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Reigning TCR champion Josh Buchan confirms entry for 2025
Reigning dual TCR Australia champion Josh Buchan will aim to complete a hat-trick of titles in 2025 after being the first confirmed entry for this season.
Buchan will continue his long and successful association at HMO Customer Racing, piloting the team’s brand-new Hyundai i30 N Sedan (Elantra) TCR in what will be his fifth season in the category.
The 2023 and 2024 TCR Australia Series winner has been a contender since he first entered the category as part of HMO Customer Racing’s line-up in 2021. Buchan has achieved eight wins, six podiums and three pole positions.
Entrusted by HMO Customer Racing at the final round of the 2022 season to debut its new Hyundai i30 N Sedan (Elantra) TCR, Buchan has since led the development of this model for the team and will drive the latest revised version in this year’s series.
An exciting season lays ahead for TCR Australia in 2025 thanks to the addition of a new venue to the calendar in the form of One Raceway, the return of the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at Shell V-Power Motorsport Park and the season finale at the famed Macau Guia Circuit.
When the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour first ventured down under in 2023 at Sydney Motorsport Park and Bathurst, Buchan was one of the drivers to impress by scoring two top fives against the globe’s top touring car drivers.
Buchan will begin his tilt for a third crown in the series’ inaugural visit to One Raceway venue in Goulburn, New South Wales.
QUOTES
Josh Buchan
#1 HMO Customer Racing, Hyundai i30 N Sedan (Elantra) TCR
“To be in the position to wear the #1 on the car again is a great honour, particularly when we’re joined by the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at The Bend,” said Buchan.
“Although it’s a condensed calendar, I feel it will be an exciting year for the category.
“I first tested with HMO Customer Racing at the end of 2020 in Will Brown’s title-winning i30 N TCR, but now I’ve done more racing for this team than anybody and we’ve got our own stories. We’ve had some pretty big wins and some big losses, so everyone is level headed at this point, which makes for a good culture either on or off the track.
“We go testing in the new car next week. I remember shaking the first i30 N Sedan down for the first time and it’s pretty surreal driving a new race car that hasn’t done a lot of running. There’s always the first kerb you smash, a scratch underneath – it’s quite odd getting a new car and being told to flog it.
“I’ve got two titles now and a third would be nice, but I’m really focused on making sure that when it comes to World Tour time we’ll be there. I felt like we missed a win or two when it was out here two years ago and I’m pretty determined to try to right those terrible wrongs. Not only for me, but the team as it felt we were really onto something and I’d love to add a World Tour trophy to the cabinet for the guys at HMO in addition to my supporters at Hyundai.
“TCR has been exceptional for me. It’s allowed me to become a racing driver and to be as professional as I can be both on the track as well as away from it. To deal with a major car company and have its support behind me has not only been a big responsibility, but an honour, which has elevated my status to the point where people employ me to drive in other categories too.
“There was definitely a bit of elevation I got from joining TCR Australia, then winning in the first year or two, coming close to the title in the second season and winning the last two titles. It’s something that can never be taken away.
“It gives me credibility like when I do things with Rodin Cars and its amazing array of projects, in GT4, plus what’s potentially around the corner.
“It’s absolutely been a stepping stone and a pillar of my career, which I’m very thankful that it has been.”