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Stars sample TCR Series cars at Sydney Motorsport Park
Motorsport stars have spoken highly of the newest touring car category that will hit Australian shores in 2019 – TCR Australia.
As part of an exclusive media and competitors day at Sydney Motorsport Park yesterday, an array of drivers and teams attended to get an up close look at the exciting international category.
Drivers who sampled the four TCR cars included 2014 Bathurst 1000 champion Chaz Mostert, James Moffat, Leanne Tander, Tony D’Alberto and Macauley Jones, among others.
Leading Australia race team owners, like Garry Rogers and Brad Jones, as well as other high-profile guests were onsite, getting a close look at the under 2-Litre racing machines.
Mostert got his maiden TCR laps in the HMO Customer Racing Hyundai i30 N, while Moffat drove the Honda Civic, Tander and Jones steered the Audi RS 3 and D’Alberto undertook laps inside the Volkswagen Golf GTI.
Many other drivers also got opportunities to drive, including recently crowned Australian F4 Champion Jayden Ojeda, Super2 driver Nathan Morcom, rising star Charlotte Poynting and former track and field athlete turned racer John Steffensen.
TCR Australia used the media and competitor day to announce several key sporting regulations, including Michelin as the official tyre supplier and provisional race formats.
CLICK HERE for more details on the sporting regulations.
The opening round of the 2019 TCR Australia Series will be held at Sydney Motorsport Park on May 17-19.
QUOTES
Chaz Mostert
“Overall, I was lucky to get invited out by Barry Morcom to get a drive of the new Hyundai TCR cars that will race in Australia next year,
“”I haven’t driven too many front wheel drive cars, but it felt pretty cool. They are kind of like a hot hatch, front wheel drive GT3 car. It handled really good, and I just love driving different cars.
“As a front wheel drive car, it’s definitely on steroids! You can get quite a lot of speed up and the way it moves around is quite exciting. It also makes you feel pretty safe behind the wheel.
“They are actually quite comparable to a GT3 car in terms of driver satisfaction.
“Overall, I think TCR is pretty cool and it will be great to see a big field of these. Toe to toe racing, there’s a lot of potential in the series, but really, I’m just stoked to be asked by Barry to come out here and have a drive of the Hyundai.”
James Moffat
“TCR is an exciting, world wide category. It’s was exciting to be involved in the launch at Sydney Motorsport park and driving this Honda was a lot of fun,” said James Moffat.
“TCR is a category across the world that is appealing to manufacturers. You can see that with how many are involved in the different championships around the world. It will be really interesting to see how many different types of cars end up here.
Leanne Tander
“I loved it driving the Audi. It was amazing and so much fun. There’s so much power when you put your foot down and it just goes,”
“I’d love to race one with 15 or 20 cars around. I think the racing would be great and I hope that I can be involved.”
Macauley Jones
“It’s funny how things go around. I grew up watching videos of dad racing Audis. I even had toy Audis that I used to play with!” said Macauley Jones.
“It was very exciting to drive the Audi. My first impression was that I surprised. They are a really nice car to drive. The power delivery was a lot different to Supercars, but the turn in the car was really cool. It was fun to drive.
“It was actually challenging. You need to change your style, so I thought it was really good.”