Sportscar outfit SWR has revealed plans to join the new TCR UK series in 2018 after becoming the latest team to announce an interest in the championship.

The team, which previously raced in BRDC Formula 4 and British F3 before making the move into European GT4 competition this year, plans to run a pair of Honda Civic Type-Rs in the series.

The two cars will be run alongside the existing GT programme, with team boss Sean Walkinshaw – the son of former TWR owner Tom Walkinshaw – insisting that the launch of TCR into the UK had come ‘at the right time’.

“We’ve been very impressed by the huge growth of TCR across the world over the past couple of years and the arrival of the TCR UK Championship comes at a perfect time for SWR,” he said. “Our intention is to run two cars while also continuing with our GT4 programme. We’ve looked at the cars available and believe the Honda is an excellent package.

“There has obviously been huge interest in TCR from existing touring car teams from the BTCC [British Touring Car Championship], and teams from the TOCA support categories, so there will obviously be a very high level of competition.

“As with everything SWR does though we will be giving maximum effort and aiming to be competitive from the outset.”

News that SWR will join the fledgling TCR UK grid comes after the Brisky Racing outfit confirmed that it will run the Volkswagen Golf model in 2018, with the first car set to begin testing next month.

Maximum Motorsport is also due to run taster days with its SEAT Leon in early October as teams continue to prepare for the inaugural season.