Photo: TCR Germany media

TCR Europe Trophy established as a one-off race for 2017

By

The TCR Europe Trophy will be held as a one-off event in 2017 at the Adria International Raceway at the end of October in 2017, replacing the national series points-based process from this season.

The 2016 Trophy was won by Belgium’s Pierre-Yves Corthals, after the DG Sport Compétition driver took his Opel Astra TCR to rounds of the TCR Germany and Portugal series, in addition to his full season campaign in TCR Benelux.

For 2017, the format will be a one-off race, just as the European Touring Car Cup was from 2005-2011, excluding 2010 when it was a three-event series. In the early days, the ETCC attracted the front runners from the national championships including Richard Göransson, Thed Björk and Tomas Engström from the STCC, Alex Zanardi from the Italian Superturismo Championship, Rob Collard and Jason Plato from the British Touring Car Championship, Vincent Radermecker from the ADAC Procar Series and Michel Nykjaer from the Danish championship.

The 2017 TCR Europe Trophy race will allow full-time entries from any of the European TCR national series, or those that have taken part in the European leg of the TCR International Series calendar.

The format of the event is not confirmed, but could be a longer format race to the traditional 50km heats usually seen in TCR.

“I can’t wait to see all the best drivers from the different TCR series in Europe facing each other in the Trophy Europe final,” said TCR promoter Marcello Lotti. “The event in Adria will be the perfect advertisement for the ever-growing TCR brotherhood among the different series.”

The Adria Raceway in the Venetian region of Italy will host the race on October 28th-29th 2017, with the circuit director Mario Altoé proud to be hosting the event next year.

“This will be one of the most important events we have ever had,” he said. “We have followed with interest the successful growth of TCR and we are very proud and excited by the idea of hosting the European final. We have proved in the past that our racetrack suits touring car competition and we will do our very best to create a unique event that will attract a large number of fans.”