BTCC: Senna Proctor signs for partial season campaign with Team Vertu

After a few season hiatus from the BTCC grid, Senna Proctor will return to the series for 2025 with Team Vertu and Hyundai.

The return comes with a team he is very familiar with having raced back when the team ran under the EXCELR8 name in 2020. He will now return for 2025 for the first part of the year in a reserve driver role before stepping back into the drivers’ seat for Croft in August before going on to take part in the remaining race weekends of the season. Proctor will take over from Michael Crees who will race for the first half of the year before the 26-year-old takes over.

Proctor raced in the Ginetta Junior category for the 2015 season finishing runner-up at the end of the year if drop scores did not exist, he would have taken the crown that year. He would move to the Renault Clip Cup for 2016 once again impressing before being signed by Power Maxed Racing to race in the Vauxhall Astra for 2017.

His BTCC debut was a very strong season from the 18-year-old claiming the Jack Sears Trophy in dominating fashion with 15 class wins to his name. Meanwhile his performance in the overall championship was exceptional from a debuting driver. Beating future champion Jake Hill and future Independents Champion Árón Taylor-Smith in the standings, he would always impress with solid performances each weekend claiming a best finish of 6th. Staying with PMR he would claim his first of two wins in an excellent drive from 27th to take the win. Continuing to show promise he would take two more podiums and consistent points home for the team before the year’s end.

The next three years of his career would see him move through three different teams and three entirely different manufacturers. In 2019 he would jump to Adrian Flux Subaru Racing where he would continue to score points claiming a best finish of 4th. He would then move to ExcelR8 for 2020 where he would have an even better year with points finishes in all but 5 of the races he competed in, claiming his 4th podium of his career at the third race at Knockhill. This would then lead to him moving the BTC Racing for 2021 and now driving in the Honda Civic Type R where he would claim his second race win of his career and the most podiums of his career with six including that race win. This would take him to his best championship finish of 10th by seasons end and looked to have a lot of potential heading into 2022 before budget problems caused him to lose out on his seat and his time in the BTCC would come to an end for the time being.

Now making a return in 2025 he will manage to make his 150th start in the series due to this new deal and now has the opportunity to make his full time return in 2026 if he impresses.

After signing Senna Proctor said: "It is great to be returning to the BTCC with EXCELR8 and to be joining forces with Team VERTU, firstly as Reserve Driver for the first half of the season, before returning to competitive action on home soil at Croft. It’s been a long wait for me to get back into a BTCC car, and I’m excited that the opportunity has now come along to me to return to the grid. I have driven the Team VERTU car before when it was first introduced into the series, so I am looking forward to seeing how much it has changed since then. It’s clearly one of the top cars on the grid so even though I’ve been away from the series for a while, my aim it to be straight back up to speed from the outset and fight for strong results. This part season allows me to lay a solid foundation for a full time programme in 2026 and beyond. Everything is there to do the job as I have a great car, a great team behind me and three great team-mates in Tom Ingram, Tom Chilton and Adam Morgan. There can be no excuses, and it’s great to be back.”

Justina Williams, Owner of Team VERTU, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Senna back into the team this season, firstly in the role of Reserve Driver for the first half of the season before he steps into a race seat from his home round at Croft. When we first introduced the EXCELR8 car into the series, Senna played a key role in the early development of the car despite difficult circumstances caused by the pandemic and government lockdowns. I know Senna is very capable of doing a great job behind the wheel and we are confident that he will deliver some strong results and challenge for multiple podiums during his five rounds as part of the driver line-up.”