The TCR Australia grid will feature a record ten different TCR manufacturers on the grid for its season finale at The Bend Motorsport Park next month, with Garage1 confirming it will début its new CUPRA TCR.

Garage1 purchased the CUPRA from Germany and it was delivered to Australia last month. The car will now make its track début down under next month on November 15 – 17, ahead of a planned full season in 2020.

Tim Brook will be behind the wheel of the car for its first race meeting, marking his second TCR Australia appearance of the year after he also took part in the round at Winton Motor Raceway in a Wall Racing Honda.

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The confirmation of the CUPRA marks ten different car brands for the season finale, with the Spanish brand joining Audi, Alfa Romeo, Holden, Honda, Hyundai, Peugeot, Renault, Subaru and Volkswagen. Up to 22 cars are expected to take part, in what would be the series’ biggest grid to-date.

“I’m excited, for sure,” said Brook. “It will be great to have another crack at TCR is a different car.

“The test will be good chance to get comfortable with the car. It will be an opportunity for the guys at Garage1 to do all of their systems checks, and then we can roll into the Bend and see how we go.

“I don’t really have an expectation for any results. The CUPRA is an unknown for everyone, but like almost every TCR car, they are all evenly matched.

“The CUPRA also shares many of the same components as the VW Golfs and the Audis, so if it’s close to them, then it will be competitive.

“It was great to do Winton in the Wall Racing Honda, I was a like a kid in a candy store the whole weekend. I really enjoyed it, and it was over before I knew it, but it did show me that TCR is where I want to be in the future.”

John Evans, owner of Garage1, is hoping that the support from Melbourne Performance Centre, who are the Volkswagen Audi Group TCR distributor in Australia, will help his team to hit the ground running next month.

“Tim had a solid race meeting in the Honda at Winton, so we felt that he was the perfect choice for our debut at The Bend,” said Evans.

“We’ll test the car before we go, and we can make sure that we have everything in place.

“Tim is a really rounded driver and we are confident that he’ll do a good job. He is consistently at the front of the Toyota 86 Series, which is a very competitive championship.

“Compared to the other teams who have been racing TCR for the past six months, we’ve got some catch up to do, but we are confident that the package that CUPRA supplied, plus the support from MPC, is going to fast track our development.”