Pepe Oriola eyeing up opportunities in new TC3 series

Former WTCC driver Pepe Oriola has said he hopes to compete in the new TC3 International Series which is set to launch next year.

The 20-year-old finished ninth in last season’s standings, driving half the year in a SEAT León WTCC and half in the Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T, and was also the runner-up in the preceding year’s Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy for independents behind the wheel of a SEAT León.

Oriola was set to drive for Mike Earle’s Onyx Race Engineering team this season with their new Ford Fiesta TC1 car for the last part of the season, before the project was abandoned with no support for homologation from Ford.

The Spaniard has been coaching Nikolay Karamyshev and Igor Skuz at Campos Racing in the FIA European Touring Car Cup, as well as his younger brother Jordi in the SEAT León Eurocup, and is set to take part in the Asian rounds of this year’s WTCC in Campos’s SEAT León with sponsorship from Cali Macau.

“It’s very good news this championship,” said Oriola about TC3. “Some teams have contacted me but there’s nothing close yet. I can’t deny that I’d be glad to compete in this competition. First of all, I want to have a good performance in the last races of the WTCC in Asia.”