406 Coupe's to a pair of brand new  Peugeot 307 designed by Sergio Rinland, former chief designer at the Sauber Formula 1 team. Reigning independents cup champion Dan Eaves was retained alongside Carl Breeze who raced for the team for most of 2002. Meanwhile, Tim Harvey swapped his crash helmet for a microphone, joining ITV's commentary team. Breeze would leave the team after the Rockingham races, moving to GA Motorsport in the seat vacated by Gavin Pyper. Daniel Buxton would in turn take Breeze's seat at VLR, graduating from the Clio Cup which he had been dominating at the time.
  Gavin Pyper had started the season strongly in the GA Motorsport Vauxhall Astra Coupe, winning the independents class five times in the ten races he contested and leading the class when he was forced to withdraw due to a lack of funding.  With Breeze now in Pyper's car Paul Wallace switched from GA's production Alfa Romeo to a second Astra which the team had entered for Gareth Howell at Silverstone.
  Howell himself later reappeared in another ex-Triple 8 Astra for Team Dynamics from the Snetterton rounds onwards.
  Production class champions Synchro Motorsport graduated to the touring class with champion driver James Kaye running an ex-works Honda Civic Type R.
  Also stepping up was Rob Collard with his self-run team, entering an ex-works Vauxhall Astra Coupe that had been driven by Aaron Slight in 2002.,
caption: Mandatory pit stops became a feature for all races in the 'Touring' class
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