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FIELD SET FOR TCR WORLD TOUR RETURN TO AUSTRALIA
The field for the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour round at Tailem Bend – and the long-awaited return of TCR competition in Australia – has been confirmed.
A quality list of 19 cars is entered for the event, with 11 full-season Kumho FIA TCR World Tour entries to be joined by eight TCR Australia competitors.
Six manufacturers – a season-high for the TCR World Tour – will be represented on the grid in Australia across Audi, Cupra, Honda, Hyundai, Lynk & Co and Peugeot.
Heading the 11-strong World Tour contingent is current series leading team, Lynk & Co Cyan Racing. The Swedish-based, factory squad of Geely Group Motorsport has been in ominous form throughout the 2025 season and comes to Australia with all four of its drivers – series leader Yann Ehrlacher, Santiago Urrutia, Thed Bjork, and Ma Qing Hua – in the top five of the drivers’ points standings.
The main opposition to the Lynk & Co onslaught this season has been long-time Honda touring car ace, Esteban Guerrieri, who currently sits second in the drivers’ standings for GOAT Racing. Guerrieri and promising 20-year-old driver, Ignacio Montenegro, form an all-Argentinian combination armed with the proven Honda Civic FL5 package.
Looking to turn around a challenging 2025 campaign will be BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse and its experienced trio of defending and three-time world TCR champion Norbert Michelisz, 2022 FIA WTCR champion Mikel Azcona and multiple world TCR race winner Nestor Girolami.
French team SP Competition has entered a pair of Cupra Leon VZ machines for French drivers, Aurelien Comte and John Filippi. Comte, a race winner this season at Monza, is the only World Tour driver to have raced at Tailem Bend – albeit in an abortive cameo in the 2019 TCR Australia Series driving a then-unsorted Peugeot 308.
Despite the event at Tailem Bend being the first competitive outing for TCR Australia since November last year, six Australian teams enter the event determined to make an impression.
The top three drivers in the 2024 TCR Australia Series – Josh Buchan, Zac Soutar and Brad Harris – all return for the TCR World Tour event.
Tailem Bend is the first stop in an extended TCR World Tour campaign for HMO Customer Racing, which will also contest the final three rounds of the series across Asia with reigning two-time champion Buchan and 17-year-old rookie, Ryan MacMillan. Joining the factory supported-Hyundai squad in Australia will be Macau race winner, Lo Sze Ho from Hong Kong, aboard the proven Hyundai i30 N Hatch.
Soutar, runner-up in the 2024 TCR Australia Series, is the most recent TCR winner at Tailem Bend. The Victorian driver claimed two of three races held at the circuit (on its West layout) in 2024, driving the Tufflift Racing Audi RS 3 LMS that Team Soutar Motorsport will again run in next weekend’s event.
Harris, winner of the TCR Challenge trophy in 2024, returns with his familiar aqua coloured Exclusive Switchboards Honda Civic Type R, now prepared in-house by Harris’ family-run operation with technical support for the TCR World Tour event from GOAT Racing and JAS Motorsport.
The event will mark the TCR World Tour race debut of the Peugeot 308 P51, built locally by Garry Rogers Motorsport (GRM). Long-time GRM pilot Jordan Cox, who is also competing at Tailem Bend in the Trico Trans Am Series, carries the team’s hopes in TCR with the familiar colours of major supporter, Schaeffler.
Cody Burcher may be a debutant in TCR, but the Orange (New South Wales) driver will suit up for Ashley Seward Motorsport (ASM) with considerable pedigree in the Super2 Series, GT4 Australia and Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 Series. ASM won the most recent TCR race to be held in Australia at Bathurst last year, where Dylan O’Keeffe capped off a season in which the Melbourne-based team continually unlocked performance from the sole Lynk & Co 03 running in the national series.
Family privateer team Challenge Motorsport will once again live the dream by competing in the TCR World Tour as it did at Sydney and Bathurst in 2023, with Iain McDougall lining up in his venerable ‘Gen 1’ Audi RS 3 LMS.
The TCR Australia Cup will be awarded to the highest pointscoring driver entered by an Australian team across the three races held at Tailem Bend.
ENTRY LIST
| Number | Driver | Nation | Team | Car |
| 5 | Ryan MacMillan | AUS | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N |
| 22 | Iain McDougall | AUS | Challenge Motorsport | Audi RS 3 LMS SEQ |
| 30 | Josh Buchan | AUS | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N |
| 36 | Cody Burcher | AUS | Ashley Seward Motorsport | Lynk & Co 03 |
| 74 | Brad Harris | AUS | Exclusive Switchboards | Honda Civic FL5 |
| 105 | Norbert Michelisz | HUN | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N |
| 107 | Aurélien Comte | FRA | SP Compétition | Cupra Leon VZ |
| 111 | Thed Björk | SWE | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL |
| 112 | Santiago Urrutia | URU | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL |
| 123 | Ignacio Montenegro | ARG | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic FL5 |
| 127 | John Filippi | FRA | SP Compétition | Cupra Leon VZ |
| 129 | Néstor Girolami | ARG | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Honda Civic FL5 |
| 155 | Ma Qing Hua | CHN | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL |
| 168 | Yann Ehrlacher | FRA | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL |
| 186 | Esteban Guerrieri | ARG | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic FL5 |
| 196 | Mikel Azcona | ESP | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N |
| 210 | Zac Soutar | AUS | Tufflift Racing TSM | Audi RS 3 LMS |
| 233 | Jordan Cox | AUS | Schaeffler GRM | Peugeot 308 P51 |
| 281 | Lo Sze Ho | HKG | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai i30 N Hatch |
KUMHO FIA TCR WORLD TOUR – CURRENT STANDINGS
1 Yann Ehrlacher – 255
2 Esteban Guerrieri – 223
3 Santiago Urrutia – 215
4 Thed Bjork – 207
5 Ma Qing Hua – 149
6 Norbert Michelisz – 148
7 Aurelien Comte – 147
8 Nestor Girolami – 145
9 Ignacio Montenegro – 144
10 Mikel Azcona – 92
KUMHO FIA TCR WORLD TOUR – RACE WINS IN 2025
3 – Ehrlacher
2 – Bjork
1 – Guerrieri, Girolami, Michelisz, Comte
PREVIOUS CHAMPIONS IN WORLD TOURING CAR COMPETITION
Thed Bjork – 2017 FIA World Touring Car Champion
Norbert Michelisz – 2019 FIA WTCR Champion and 2023/2024 TCR World Tour Champion
Yann Ehrlacher – 2020, 2021 FIA WTCR Champion
Mikel Azcona – 2022 FIA WTCR Champion