Tom Onslow-Cole to test drive for Toyo

Toyo Tires has revealed the latest test driver to join its ranks is none other than BTCC and British GT ace, Tom Onslow-Cole. As well as being a well-known driver in his own right, the popular Surrey wheelman is also the head coach for motorsport’s governing body, the MSA.

Onslow-Cole’s glittering career has seen him rise through the ranks of Renault Clios, before becoming a stalwart on the British Touring Car Championship scene. Having driven for several ‘works’ teams, including Vauxhall, the West-Surrey Racing RAC and Ebay BMWs, and latterly, the Motorbase Ford Focus, Onslow-Cole’s experience of car-set-up and control puts him in huge demand from many well-known car manufacturers, who value his input during the R&D process.

The 2014 season saw TOC graduate up to drive the stunning Aston Martin Vantage GT3 car of Strakka Racing, which along with his team mate, Paul White, has shown great promise all season. Allied to this, he has also been kept busy in Endurance Racing across the globe, pedalling a spectrum of cars that range from a highly-tuned Golf Diesel for Milltek Sport, right through to a Mosler GT car.

TOC’s role for Toyo Tires will see him acting as the literal driving force behind the company’s UK tyre testing. During the development of Toyo’s forthcoming high performance track and road tyres, Tom has been benchmarking and proving several new prototypes, allowing TOYO’s engineers to compare performance data at a variety of UK circuits, against the constant of precisely consistent lap times.

Commenting on the relationship, Toyo UK’s Technical and Motorsport Director, Alan Meaker, said, “Working with a driver of Tom’s calibre is hugely beneficial to us. Not only can he give us huge technical insight into how new tyre designs will perform at the absolute limit of a car’s performance, but his immense skill means we can analyse any lap-time improvements whilst removing the variable of the driver. As he is able to lap within a tenth or two on each test lap, we know that any improvements we find are from the car and tyre, and not the driver. It has allowed us to quickly analyse where each new design is working – or not.”

Onslow-Cole’s latest top secret test saw him comparing Toyo’s best-selling R888 road-legal track-focussed tyre against its potential replacement. Using series of ‘real world’ club-level racecars, including a Porsche 924, Golf MK2 GTi and VW Jetta, TOC was tasked with proving the benefits of the new rubber in a series of gruelling wet and dry laps. As well as his own subjective reports for each test run, Toyo’s engineers were also able to gather reams of empirical data with their sophisticated timing, temperature and G-force measuring apparatus.