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New P51 Peugeot Edges Closer to Competitive Debut
The first Australian-designed and built TCR Series cars are one step closer to gaining the green light to go racing.
Andrea Adamo, the technical advisor for TCR globally, visited Garry Rogers Motorsport this week to inspect their new Peugeot 308 P51.
GRM announced in February last year that it had secured the rights to be the exclusive provider of the French marque’s new TCR contender, the first example of which made its track debut in a test at Sandown in late August.
Adamo’s visit is one of the final steps in the certification process – WSC’s method of homologating cars for TCR – that ensures the GRM Peugeot meets the category’s technical regulations and that it’s up to the required standard.
And Adamo was impressed by what he saw.
“I know the work needed to start from a white sheet of paper and have a running car,” he said.
“It’s something that most people underestimate and they don’t know the hard work that there is behind. They think’s easy; it’s far from it.
“I have to say, the job that they have done in such a short time with the amount of things that they have to face between all the other things that they are doing, it’s amazing.
“I think everyone has to appreciate the effort that these young people have done, and it’s nice to see that they are such a nice organisation where everything is done inside. I think they have to be proud of what they have done so far.”
WSC has already carried out dyno testing on one of the car’s engines in Europe, with the chassis certification now allowing GRM to start locking in the final specification of the car.
“It’s been a huge amount of effort from the whole team to get to this point,” GRM’s Stefan Millard said.
“We’ve been working with Andrea and WSC for the best part of two years to get to the point that we’re at today, but to have him here at the workshop validates all that work. To go through that process makes it real.
“Now, as a team, we’re really looking forward to getting this thing on track and showing what it can do, getting some results and going racing.”