News
New Kumho control tyre receives tick of approval
AWC Race Tasmania marked the first round for the Kumho control tyre in Supercheap Auto TCR Australia, with Valvoline Team GRM’s Aaron Cameron praising the longer durability of the package.
Symmons Plains has not always been a good venue for Cameron, but he left the opening round third in the standings after taking victory in Race 2.
Kumho developed the current tyre specifically for TCR, which is used by the top-tier TCR World Tour, TCR South America, TCR Europe and many more domestic series globally.
Cameron was delighted about the new control tyre after the first round at Phillip Island.
“I’m loving the new tyre! Cameron emphasised.
“A lot of observers may have noticed while I’ve been in the Peugeot I’m really fast for the first five laps of the race, but then I start to fade. I’ve tried some things during the past two years trying to solve that and yes, we may have been close to figuring it out, but this Kumho it just doesn’t go off.
“We’ve got the pace straight away and the tyre doesn’t go off, which is helping us a lot as we can maintain our pretty awesome speed. I think we’ve hit the ground running with the tyre and now I look forward to trying some things at Phillip Island, so we can progress a bit further.”
Cameron will undertake a rare test in between rounds at Phillip Island to continue to experience the Kumho control tyre as he targets the title.
“It’s going to be extremely nice to do an in-season test day, I don’t usually get the chance to do that,” said Cameron.
“We should get a lot out of the test and will give us a leg up ahead of the round there a couple weeks later.”
It’s Cameron and Garry Rogers Motorsport’s third season fielding Peugeots, with the Victorian young gun spearheading the development program since the start. Although the process has sometimes been frustrating, confidence surrounding pace and reliability continues to grow.
“We have got it sorted and we have it tuned pretty right, we usually have a pretty decent base set-up now,” Cameron explained.
“Having three competitive teammates is really good, even if our cars are off, we can usually sort it out fairly quickly. Especially during the earlier seasons with the Peugeot, it was hard to diagnose the set-up and mechanical problems.
“It’s been a lot of fun, from starting at GRM then working with the Peugeot to COVID, I feel like I’ve been in the Peugeot for 20 years, but really I’ve only had two full seasons in it.
“It has been a labour of love and it’s good now to get some rewards.”
The next round of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series is at Phillip Island forming part of the Shannons SpeedSeries.