2025 TCR World Tour season kicks off in Mexico

2025 TCR World Tour season kicks off in Mexico

Sport news

The event features the three-race format that was last used in 2023 when the World Tour visited Australia. This season, this format will be used again in three other events, in Spain, South Korea and Australia.

The formation of the grids for the first two races is based, as usual, on the Qualifying results, with the top ten reversed for Race 2, while the grid for Race 3 is determined by the sum of points scored in Qualifying, Race 1, and Race 2.

Norbert Michelisz, the winner of two consecutive World Tour titles, defends his crown still at the wheel of his Hyundai Elantra N, run by BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse, which also fields two other cars for Mikel Azcona and Néstor Girolami.

Last year’s vice-champion, Thed Björk, leads the Lynk & Co Cyan Racing team, which consists of the confirmed quartet of drivers: Yann Ehrlacher, Ma Qing Hua, and Santiago Urrutia. Their mission is to retain the Teams’ title and add the Drivers’ title as well.

GOAT Racing rides the crest of a wave following a 1-2-3 finish in the 2024 season finale at Macau. The Spanish outfit has picked two Argentines to drive the Honda Civic Type R FL5 cars: the confirmed Esteban Guerrieri and Ignacio Montenegro, the winner of last year’s FIA Motorsport Games.

France-based SP Compétition has stepped up from TCR Europe to join the World Tour with two CUPRA Leon VZ cars, driven by a pair of Frenchmen: John Filippi and Aurélien Comte.

The entry list for the season opener comprises 24 cars, including global series regulars and TCR México competitors, who will compte in a standalone class, outside of the World Tour classification.

Several local teams have entered more than one driver per car, as they do in their national events. These teams must nominate in advance which driver takes part in Qualifying and which driver competes in each race.

The TCR México pack is led by brothers Julio and Rodrigo Rejón, who together became the series’ first-ever champions last year. They race CUPRA Leon VZ cars run by the ProRally Mothers team.

Gerardo Nieto is expected to be their strongest competitor; he has won two of the three races in the season’s first event and will share the RE Motorsport Audi RS 3 LMS with Pablo Pérez de Lara and Horia Traian Chirigut. Another ambitious team is Orea Ross Racing, which runs a Hyundai Elantra N for Andrés Orea, Jerónimo Guzmán, and Todd Sloan, a front-running car in TCR México endurance races.

Kumho FIA TCR World Tour

Kumho FIA TCR World TourTouring CarWECSEASON 2025SportCircuit1SportKumho FIA TCR World TourCircuitWECSEASON 2025Kumho FIA TCR World TourTouring Car00Wednesday, April 30, 2025 – 4:51pmWednesday, April 30, 2025 – 4:51pm

Trailer released for Netflix documentary on Mercedes F1’s Antonelli

The trailer for an upcoming documentary on Formula 1 hotshot Andrea Kimi Antonelli has been released ahead of its premiere next week.
Netflix will publish ‘The Seat’ on Monday 5 May, and it will be a 45-minute documentary charting the previous year of the Italian’s life as he geared up for his promotion to F1.
In August of last year, Mercedes announced Antonelli as its Lewis Hamilton …Keep reading

How Ratzenberger beat the odds to realise his cruelly short-lived F1 dream

This article was initially published on 30 April 2024
Gorianstrasse is a small, dead-end street in Salzburg’s Riedenburg neighbourhood, around halfway between the old city nestling at the foot of the Hohensalzburg fortress and the airport on the western outskirts. There, in a new-build block, Roland Ratzenberger bought a two-storey apartment with beautiful views of Untersberg mountain from …Keep reading

Why F1 drivers dislike the Miami GP circuit and how it could be improved

“It’s probably at the bottom of my list of preferred circuits,” said Lewis Hamilton, the dismissive tone and matching facial expression indicating that no elucidation would be forthcoming.
Pity the poor scribbler who had clearly accepted a commission from some outlet or other to write a story talking up the Miami race, spending the most recent grand prix weekends doggedly working the …Keep reading