‘TCR’ has become a real buzzword in motorsport over the last few months as this brand new concept promises to have a huge impact on the future of global ‘touring car’ racing. Its platform of next generation regulations and ideas are already being widely recognised – and now TCR set to come to Thailand next year.

Racing Spirit, organiser of Thailand Super Series (TSS), inked an agreement in Barcelona this week to promote a new domestic championship, ‘TCR Thailand’, from 2016 as this exciting new breed of high performance touring cars get set to appear on our top tracks. [Read the full press release below].

Meanwhile, RMI Racing Team, fresh from a successful title winning campaign in Super Production, has been at Bira Circuit to give a shakedown to its latest weapons, a pair of new-generation Honda Jazz GK machines that it will debut in the category this year. The test went well so expect the new Jazz to be in the midst of the Super Production action when the new season kicks off.

And that new season will in fact kick off at Buriram in the middle of May. TSS has just announced the 2015 calendar for Thailand’s top motor racing championship and there are a few tweaks, a track change and adjusted dates, to refine the series yet further.

Finally, in Bangsaen last month there was a brand new name on the entry lists, Khun Franz Engstler. He’s certainly not a ‘new’ name to motorsport fans’, the highly experienced German ‘gentleman’ driver is world famous while he’s also an avowed fan of temporary street tracks.

He’s really wanted to have a serious crack at the Bangsaen Street Circuit for a long time and just in time for this latest edition the pieces finally slotted into place. You can’t expect anything less than a truly stirring performance when Khun Franz hits the track and it was duly the case as he romped away with victory on his visit ever visit here.

Racing Spirit Co. Ltd. (“Racing Spirit”) is pleased to announce that it has reached agreement to become the exclusive promoter of TCR (“Touring Car Racing”) for Thailand.

On the occasion of a two day TCR Official Working Group in Barcelona, Spain, yesterday (Thursday 29 January), the agreement was signed by Mr. Marcello Lotti, CEO of WSC Ltd. (promoter of ‘TCR International Series’), and Mr. Paritat Bulbon, Managing Director of Racing Spirit.

Agreement was reached that Racing Spirit will market the new series in Thailand, with immediate effect, before a new championship, ‘TCR Thailand,’ becomes part of the Thailand Super Series (“TSS”) programme during 2016.

The signing took place during the Official Working Group that brought together promoters of different global Touring Car series with the aim of establishing a common strategy going forward. Mr. Lotti, who was assisted by David Sonenscher, promoter of the TCR Asia Series, chaired the meeting.

Twelve countries were represented by championship promoters and members of National Sporting Authorities: Benelux, China, Dominican Republic, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, USA and Venezuela.

The participants unanimously expressed their willingness to cooperate with the aim of establishing the TCR category on a global scale, adopting one corporate identity and a single set of technical regulations. This strategy will aim to target interest and involvement from carmakers, national distributors and importers and will lead to the development of an international market among teams related to the buying and selling cars and components. On the sporting side, each national series will be free to choose its own specific format, tailored around local requirements and the requirements of participating drivers and teams.

Mr. Marcello Lotti said: “I am very pleased to see that the concept we launched a few months ago is already meeting with such a large and enthusiastic consensus. After the meetings we had in Barcelona I am even more convinced that a bright future is expected for TCR.”

Mr. Paritat Bulbon said: “TCR is a very exciting new format that is set to take Touring Car racing into the future and I believe that on all levels it will be a very good fit for Thailand and serve to move us in the direction we want to go. It’s been very productive to meet the other promoters this week, there is a lot of enthusiasm and clearly we share a lot of common goals. That means we can achieve a clear global standard for rules and regulations that will provide stability and lead to evenly matched racing, as well as providing a robust and cost effective platform for all stakeholders. We have a great deal of experience promoting Touring Car racing at the top level in Thailand I now look forward to presenting the new TCR format to our drivers and teams and I think everyone is going to be very positively motivated by the new concept.”
 
RMI Racing Team made quite a name for itself in TSS last year as Khun Pasarit Phromsombat swept to the Super Production championship crown after one of the closest title showdowns in Thai motorsport history. That fight went to down to the final green flag lap of the final race of the year and that lap swung the destiny of the prize back in the direction of Khun Pasarit. Sensational stuff and a job well done by both driver and team.

Fast forward just over a month since that Sunday morning in Bangsaen when an enthusiastic crowd was on the edge of their seats watching that battle reach its climax and it’s a very different backdrop, albeit on that’s still very hot and dry, as Khun Pasarit is at an almost deserted Bira Circuit with a couple of engineers to conduct a shakedown on the team’s two brand new racecars. 2014 has been put to bed, all the focus is now firmly on 2015.

It’s a step forward too as RMI Racing Team has just finished building two new-generation Honda Jazz GK models that it will run in Super Production this year. The drivers will be Khun Phongthep Wachirarungruang, who steps up a level with the team after his rookie full racing year just gone was spent in ‘eco’ cars, and Khun Nattanid Leewattanavaragul, who also drove for RMI last year and will thus be starting a second year with the team.

When the new TSS season kicks off in Buriram in early May the new Jazz, which went on sale in Thailand in the middle of last year, will make its racing debut in Super Production – and there are set to be at least two examples on the grid, although more are expected. The build up to Buriram for RMI Racing Team started at Bira circuit last week with a successful shakedown test for the new cars and their drivers.

Khun Pasarit, who took the freshly-build machines out for their installation laps explained how Khun Phongthep had come to step up to Super Production and that with the 2014 title just secured in the outgoing Jazz GE it was the perfect time to move onto the next one.

“It started as Khun Phongthep wanted to move up from the Brio one make race to the bigger races so he discussed with me and I suggested that he should go for Super Production because it’s a fun race and doesn’t cost too much money,” Khun Pasarit said. “Since I am using the Honda Jazz GE to race, I suggested [to] him to use the new Jazz because at the time we discussed this, the new Jazz GK had just been launched.”

Khun Nattanid, meanwhile, is a promising and ambitious lady driver who started racing just two years ago. She’s been very busy since then gaining experience with 1.5-litre B-segment level racecars, both in Toyota Vios Lady and in production type series.

She explained at the test that plumping for the new Jazz was the logical solution for the new season. “I has raced in production last year and I [will] join the same program for this year, but there’s a change in the car [I will] use, from the Vios to the Jazz GK,” the 21-year-old driver noted. “The reason why I chose to drive the Jazz for 2015 is because it’s a new model that just came out and most of my teammates will be using the car so it would probably be easier for me.”
 
“Last year I had a chance to be in RMI Racing Team and I got to know some of the seniors who had been using the Jazz cars so they gave me a lot of advice,” Khun Nattanid added. She will enter this year under the ‘Morin Top1 RMI Racing Team’ banner.

Khun Pasarit explained that they had started the ‘New Jazz’ build programme five months ago and although it’s very early days yet, he foresees that the new model will represent a step forward. “I think the new one is going [to be] better for sure but when we started making car we found out that the new Jazz GK has both pros and cons compared to the old one,” he said. “So far we can’t yet specify which one is better.”

It’s also been something of a learning curve for RMI as while the new Jazz GK is an evolution of the previous GE model, there are quite a lot of mechanical changes and some of those the team had to approach from a clean sheet of paper. “Creating a new car is for sure difficult but since we have learned a lot from the old Jazz GE it’s not a big problem,” Khun Pasarit said. “However, some parts of the old model are not compatible with the new one so we have to build a lot from the scratch.”

With plenty of experience of the outgoing Jazz and having overseen the building of the new cars, Khun Pasarit was able to help both drivers to get acclimatised with their machines. “Both of the racers are part of the RMI Racing Team,” he explained. “Within the team, we always share our thoughts about driving and adjusting cars all the time. Both Khun [Nattanid] and Khun [Phongthep] are planning to race in the Super Production so they asked me to plan their cars’ adjustments and chose to use lots of parts from me. That is how we all started to make both cars.”

He will continue to assist the two drivers and develop the new cars as the pre-season programme unfolds. “I helped in making cars and so also help with the driving,” he said. “We focus on both drivers at the same time. We adapts the car to be competitive for the drivers and plan the practice schedules.”

The shakedown went successfully as the two machines were bedded in and adjustments made while the drivers started to get comfortable in the cockpits. “After we tested our new cars, we were very happy since everything is going as we planned,” said Khun Pasarit. “The new car can speed as fast as the old Jazz. With that time, we can surely be in the upper ranks. The rest is about how the two racers can bring out the cars’ performance.”
 
Khun Nattanid in the ‘black’ Jazz was happy with the first test, but admitted she has a lot of work to do to get up to speed. “During the practice I realised that I have a lot to adapt to in order to get use to the car and I need a lot of practice,” she said. “[Khun Pasarit] is giving me advice on how to drive and also guidelines about how to [setup] the car.”

Meanwhile, in the ‘white’ Jazz Khun Phongthep was happy with his first runs. “It handles very well,” he admitted afterwards, reckoning that his first impressions were of a fun to drive car. He will also have a steep learning curve ahead as his career has been quite short. “I started racing two years ago, started in a Nissan and then with the [Honda] Brio,” he added, saying that 2015 is very much going to be a “learning year”.

Thailand Super Series 2015 calendar announced

TSS has just announced the 2015 calendar and the main changes are that the season opener will switch to Buriram while the year closing Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival is being brought forward to the last week in November, shifting away from its traditional mid-December slot.

The 2015 calendar reads as follows. Round 1 & 2, 8-10 May (Buriram), Round 3 & 4, 24-26 July, Buriram, Round 5 & 6, 11-13 September (Bira Circuit) and Round 7 & 8, 24-29 November (Bangsaen).

The most significant change is that Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit, which has kicked off the TSS season for the last two years, gives way to an extra date in Buriram, a logical step forward as the overseas trip was introduced into the calendar to make up for the lack of a world class standard circuit in Thailand.

TSS Vice President Khun Preeda Tantemsapya explains. “Since we now have an international standard FIA approved track in Thailand we don’t need to go abroad anymore, plus it costs a lot for the racers to travel to Sepang.”

He also notes that across the support programme the trip to Malaysia distorted the championship standings. “For the lower budget teams if they missed the races in Sepang then they missed out on championship points that were vital to their chances and therefore they couldn’t aim to win the titles. “This will lower the budgets and ensure all racers have the chance to win. It will also cut down the red tape that everyone has to deal with.”

The double visit to the North East will provide the perfect ‘warm up’ to the second half of the season. Bira International Circuit is the longtime ‘home’ of Thai motorsport and the City of Pattaya is a beating heartland of the sport, so this round, which is always highly popular with the fans, keeps its traditional slot, but is readjusted to September. Bangsaen, meanwhile, will be pushed forward to avoid the run up to the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

Fast ‘gentleman’ leaves his mark in Bangsaen

When it comes to global racing driver name recognition then ‘Franz Engstler’ is certainly right up there. He’s been racing around the world with plenty of success for three decades.

Khun Franz is in the ‘gentleman’ driver category, albeit a very, very fast gentleman so more ‘gentleman plus’, and that’s where he really makes the connection with motorsport fans of any nationality. And, just like everyone in the TSS paddock here, he races quite simply because he loves to race. He lives the dream out on the track, year after year. Everyone knows his name, he has global recognition and he’s pretty good at his job.

After starting his racing career in single-seaters Khun Franz switched to ‘touring’ style cars in 1993 and there was immediate success as he won the German Touring Car Class 2 Championship driving an Alfa Romeo 155 the very same year. That really cemented his tin-top career and he went on to win the German Touring Car Challenge in 2000.

However, it was in the middle years of the last decade that Khun Franz made his name one that fans in this part of the world had to keep an eye out for as he headed for the Asian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) where he promptly won the title on his debut in 2005, and then again in 2006, after a string of dominant performances.

The next year Khun Franz graduated to the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) and he’s enjoyed an unbroken run there ever since. To date he’s notched up more than 150 WTCC race starts and won outright at Germany’s Oschersleben Circuit in 2011.

His ATCC connection though continued after his departure to WTCC as our own Khun Jack Lemvard drove for Engstler Motorsport during the 2008 season and promptly won the title. Khun Jack in fact also drove half a year in Germany for Engstler Motorsport – and again he impressed everyone with his skills.

In a long and rewarding career Khun Franz always rises to the next challenge with enthusiasm and total commitment. And his ‘next’ challenge came up last month in the shape of the 8th Bangsaen Thailand Speed Festival.

He’s loves the big street circuits, that’s for sure. He started racing in Macau more than a quarter of a century ago and has become part of the fabric there.

But last month Bangsaen finally came into his schedule in a roundabout way. He was delivering two of his 2014 European Touring Car Championship BMW E90s to a Taiwan team – and so he shipped them via Thailand in order to give them a run out in the TSCA rounds that were part of the Speed Festival. He made a good start in the free practice sessions, quickly getting used to the track and posting top order times.

Bangsaen been lurking on his radar for a few years now, he reckoned, ever since he first heard people mentioning the event in the paddock at Bira. It especially resonated, as Khun Franz affirmed he’s a big fan of temporary tracks. “For me the street circuit is absolutely my favourite,” he said in the paddock at Bangsaen last month. “Especially if you drive a touring car you have to push harder, you have to concentrate for example much more than on a Formula 1 track. I love the street circuits very much, especially in the WTCC ones at Macau and Porto.”
 
So all the dots joined up – eventually. “That is why we come here to Bangsaen,” Khun Franz continued. “It’s a special track, it’s very difficult in the first year, so you have to learn a lot, you have to feel where’s the grip, where you can push more in the turns and in the chicane you have to be very careful, especially in the rear wheel drive car. But anyway for everybody it’s the same. The other drivers have more experience here but I will do my best to concentrate and get forward and hopefully no accidents that’s the main thing for me.” Driving a car that had been rebuilt since the end of last season and in fact sold meant the last point was especially important.

Plumping for a one-off entry into TSCA this year came through a long-standing connection with the promoter. “It’s my first race in TSCA,” Khun Franz explained. “Many years ago we drive in Asian Touring Cars which is organised by Danny [Stacy Chau] and he’s really a friend for us so it’s a pleasure to come in TCSA and come here.”

Khun Franz also explained how his WTCC commitments have prevented him racing at Bangsaen before, although he’s had a growing awareness of the event. “I’ve driven [at] Bira and heard of some things of Bangsaen but I only know it’s a street circuit,” he continued. “I always said one day I will come here, but our problem was in the team if our cars come back from Macau we only have four weeks to rebuild the cars and to do everything and then send them to Brazil where we start with WTCC. So that was always the problem, each year, if we wanted to come here.

“Now we have a really good chance this year as we sell two cars to the Redwood [team] and they give me the chance to drive one of the cars here in Bangsaen, so I’m really happy about it,” Khun Franz said. And in fact, fresh from their rebuilds, the cars were still finished in ‘body in white’ by the time the practice sessions took place, one though remaining firmly on the sidelines as a spare. “These two cars came from Germany, they were running in ETCC, we prepared the cars in our workshop and send them straight to Bangsaen and then they will go to Taiwan,” he added.

Fast forward from the Free Practice sessions to late Sunday morning and it’s couldn’t really have been a much better debut for Khun Franz in Bangsaen. He planted the BMW on the from row of the grid in qualifying, bettered only the the defending TSCA champion, Thailand’s Khun Tin Sritrai, who knows this circuit inside out and Khun Franz proceeded to follow him home in the first race to claim the runners up spot – and that was despite mechanical issues.

Then in Sunday’s second and final race the highly experienced German racer went one better to deliver a well-judged victory to wrap up his debut weekend in Bangsaen in real style. It was an impressive performance too. Starting from P4 on the grid thanks to the top-five of the first race being reversed on the grid for the second race, he scythed his way through the cars in front to lead at the end of the first lap and he never relinquished P1 for the remaining 12 laps as he pulled out a gap of more than half a minute by the time the checkered flag fell. Khun Franz wrapped it all up with the fastest lap of the race. Job done superbly.

The veteran was delighted with his car and his performance, especially after the problems that had held him back in the first race and caused him to drop back to P8 at the start. However he had bounced back quickly, moving up the order and in fact he picked off the car in front of him on the very last lap. “My race today was really perfect, much better than yesterday,” Khun Franz said after the podium celebrations. “Yesterday I lost my clutch and I lost a lot of positions and it was a hard fight to come back to second position.

“Today everything works fine, I had a great start and after the first lap I was leading the race and really the setting from the car was absolutely perfect and I can do all the laps with [consistent] times so it worked very well,” he continued.

He was also getting more and more used to the circuit and benefitting from the two hour later start time for Race 2 which allowed track conditions to improve. “Today I feel the track was a little better, yesterday we had the race very early so it was more slippery than today,” Khun Franz said. “But after the second lap I can push very hard and the car’s turn in was great and also under braking you can push the brakes harder so in the end it was a perfect race for me.”

It seems somewhat obvious to ask Khun Franz if his debut in Bangsaen had met his always-high expectations? “Of course I’m very happy, especially as I’m running in Thailand here in Bangsaen for the first time and this is a tricky and very special racetrack and for us,” he said. “It’s really hot in the car, in Germany now we have snow, minus ten degrees so here we have plus thirty so it’s a big difference, but anyway I’m young, I’m fifty three, so is all okay,” he added with a laugh.

So finally, he’s put his name up against many of the world’s most challenging streets circuits and professes to love then, can we expect to see him again the future? “I hope I will be able to come back and enjoy the races here and the places in Thailand,” he says.