MOTORSPORT: TCR Australia Series delayed

The start of the carsales TCR Australia Series has been delayed again until at least October.

The 2.0-litre turbo touring car championship was scheduled to begin at the Australian Grand Prix back in March, but the onset of the coronavirus saw the series pushed back into May and then September.

Now it has been delayed again, with the binning of the re-scheduled first round at Sydney Motorsport Park on the first weekend in September as well as a second meeting at Sandown in Melbourne on September 12-13.

There is no replacement date or location for a new opener as the Australian Racing Group, promoter of the TCR series and also the partner in the Motorsport Australia Championships, is forced to work around the latest COVID-19 restrictions.

But ARG is moving ahead with its scheduled blockbuster meeting at Mount Panorama in November, including a new-age Bathurst 500.

“The decision had to be made. We have to see what happens. We’ve got contingencies in place and on the shelf, but we’ve got to roll with what’s happening,” the director of ARG, Matt Braid, tells carsales.

“With the latest Queensland and NSW announcements on border restrictions, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen.”

Pressed for a revised start-up date, Braid is cautiously optimistic about a one-month delay.

“The best case for us is early October,” he says, without nominating a location.

“Ideally we would go through to December with a couple of rounds, then January with the two planned Tasmanian events back-to-back.”

The ARG and TCR situation is vastly different from Supercars, which has revised and re-started its season with a quarantined hub for teams on the Gold Coast and meetings scheduled at Darwin and Townsville, and potentially Queensland Raceway, through to its marquee event at Bathurst in October.

But the Supercars teams are fully professional, unlike some of the TCR squads and also the S5000, Touring Car Masters and Trans Am championships which run on the ARG program.

“Given that we’ve got multiple categories and multiple teams with varying degrees of professionalism, we had to make the call,” says Braid.

“If it was one small category we could do something but, realistically, with all the ARG categories and teams we want to make it palatable and logistically possible for the teams to take part.”

He says the decision to delay was not easy, but became inevitable with the SMP meeting coming up fast.

“I’ve been in contact with Motorsport Australia pretty much on a daily basis since COVID started. Yesterday we made the decision and it was pretty logical,” says Braid.

“We decided to make the early call and get on with it. We were getting into the four-week window where teams would be starting to prepare for Sydney in September.

“It is disappointing to be in this position, however, it is the reality of the current environment,” said Braid.

“Despite the difficulties, our stakeholders remain positive. Our broadcast partner Network Seven is very supportive, and our competitors and sponsors are understanding of the situation and are all looking forward to going racing.”