TCR World and life

8 FEATURE By the time Jean-Karl Vernay became the third TCR International Series Champion in Dubai in November 2017, the wheels were already turning and WTCR became the top tier of the TCR pyramid when it replaced both the TCR International Series and the WTCC at the start of 2018. TCR Europe, meanwhile, had evolved into a seven-round championship, with five of those seven events also attracting entrants for the 2018 TCR Benelux series. Apart from the changes to both championships, by now there were a rapidly-growing number of regional and national series, with the Middle East, Russia, the USA and China among the territories offering championships for TCR cars. In 2018, Gabriele Tarquini became the first WTCR champion at the age of 56 and 22 year old Mikel Azcona took the TCR Europe crown, underlining the appeal of TCR racing to drivers at the opposite ends of the experience spectrum. Last year saw Norbert Michelisz victorious in WTCR while Josh Files added the TCR Europe crown to his two titles in TCR Germany and one from TCR Middle East. TCR racing, like every other form of motorsport around the globe, might currently be suspended thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, but hopefully TCR cars will soon be out on track once again. From those early beginnings at Sepang, fourteen car brands now offer TCR cars (with some, like Hyundai, building different TCR cars for different markets) and the ‘pyramid’ of TCR championships now encompassing well over thirty different sprint or endurance series. What’s more, the future of Touring Car racing in the shape of ETCR is now on the horizon and so who knows where TCR will be in another six years…

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