Two former champions lead a 22-car TCR Europe field
Six months after the 2020 TCR Europe ended at Jarama, the 2021 season gets underway at the Slovakia Ring, with two former title winners among the 22 entrants set to battle for the Drivers’ crown.
The reigning champion Mehdi Bennani is now part of a four-car entry from Sébastien Loeb Racing, being joined by his young compatriot Sami Taoufik, Niels Langeveld and Felice Jelmini; the French team will run the brand-new Hyundai Elantra N TCR car.
Nicolas Baert, who was crowned Rookie champion last year, will again drive for Comtoyou Racing in one of the team’s three Audi RS 3 LMS cars, joined by Touring Car veteran Tom Coronel and the 2020 TCR Eastern Europe champion Dušan Borkovič. Mikel Azcona, who won the TCR Europe title in 2018, will partner Evgenii Leonov for Volcano Motorsport in the team's CUPRA León Competición cars.
Brutal Fish Racing will run three Honda Civic Type-R cars, with team boss Martin Ryba being joined by Spain’s teen-ager Isidro Callejas and Jack Young. Ryba will be hoping for home advantage in Slovakia, as will Mat’o Homola who makes up half the Janík Motorsport entry along with Czech youngster Jáchym Galáš in a pair of Hyundai i30 N cars.
Four cars are entered by Team Clairet Sport, with the French outfit electing to run two Peugeot 308 TCR cars for Teddy and Jimmy Claret and two CUPRA cars for Gilles Colombani and Sylvain Pussier, ice-racing Élite champion of the Andros Trophy. PSS Racing have two Honda Civic cars for Viktor Davidovski and Franco Girolami.
The latest additions to the entry list were the reigning Touring Car champion of the FIA Motorsport Games Klim Gavrilov who will compete in the whole season in a VRC-Team Audi RS 3 LMS and Dániel Nagy at the wheel of a CUPRA Leon Competición run by Zengő Motorsport.
Track action will benefit from a full live streaming coverage at www.tcr-series.com: Friday, Free Practice 1 at 12:05 and Free Practice 2 at 15:15; Saturday, Qualifying at 10:15 and Race 1 at 15:15; Sunday, Race 2 at 13:55 (all times CEST).
Picture: TCR Europe
