Joshua Anderson

**Joshua Anderson** (born 21 March 1997) is a British racing driver currently racing in the British Touring Car Championship for Vauxhall Sport. He won the 1995 Touring Car World Cup Class B trophy in a 1993 Toyota Carina *e*, driving for Michael Sneath Racing .

## Touring Cars

### 1994

#### Touring Car World Cup

In 1994, Anderson made his debut in the BTCO driving in the Touring Car World Cup in a manufacturer-supported Nissan Primera eGT. Driving the #12 Calsonic Primera, he would take two 8th places, scoring 26 points which was good enough for an overall ranking of 7th in the Drivers' standings.

### 1995

#### British Touring Car Championship

Anderson's results in the 1994 World Cup were evidently good enough for Team Mondeo to approach him for the 1995 British Touring Car Championship - an offer he eagerly accepted, replacing the departing Nathan Hammond. Driving the #2 car, Anderson would partner the #88 of Chris English.
An auspicious start to the season would see Anderson steadily improve as it went on. Round 1 at Brands Hatch saw Anderson gradually gain confidence in the powerful yet bulky Mondeo, and he would accumulate 20 points over the three races while displaying some impressive consistency by finishing in the top 10 in all races.

Team-mate English would not contest the Donington round, leaving Anderson to spearhead Ford's factory effort alone for the second race meeting of the season. After an 8th place in race 1 and failing to start the second race due to technical issues (though he was classified as having taken the start), the Mondeo driver finally seemed to be in sync with his car in the third race, holding off the competition to take a career-best 4th place, for a further 20 points across all three races.

Thruxton would prove a challenge for Anderson, with the Mondeo suffering with high speed understeer in the first 2 races, causing several offs; and 2 results of 10th and 8th in races 1 and 2 respectively. Even with this resolved for race 3 he could not match his achievements at Donington and was forced to settle for a best result of 7th, but could take pride at least in the fact that he was now consistently challenging and sometimes beating both independent Mondeos of Kris Simton and Michael Sneath.

With team-mate English ruled out for the fourth race meeting due to technical faults, Anderson knew he had to perform well again at Silverstone's National circuit to help reduce Team Mondeo's increasing deficit to Williams Renault Dealer Team in the Manufacturers' Championship - and perform he did, narrowly missing out on pole position to reigning champion Lorenzo Turri by just 0.09 seconds, and qualifying in a remarkable 2nd place ahead of Jake Black and Johannes Meles for Toyota and Honda respectively. A bad start to race 1 saw Anderson drop down the order, but he soon began to fight back and ended in 5th place - his second career top-5. With 10 kilograms of success ballast now equipped to his Mondeo, Anderson followed up his impressive race 1 with an equally impressive second race (despite an even worse start), finishing 6th behind David Osborne in the Alfa Romeo. Race 3 saw Anderson challenge Black, Osborne and Mike Bell for the win in the early stages, before backing off to work with Black to catch Osborne. This proved successful, but Osborne held the two off and Anderson was forced to concede the podium to Black, finishing in 4th for the second time in the season. Scoring 32 points in the 3 races, Anderson's signing as a Ford works driver seemed now to have been a wise one after all.

Oulton Park was another challenging round; the bulky Mondeo - unsuited to the very technical tracks like Oulton Park - was not as quick as its previous outing at Silverstone. Anderson managed two ninth place finishes and a tenth place in race 3 - hardly the outing he had been looking for.

Round 6 at Snetterton proved to be an interesting one; Anderson missed the first race of the evening due to further technical issues. He re-joined in time for the second race and finished twelfth, but found form in race 3 and secured a 5th place to make some good of the race weekend, and further showing the advantage of the Mondeo on fast tracks.

This was shown again at Knockhill, as Anderson and his Mondeo were in sync again, leading to some spectacular racing and good results to boot - seventh and sixth in the first two races respectively before a very hard fought battle with Black once again for the final podium spot - a battle Anderson once again lost, finishing fourth for the third time in 1995, but proving that on his day, he could be a real threat to the top 3.

A return to Oulton Park, this time at the Fosters layout, saw slightly better results for Anderson than the visit earlier in the year. Having led the Yugo Challenge race until a few laps from the end, his confidence was high, but he couldn't convert the promising form into results come the BTCC races - with finishes of eighth, seventh, and eighth in the three races, with the Mondeo once again unsuited to the technical track.

Anderson did not compete in the ninth round of the championship at Silverstone, but returned for the finale at Brands Hatch. The weekend was not one to remember for Anderson, as the Mondeo did not respond as well as it had done at the Indy layout resulting in 10th place in race 1 before retiring from race 2. Anderson's final finish of the season was in the final race, where he once again finished 10th, to (quite aptly) finish 10th in the Drivers' standings. While it had not been the season he had hoped for in places, Anderson's rookie year was far from a disappointment and he could be proud of his achievements, all things considered.

#### Touring Car World Cup

For the new multi-class format in 1995's World Cup, Anderson struck a deal to enter Class B (for cars produced between 1993 and 1994), driving the #55 Toyota Carina *e* for Michael Sneath Racing. Anderson took pole position in his class by a healthy margin but struggled with tyre wear throughout the race and eventually finished second in class to Emile Taylor 's Honda in race 1, but took the class fastest lap.
Race 2 saw Anderson drive a more conservative race to preserve his tyres; this proved to be a good call as he was still faster than Taylor and took the class win and fastest lap - which was enough to crown him Class B Champion.

### 1996

#### British Touring Car Championship

Come the 1996 season, various manufacturers were interested in hiring Anderson after his impressive rookie year, but few could have predicted that the #2 would make the move to Vauxhall, Anderson having finished a lot lower in the 1995 standings than drivers such as his new teammate, 3-time BTCC champion Lorenzo Turri. With both drivers in the new and promising Vectra for '96, and with Turri now likely to have a teammate for the entire season once again - after being the sole Vauxhall driver in 1995 - things certainly looked promising for the Ray Mallock operated team, which despite Turri's dethroning in 1995, would head into 1996 with 2 champions in tow - thanks to both of their drivers' successes in the 1995 World Cup, winning Classes A and B respectively.

## Motorsports career results

### Complete British Touring Car Championship results

Races in **bold** indicate pole position (1 point awarded just for first race) Races in *italics* indicate fastest lap (1 point awarded)