The KUMHO TCR World Tour and TCR Europe together in Portimão

This weekend sees a little piece of TCR history being made as the opening event of the 2023 TCR Europe championship hosts the KUMHO TCR World Tour on its maiden appearance. The event, at the Autodromo do Algarve near Portimão in Portugal is, therefore, both the start of a seven-event TCR Europe series and a nine-event KUMHO TCR World Tour schedule.

The entry list for the KUMHO TCR World Tour reads like a ‘who’s who’ of Touring Car racing over the last few years. A total of four Cyan Racing Lynk & Co 03 cars are entered for Thed Björk, Santiago Urrutia, Ma Qing Hua and Yann Ehrlacher, while Norbert Michelisz and Mikel Azcona – the 2022 FIA WTCR Drivers’ champion and a double TCR Europe champion – are in a pair of BRC Hyundai Elantra N cars.

There are two Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS cars for Frédéric Vervisch and Rob Huff while Néstor Girolami will give the new Honda Civic Type R FL5 its debut at a global level following appearances in TCR UK and TCR Italy.

In TCR Europe, following its remarkable clean sweep of all four titles in 2022 – Drivers’, Teams’, Rookie and Diamond Trophy – Comtoyou Racing have made their intentions to defend those titles abundantly clear, with a strong four-car entry that sees Tom Coronel and Viktor Davidovski remain with the Belgian team, being joined by John Filippi and Kobe Pauwels for the 2023 season in their Audi RS 3 LMS cars.

With a total of ten cars, Audi is by far the best-represented brand on the grid, with the four Comtoyou Racing TCR Europe entries being joined by a pair of RC2 Racing Team RS 3 LMS cars for brothers Rubén and Felipe Fernández and another two Audi cars for the British duo of Isaac Smith and Lewis Brown, run by Spain’s Volcano Motorsport. There will also be three Hyundai Elantra N cars competing in TCR Europe, with Nicola Baldan and Mikael Karlsson representing Aggressive Team Italia and a solitary Target Competition car for the returning Dušan Borković. Finally, there will be a single Team Clairet Sport – Burson Auto Parts Racing Peugeot 308 TCR car for Australia’s Ben Bargwanna while Sweden’s MA:GP team will give the Lynk & Co 03 its TCR Europe debut with a car driven by Viktor Andersson.

While the battles for the overall TCR Europe Drivers’ and Teams’ championships will naturally take centre stage, there will also be keen competition for the Rookies’ and Diamond Trophy categories. Both see increased numbers of entries compared to 2022, with five drivers eligible for the Rookies’ title for drivers under the age of 23 (Andersson, Pauwels, Smith, Brown and Bargwanna) while there are no fewer than six drivers able to score points in the Diamond Trophy for drivers over the age of 35 (Davidovski, Rubén and Felipe Fernández, Coronel, Karlsson and Borković).

For clarification, the TCR World Tour full-season entries are not able to score points for TCR Europe but all 22 drivers entered for the Portimão event are eligible to score TCR World Tour points as well as scoring in the TCR World Rankings.

With fine, sunny weather forecast for the weekend and the ‘rollercoaster’ nature of the Autodromo do Algarve track, thanks to its elevation changes and sweeping bends, a challenging weekend of competition lies ahead for the teams and drivers. With the KUMHO TCR World Tour making the first of three appearances on the TCR Europe calendar, it will also be fascinating to watch the battles develop between the drivers. One thing is certain, however; it promises to be a great weekend of Touring Car racing!

Event timetable

Friday April 28^th

11.54 - Free Practice 1

16.42 - Free Practice 2

Saturday April 29^th

09.50 - Qualifying

14.20 - Race 1

Sunday April 30^th

11.30 - Race 2

Qualifying and both races will be streamed live on tcr-series.tv

KUMHO TCR World Tour – calendar

29/30 April – Autodromo do Algarve, Portimão, Portugal