The 2024 Kumho FIA TCR World Tour and a brand new touring automotive period begins this weekend on the Autodromo Vallelunga Piero Taruffi in Italy, with a aggressive twenty-car area of skilled, new, and returning drivers competing for the class that now carries the FIA moniker, with 5 completely different producers represented.
Norbert Michelisz will probably be trying to defend his title from final yr with BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse. Returning with the Hungarian will probably be Spanish racing driver Mikel Azcona, with the duo now joined by Argentine touring automotive racer Néstor Girolami, with the Hyundai-equipped crew focusing on preventing for each the drivers’ and groups’ titles with its enhanced line-up.
The automobiles can even carry the identical branding on the South Korean producer’s FIA World Rally Championship programme, and the crew’s Elantra N TCR automobiles additionally function the upgraded facelift of the brand new highway automotive mannequin.
Preventing them would be the returning Lynk & Co Cyan Racing crew, with the Swedish crew that includes an unchanged driver line-up. Yann Ehrlacher, Thed Björk, Ma Qing Hua, and Santiago Urrutia all return to pilot the Chinese language producer’s 4 03 FL TCR automobiles and want to each defend its groups’ title and in addition win the drivers’.
Newly-formed crew GOAT Racing can even area two automobiles this yr, working the newest era Honda Civic Kind R FL5 TCR for 19-year-old Italian rising star Marco Butti, and one for Argentina’s Esteban Guerrieri, with the quick and skilled racer returning to worldwide tin high racing after a yr away.
Stepping as much as the world stage is Spanish-based Volcano Motorsport, which is able to area two automobiles from Audi Sport, with the aggressive RS 3 LMS being pushed by 29-year-old John Filippi, coming into his 11th consecutive season of worldwide touring automotive competitors, who will probably be joined by 22-year-old Moroccan Sami Taoufik.
The total-time squad of Kumho FIA TCR World Tour drivers will probably be joined for this race weekend by the highest tier of the fiercely aggressive Coppa Italia Turismo sequence, with final yr’s champion Sandro Pelatti due to this fact carrying the #1 aboard his PMA Motorsport-run Audi on the occasion. An eclectic mixture of Audis, Hondas, and an Opel Astra TCR will full the grid for the primary spherical of the calendar.
Amongst the highest runners within the sequence is price mentioning Italian teen-agers Filippo Barberi and Jacopo Cimenes; Barberi who gained the Coppa Italia Endurance title final yr will drive an Audi for Aikoa Racing, whereas Cimenes faces his TCR debut in an MM Motorsport Honda Civic FL5.
Observe motion will begin on Thursday with personal check periods, whereas two 30-minute free practices will happen on Friday.
On Saturday, opponents will participate within the Qualifying, cut up in Q1 and Q2, at 11:20, whereas Race 1 will begin at 17:15 on the gap of 15 laps. Race 2, of 15 laps as properly, will begin Sunday at 14:25.
