Supercars champ's shock at new 'different beast'

1 year ago 95

Supercars champion-turned-NASCAR prima Marcos Ambrose admits helium wrote disconnected the TCR Australia Series arsenic conscionable "fast buying trolleys" but has travel to emotion the blistery hatches.

The touring car bid burst onto the country successful 2019, creating hostility betwixt the powerbrokers of Australian motorsport.

The turbocharged, four-cylinder cars tapped into an assemblage antecedently uncatered for astatine the highest level domestically.

Stan Sport is the lone spot to ticker the 2023 SpeedSeries. All the enactment streaming ad-free, unrecorded and connected demand

Soon capable the triumph connected Sunday, merchantability connected Monday attack had returned to racing arsenic Hyundai, Honda and much marques fought for the apical gong portion promoting their show brands.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the bid has consistently fielded entries of astir 20 cars, produced adjacent racing, and drawn involvement from existent and erstwhile Supercars stars.

Ambrose, however, was not 1 of the category's aboriginal supporters.

The dyed-in-the-wool V8 operator won 2 Supercars titles successful 2003 and 2004 earlier moving to the United States wherever helium enjoyed a fruitful NASCAR career.

Since retiring, Ambrose has joined Melbourne-based outfit Garry Rogers Motorsport arsenic a director.

That saw him decently introduced to the TCR Australia Series for the archetypal clip successful 2022, moving with a slew of high-performance cars from Peugeot, Renault, and Alfa Romeo.

"TCR is simply a antithetic beast," said Ambrose successful an end-of-season wrapper video.

"It's my archetypal acquisition with the category. A large class by the way.

"I've travel afloat ellipse connected those TCR cars. You go, 'oh, it's conscionable a accelerated buying trolley' but truly erstwhile you get into it and you truly commencement looking astatine it, they're large cars for drivers to larn their trade coming retired of [Hyundai] Excels and truthful forth.

TCR person successful tangle, sending mud everywhere

"They tin travel done and thrust a truly nicely balanced, bully handling contention car, astatine a truly precocious level. These cars are beautifully built. A batch of them are from European teams, truthful the worldly underneath them is first-class.

"They've got plentifulness of power. They get a batch of powerfulness retired of those tiny engines. They're precise nimble, precise crisp cars to drive, truthful I've go a precise large instrumentality of TCR.

"What I similar astir it the astir is that you've got these antithetic brands that person antithetic strengths astatine antithetic tracks. No 1 marque tin predominate the year. Even if 1 car starts getting away, the satellite regulations bring it back."

Garry Rogers' son, Barry Rogers, who runs the squad successful portion said the summation of Supercars full-timers and co-drivers to the tract has been a positive for the series.

Erebus Motorsport operator Will Brown won the inaugural play portion Chaz Mostert of Walkinshaw Andretti United won the 2021 season.

Others including Michael Caruso, Fabian Coulthard, James Moffat, Tim Slade, Lee Holdsworth, Jason Bargwanna, Andre Heimgartner, Russell Ingall, and Garth Tander person raced successful the series.

"For the younger drivers coming through, the past fewer years Mostert's won it, Will Brown's won it, present D'Alberto's won it," said Rogers.

Mud flies entity precocious arsenic rising prima tops TCR podium

"You've got Moff successful it, Caruso is successful it, Holdsworth has been successful it. It seems to beryllium a mode that these Supercars co-drivers and adjacent main crippled drivers support themselves sharp.

"You've got to beryllium crisp to thrust 1 of these things."

The 2023 TCR Australia Series volition diagnostic astatine each SpeedSeries event, sans the Bathurst 6 Hour.

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