TCR World and life

You have announced that you’ll be competing in TCR UK again this year - presumably that means you still enjoy driving the TCR Hyundai? “I’ve really enjoyed competing in TCR UK over the last couple of seasons; there’s a real family atmosphere in the paddock and the championship has grown quickly. I still see TCR as a great starting platform, particularly for someone who is looking at Touring Cars and I believe strongly in the whole TCR concept. It’s definitely the future of Touring Cars as far as I’m concerned - the cars are still young in terms of their development and nearly all of the major Touring Car championships around the world are now TCR, including both the World and European series. It’s great that you can use the cars all over the world with the exception of a few countries.” You’ve competed in TCR Europe in the past, so will we see you in other TCR series again in 2020? “We’ve already said that we’ll do Spa again this year, plus we’d like to do a couple of the other rounds of TCR Europe. I’ve always liked the look of Barcelona and Monza, and I also quite like the idea of competing at Hockenheim in TCR Germany, but it’ll depend on budget and the calendars whether I’m able to do them or not, so we’ll have to play it by ear. The great thing is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a big team or a small family outfit that’s just starting out like us, if you go to Europe you’re competing against some of the best Touring Car drivers in the world, like Josh Files, Dan Lloyd, Luca Engstler, Julien Briché and Tom Coronel. We didn’t really realise what a big deal it was when we went to Spa. It was a great atmosphere and brilliant fun and I’d encourage any drivers or teams in our position to give it a go.” You finished fifth in TCR UK in 2018 and you were second last year, so what is your goal for 2020? “I’d obviously hoped for the Number One slot in 2019, but a few unfortunate things happened and the results didn’t go the way we wanted them to. Hopefully things will be a lot more reliable this year and we can win the title in five or six rounds so that we don’t have to worry for the last couple of rounds. We knew that 2018 was always going to be our learning year and we proved that we had the pace in 2019 - I think I set the TCR lap record at four of the circuits - so we’re confident about our prospects in 2020. I’ve also matured a lot since I first stepped into a TCR car; I used to be a ‘young gun’ who crashed while trying a bit too hard but now I’m a sensible boy who aims for consistent points rather than taking risks while pushing for wins!” Three questions to… Lewis Kent

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