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Paul Gover23 May 2019
NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Five more for TCR grid

Extra arrivals will see the carsales TCR Australia grid count soon top 20 cars

Four more cars are on the way from Europe as the carsales TCR Australia Series shifts up a gear.

After a 17-car grid for the championship opener at Sydney Motorsport Park, the road is clear for 20-plus fields before the end of the first TCR season.

Full details of the new arrivals are still a secret, but one of the forces behind the TCR Australia series told carsales that the cars are definitely coming.

“There are at least four more cars on the way. I think a grid in the mid-20s is a realistic goal by the end of this season,” says the executive chairman of the Australian Racing Group, John McMellan.

“It depends on whether the owners want sea freight or air freight. The best case, if they want to airfreight, is the cars will arrive in two weeks and the worse case, with sea freight, is six to eight weeks.

“If a couple come together as we hope then we could get one or two here for the next round at Phillip Island. The others will be later in the season.”

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The start of the carsales TCR Australia series has sparked interest from a number of car companies. Peugeot-Citroen, which is not currently represented in the field, told carsales that it has been approached about creating a link to France by a potential competitor.

But Brad Jones, a key figure and title winning Audi driver in the Super Touring championship that ran headlong into a Supercars road block in the 2000s, denies any interest in joining the TCR championship.

Speaking from the USA, he denied rumours suggesting he will renew his relationship with Audi for a TCR program.

“Definitely not. We are not getting involved in TCR,” said Jones.

“We have no interest. We are fully committed to our programs in the various levels of Supercars,” he stated.

But two other Supercars squads, Kelly Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport, are involved and McMellan hints that they could have a link to the new TCR arrivals.

“They are existing teams, but they will probably be leasing the cars to other people,” he stated.

He also reveals that the grid count for Phillip Island will be a minimum of 18 cars.

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“There are 18 cars in the country and 17 of those ran at Sydney Motorsport Park. [Hyundai squad] GWR has advised that the 18th car will run at Phillip Island.

“It’s an owner-driver, it’s a Hyundai. The owner couldn’t make the first round but he can make the next round,” McMellan stated.

Talking about the competitiveness of the first carsales TCR Australia meeting, McMellan is not expecting any changes to the line-up or the Balance of Performance calculations used to ensure the 2.0-litre turbo cars are equalised for competition. This is despite several cars struggling to match the pace of the front-runners.

“That’s not a decision for me. That’s the Balance of Performance adjustments as they come online. Globally they collect all the data for all events, and then they issue the BoP on what they receive.”

“If we’re being realistic at the moment it’s not about BoP. It’s about drivers learning the cars and teams learning the cars. It’s about things like learning the Michelin tyres and tyre pressures,” he explained.

“At a track like Sydney Motorsport Park it’s quite easy to get a gap between cars. The competitiveness and experience will come from racing, more than anything else. You have to remember that some of the cars only arrived in Australia five days before the meeting,” McMellan said.

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Written byPaul Gover
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