2019 TCR Australia series: what you need to know

Australian Racing Group, managing company of the new TCR Australia series and of the freshly-confirmed S5000 series has revealed the calendar for TCR’s racing season in 2019.

Following the Shannons Nationals as a support series, TCR Australia and S5000 will hit six tracks across seven rounds, with three races per round for TCR.

5

Round one takes place at Sydney Motorsport Park on the 17-19 May weekend, before round two at Phillip Island between June 6 and 9. Round three hits The Bend Motorsport Park across July 12 to 14, then a couple of weeks later TCR heads to Queensland Raceway on August 2.

Winton is the fifth round on 31 August, then Sandown on September 20 before a revisiting of The Bend Motorsport Park on the November 15 weekend.

So far, four makes of car are expected for the series, with Hyundai’s i30 N already having been entered by a team – HMO Customer Racing.

5

Audi RS3, Honda Civic Type R, and Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR racers are all present in Australia and ready to go.

Each of these cars run 2.0-litre turbo fours, with output limits of 257kW and 420Nm. They are, of course, front-wheel driven.

Potential drivers for the series haven’t yet been speculated upon, though racers from other Australian series were allowed a sample of the TCR cars’ potential this week.

Most notably, Supercars driver Chaz Mostert was rather impressed with the Hyundai i30 N TCR, likening it to a GT3 racer.

5

“I haven’t driven too many front wheel drive cars, but it felt pretty cool,” Mostert says.

“They are kind of like a hot hatch, front-wheel drive GT3 car.

“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.”

5

James Moffat, Leanne Tander, and Macauley Jones were also invited to drive Honda and Audi’s TCR racers, and were equally impressed.

ARG director Matt Braid says there’s more to be confirmed, including broadcasting and even the viability of endurance races, which could come as soon as 2020.

“There are still a number of factors to confirm, including the broadcasting of the TCR events, and we are close to locking in all the details of what will be a great debut series for the teams and drivers that commit.”