The 2019 TCR Europe Touring Car Series moves on to the Hockenheimring in Germany for rounds three and four of the season, where the Grand Prix venue will offer a new challenge to the field.

With the ADAC TCR Germany Series having raced at the venue since 2016, the Hockenheimring has always provided strong and close racing with plenty of overtaking opportunities. There are several big names that could do with good points haul to try and close the gap on unexpected Drivers Championship leader Gilles Magnus in the Comtoyou Racing Audi.

The Chasing Pack

With the might of Hyundai and Peugeot evident from the first two races in Hungary, this weekend will offer the first chance for the competition to try and close the gap on both Target Competition and JSB Compétition after their opening weekend race wins.

Whilst Mat’o Homola and Julien Briché were the race winners in Hungary, Magnus used consistency in what was his first weekend of TCR competition to take the series lead and the Belgian driver knows he has a hard job of leaving Germany with that lead intact.

There are several drivers who have already competed at the venue during their TCR Germany campaigns, including the likes of Luca Engstler and Josh Files. Engstler will be out for wins this weekend to make up for a terrible weekend in Hungary whilst Files will have eyes on wresting the championship lead from Magnus.

To further add to the challenge that Magnus faces, there is a fleet of Hyundai drivers also capable of toppling the Comtoyou Audi driver, including Dušan Borković, Jessica and Andreas Bäckman from Target Competition along with Dániel Nagy at M1RA Motorsport. WRT should not be counted out of the fight, with Santiago Urrutia making a positive debut in Hungary and Maxime Potty capable of extracting more from the Golf.

Those with work to do

The Renault Mégane RS machines showed good pace straight out of the box with both Alex Morgan and John Filippi hoping to get more seat time in the cars, whilst the WestCoast Racing duo of Gianni Morbidelli and Olli Kangas effectively see this weekend as the start of the season with work to be done on the Volkswagens.

The Honda ranks swell in Germany as Martin Ryba is joined by last years TCR UK Champion, Daniel Lloyd in a second Civic FK7. The British driver has shown that he can adapt to any TCR machine, having driven both CUPRA’s and Volkswagens on previous seasons. Expect Lloyd to star over the weekend.

Its all change at Boutsen Ginion Racing as Tom Coronel begins his run in the series, replacing Stéphane Lémeret who drove in Hungary whilst the Dutch driver was on WTCR duty. Once he’s re-acclimatised to the Honda, Coronel will be a contender and his confidence is back again after his giant-killing performance in Slovakia.

The CUPRA’s ranks also grow this weekend as the PCR Sport duo of Abdulla Ali Al-Khelaifi and Davit Kajaia Marie Baus-Coppens in the JSB Compétition are joined by popular driver Stian Paulsen who is back in action after completing the rebuild his car from last year. Also due to compete is WTCR Wildcard Zengő Motorsport’s Tamás Tenke.

Qualifying and Race Format

For those not familiar with TCR Europe, the series runs two races per weekend of a duration lasting 23 minutes + 1 lap, with the top 15 drivers scoring points in each race. This year there will be 31 cars racing into turn one in each race which makes Qualifying all the more important at each venue.

Qualifying is a simple format to follow:

All cars take part in Q1 which lasts for 20 minutes. The top 12 cars progress through to Q2 where they have 10 minutes to settle the top 10 places on the grid for race one. The top 5 drivers in Q2 score points, starting with 5 points for pole and going down to 5th place with 1 point awarded.

The 10th place driver for race 1 secures pole position for race 2 whilst the 2 drivers who qualify in 11th and 12th places will start in those positions for both races.

TCR Europe is joined by the TCR Benelux Touring Car Series entries this weekend where the drivers and teams will all compete in the same races. Race one will take place on Saturday with Race two taking place on Sunday.

Photo Credit: © WSC Ltd / TCR Europe Touring Car Series