Lada Sport confirm Thompson

LADA Sport confirmed to have signed James Thompson for driving the new LADA Granta Sport in the two outings they will to do in 2012 WTCC, at Budapest’s Hungaroring and Estoril in Portugal.

“The agreement we have with him includes all the testing we will do in 2012 to develop the WTCC Granta,” unveiled LADA Sport programme manager Viktor Shapovalov, who added: “We have also a pre-agreement with him for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 in the case that LADA Sport will decide in favour of a WTCC works programme after these two exploratory events.”

"I’m really pleased to have this deal. They have a brand new racing structure at LADA Sport and this gives me a lot of confidence that this can go somewhere," said Thompson who had raced for the Russian manufacturer in the 2009 WTCC, claiming two sixth places with a Priora car at Imola.

The LADA Sport team is due to start testing the WTCC Granta car in April.