Robertshaw Racing has completed its line-up for the 50th anniversary season of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship with the signing of second year driver Matt Allison.

Allison, who won the Renault Clio Winter Cup in 2005 and the British GT Cup title a year later, finished twelfth in the BTCC standings last season and a solid sixth in the Independents' championship in his debut year of touring car competition.

Now the highly rated youngster will join BTCC debutant Harry Vaulkhard at the wheel of a Super 2000 Chevrolet Lacetti, while Robertshaw will also continue to run the BTC-specification Honda Integra of Alan Taylor – who appeared in the final two rounds of the 2007 season.

"I'm really pleased to have got something sorted out," Allison told Crash.net. "It was getting a bit late in the day, but to be honest with you, I feel I have got a pearl of a drive. I've been to Robertshaw today [Tuesday] and the infrastructure they have in place is really impressive. They have good technical backing as a customer of RML, I've spoken to [Chevrolet WTCC driver] Rob Huff about it and I feel that the car can do good things.

"I've not got a massive budget but the team was prepared to take me on rather than someone with a lot of money because they feel I can mix it with the big boys. I think we can have a really positive year, the Lacetti looks great and is a really good spec. They've had four solid days of running it with Harry and in the end, the deal was all done quite quickly."

Allison is now set to make his debut in the car at the upcoming media day at Rockingham and while that won't leave much time for testing before the season opener at Brands Hatch, he said he wasn't too concerned.

"I think media day will probably be my first run in the car," he said. "I could have gone out before then but it would have been a general test with a lot of other cars out on track. Instead we can run at the media day and then try to do a few other tests with the rest of the touring cars instead. It is a bit 'in at the deep end' but I'm not worried about it all.

"Although it is privateer team, the chance to be involved with the sole representatives of the Chevrolet marque in the BTCC is something I am excited about and I feel this is a great opportunity for me."

Allison's signing comes as something of a coup for the team as it embarks on its first full year in the BTCC after an impressive debut season with Motorbase's SEAT Toledo, albeit one that saw him suffer from his fair share of bad luck.

The deal also comes as something of a surprise with Rob Collard having been hotly tipped for the drive following a recent test session at Rockingham, but team manager Joe Bradley said he was delighted to have Allison on board for the coming campaign.

"We are delighted," he told Crash.net. "Matt fits the profile of what we need in a driver at this stage of the programme absolutely perfectly. He has a year of experience in the BTCC, he is bloody quick and he has shown himself to be a committed driver in everything he has done so far in his career.

"To get a driver who I would class as a 25-year-old hotshot is brilliant, as he will put us under pressure to get things done and will help Harry evolve as a driver and help us evolve us as
a team."

Bradley added that he wasn't concerned about signing Allison without having the chance to test him in the car, and said he was confident that a good season lies ahead.

"You only have to look at the season review from last year to see how committed he was last season," he said. "I think he really had to wring the neck of that SEAT to get the best out of it and had some good results with it. He did have a few crashes but if you look at it, it was down to bad luck – like at Croft when he suddenly found a tyre in front of him on the track.

"We had no qualms at all about signing Matt up without him running in the car and hopefully he got all his bad luck out of the way last season, meaning we'll benefit from all the good luck this year! I feel we can have a good season together."