News
Honda privateer using international TCR learnings to fast-track speed
Young Honda Civic TCR driver Michael Clemente and his family-based team are using all means and methods to fast-track their chase for speed ahead of the 2021 TCR Australia Series.
Clemente and team boss David Burn spent most of the enforced lockdown period watching and studying TCR competition from around the globe, including WTCR and TCR Europe, to take learnings from their racing activities to implement in their own on-track endeavours.
Some of those learnings were put into place at a recent test at Winton, where Burn says that he was suitably pleased with the outcome.
“The test was about making sure we understood what the car was doing with different tyre combinations and ensuring Mike was feeling comfortable with the balance on both hot and cold tyres,” said Burn.
“The team put so much effort to get to the Grand Prix and while the races didn’t proceed, we were able to take away a lot of learnings both in the lead up to and the running of the event itself.
“We’ve spend many months in lockdown staying up late watching both the WTCR and TCR Europe events to study how the cars perform so we knew what we were looking for heading into the test.
“We’re really pleased to say that we have a package that Mike’s more comfortable with now and we understand a lot more about the car than we did at the start of the year.”
Clemente, 18, was also confident that the team made improvements at its test and is looking forward to getting stuck into racing proper in Tasmania.
“The test day went really well, it was great to be back in the car getting familiar with it all again,” said Clemente.
“The start of the year was such a rush to get everything ready so the plan for the test was to focus on giving the team an opportunity to work together again prior to the end of the year and learn more about the car. I was feeling really comfortable in it by the end of the day confident we’re moving in the right direction for 2021.
“I’m really excited to be heading to Tasmania to Symmons Plains for the first round of TCR. I’ve never raced in Tasmania before and really enjoy the challenge of learning new tracks.”
The first round of the TCR Australia Series will be held at Symmons Plains Raceway near Launceston as part of the Race Tasmania festival in late January.
The Symmons Plains round will also feature popular categories including S5000, Touring Car Masters and Trans Am.
CLICK HERE for ticketing details.