MOTORSPORT: Hyundai commits to TCR series

Hyundai is the first confirmed starter for the planned 2019 Australian TCR touring car championship.

Two cars are committed to the fledgling series in a deal which could see up to five Hyundai i30 Ns racing in the championship, as well as local sales of the South Korean company’s i20 R5 customer rally car.

The new global racing category for front-wheel drive, 2.0-litre four-cylinder production-based cars will be launched in Australia and managed by a new promoter, the Australian Racing Group, which is led by former Volvo Car Australia and Supercars executive Matthew Braid.

The big new move comes through two veterans of Australian racing and rallying, Dave Cameron and Barry Morcom, who have negotiated a comprehensive deal directly with Hyundai Motorsport in Germany.

The pair have established a new company, HMO Customer Racing, which will be based in Sydney to handle the two-car entry in the planned TCR championship.

It will also be responsible for sales of the TCR version of the i30 N and the R5 version of the Hyundai i20 rally car in both Australia and New Zealand.

“We’re 100 per cent ready to go in TCR. The cars are ordered and they will be here. We will be on the grid,” Cameron revealed exclusively to motoring.com.au.

“We’re now hoping that Hyundai Australia will work with us on the program.”

Cameron and Morcom have been working on the Hyundai connection for several months and have just returned to Australia after a week-long series of meetings at Hyundai Motorsport at Alzenau in Germany.

They negotiated with the company’s WRC team principal Michel Nandan and Andrea Adamo, the deputy general manager of customer racing.

“We’ve got the OK from Germany to go ahead as a customer racing partner. We’ve signed the first round of contracts and once we sell the next two cars then we move to the second phase of the agreement,” says Cameron.

Ironically, Cameron was pivotal in Hyundai’s original move into motorsport in Australia in the early 1990s. He pitched the idea for a local rally team to the company and also co-drove for a number of high-profile drivers including Wayne Bell, George Fury, Murray Coote and Greg Carr.

The successful Australian program eventually morphed into Hyundai’s first involvement in the World Rally Championship, and the company currently leads the 2018 title chase with its lead driver Thierry Neuville.

The TCR program is the latest development at Hyundai Motorsport and the i30 N has quickly become one of the pace-setters in a range of championships.

Hyundai has just clinched the inaugural TCR title in the USA with wins in both the teams and manufacturers championships, and has been on the podium in recent TCR championship races in Germany, Italy and Asia, with wins in the first TCR Korea races.

“The titles are proof of the performance and reliability of the car. Hopefully those will be the first of many for our customers,” says Adamo.

HMO Customer Racing will operate from Morcom's race base at Campbelltown, on the western fringes of Sydney, and Cameron says the intention is to develop a full customer package from car sales to on-track support.

“We want to build a platform for the future. We will have a full customer support package at the track,” he says.

Details of the HMO Customer Racing program are still being finalised, including drivers and sponsors, but Cameron says everything is ready once the cars arrive from Germany.

He is expecting the first of the i30 N TCR racers to land in time for the likely press launch of the Australian series in November.

He is now preparing to field enquires from potential TCR racers and also rally teams which are interested in the i20 R5, which has been one of the pace-setters in a number of regional championships.

“The cost of the i30 TCR is about 130,000 Euros, without any extras. The price of the R5 cars is around 189,000 Euros,” Cameron confirms.

“We are open to enquiries. We will be able to get as many cars as we need. That could be up to eight TCR cars, but we don’t want to turn it into Formula Hyundai.”