MOTORSPORT: ‘Go’ for 2.0-litre tourers, but not with Supercars

A calendar has been announced for Australia’s new 2.0-litre production touring car series next year, but none of the races will be at Supercar events.

Instead, the seven rounds of the Touring Car Racing (TCR) Series will all be run as part of the Shannons Nationals.

The series will kick off at Sydney Motorsport Park in mid-May and conclude at The Bend, South Australia’s new venue 100km east of Adelaide, in mid-November (on the weekend of Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour).

The final round will be TCR’s second visit to The Bend after an earlier round in July.

Victoria’s Phillip Island, Winton and Sandown circuits as well as Queensland Raceway at Ipswich are the other venues in the series.

Matt Braid, director of series promoter Australian Racing Group (ARG) after having been managing director of Volvo Cars Australia and an executive at Supercars, said the release of the calendar was “a great milestone” for TCR Australia.

“We are very pleased to launch the category alongside the Shannons Nationals events,” Braid said.

“The seven events at six circuits give us variety at the best permanent circuits in Australia.

“The events give us great flexibility on race formats too, and we look forward to announcing those in the coming weeks.

“TCR Australia is one of the most anticipated new racing categories to land on the Australian motorsport scene in many years. It will be fresh, exciting and action-packed.”

While there is no word of a television deal for the series yet, Shannons Nationals director Michael Smith claimed “there is genuine excitement about this category coming to Australia … [it will be] a really competitive and accessible category”.

While ARG and the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) have been at pains to project the new category as no potential threat to the dominance of Supercars on the national motorsport scene, the initial announcement of TCR coming to Australia three months ago said that it “is intended as a strong support category to Supercars at a number of major national events”.

“While both the TCR Series and Supercars are ‘touring car’ categories, the vehicle specs and racing styles are completely different,” it said.

“We see that TCR potentially has appeal to a younger, differentiated demographic, which complements and would fit well with Supercars from a support perspective.”

While none of the rounds on the initial TCR calendar are in conjunction with Supercars, today’s announcement says there could yet be “other non-championship events”.

TCR is open to front-wheel drive C-segment (small) hatchbacks or sedans powered by production-based turbocharged petrol or diesel engines of up to 2.0 litres and 420Nm of torque or 310 horsepower.

It is for privateer teams – factory-owned entries will be prohibited – but car manufacturers are being encouraged to support their cars, which are expected to cost about $200,000.

Melbourne Performance Centre already has a Volkswagen Golf TCR and an Audi RS 3 LMS (pictured) and Wall Racing in Sydney a Honda Civic TCR, while two Hyundai i30N TCRs are expected to arrive for HMO Customer Racing.

Other makes already homologated for the four internationally-sanctioned TCR series around the world and 12 national or regional series using the regulations are Alfa-Romeo, Ford, Kia, Opel, Peugeot, Renault, Skoda and Subaru.

2019 TCR Australia calendar:
Round 1: Sydney Motorsport Park, May 17-19
Round 2: Phillip Island, June 6-9
Round 3: The Bend Motorsport Park, July 12-14
Round 4: Queensland Raceway, August 2-4
Round 5: Winton, August 31-September 1
Round 6: Sandown, September 20-22
Round 7: The Bend Motorsport Park, November 15-17

Sydney 19-year-old Jayden Ojeda is Australia’s latest Formula 4 champion, clinching the title at the final round at New Zealand’s Pukekohe circuit as part of the weekend’s Supercar event.

Brisbane 16-year-old Ryan Suhle was runner-up in the series. Ojeda and Suhle both drove for AGI Sport.

Gold Coast 15-year-old Lochie Hughes was rookie of the year with Team BRM.

Ryan Simpson and Jim Pollicina are the surprise winners of the Australian Production Car Series after winning a six-hour race at Phillip Island in which the more fancied combinations had tyre failures.

A conservative approach paid off for Simpson and Pollicina in their Lotus Exige and they won despite a drive-through penalty for a pitlane infringement in the final third of the race.

Tony D’Alberto and Grant Denyer had gone to the island leading the championship but needed a lengthy pitstop to replace a shock absorber on their Lotus Exige after a blown tyre.

The BMW M4 of brothers Iain and Grant Sherrrin also had tyre troubles which saw it back in the pitlane twice within half an hour of its scheduled first stop.

However, the Sherrins still finished second, with Mark Eddy and Francois Jouy third in an Audi TT RS despite a troublesome gearbox.

Paul Stokell could add another national title to his list next weekend – the CAMS Australian Targa Championship.

The Tasmanian-born Queenslander, driving a Lotus Exige, goes to the final round, Targa High Country in Victoria’s north-east, with 206 points to the 171 of John Ireland in a 2017 Dodge Viper ACR and 170 of Jason White, winner of the new Targa Great Barrier Reef recently, in a 2016 Dodge Viper ACR Extreme.

The three days of the event based at the Mt Buller ski resort will comprise 270km of competition in 20 stages for the 185 entries.

Stokell already has three Australian Drivers’ Championships, two Australian Nations Cup crowns and an Australian Mini Challenge title to his name, but he is new to Targa High Country and is modest about his chances.

“We are not in a position to challenge some of the more powerful cars, so I don’t pretend to be in contention [to win the event] outright, but we’ll give it a crack,” Stokell said.

Indianapolis loses its grand old dame

The woman who used to give the “start your engines” command for the Indianapolis 500, Mari Hulman George – long-time chairman of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway – has died, aged 83.

Her son, Tony George, remembered her as “a quiet pioneer” who had fielded entries in the Indy 500 in the early 1960s for her late husband, Elmer George, before her administrative roles.

One of today’s IndyCar racers, J.R. Hildebrand, remembered her as the woman who “chaired the organisation at the centre of the racing universe for decades”.

The legendary A.J. Foyt, Bobby Unser and Parnelli Jones have been among those to pay tribute to her.

Subaru is to field a three-car squad in American rallycross next year, with a new teammate for Australian Chris Atkinson – the wild but super-successful Scott Speed.

Speed has departed the Andretti Volkswagen team with which he won three straight titles in the now-defunct Global Rallycross Championship before topping this year’s newly-formed Americas Rallycross (ARX).

“Subaru is a team on the rise in ARX and I’m excited to join (Swede) Patrick Sandell and Chris Atkinson – two of the top drivers in the sport who showed serious pace in the WRX STI this season,” said Speed, a one-time Formula 1 driver until a physical altercation with his Toro Rosso team boss, Franz Tost.