AUSTRALIAN INGENUITY FOR TCR RENAULTS

Australian ingenuity for TCR Renaults – Photo: InSyde Media

The international TCR landscape will contain an Australian flavour next year after an agreement between Vukovic Motorsport and Garry Rogers Motorsport has led to a technical alliance.

By HEATH McALPINE

The team, which will participate in its final Supercars race this weekend will develop a new front-end for the new evolution version of the Renault Megane RS, based off the latest Trophy variant. With the blessing of Renaultsport, Vukovic Motorsport CEO Milenko Vukovic has built a limited number of TCR-spec Megane RS TCR cars with GRM running two and receiving a third in the coming weeks.

Vukovic is excited by the new venture and it comes at the perfect time with the Swiss-based team developing an upgraded version of the Megane RS for next year’s campaigns.

“GRM will help build the Renault Megane for TCR worldwide,” Vukovic told Auto Action.

“I support GRM here because it’s a very serious, competitive and it has lots of experience in Supercars and S5000 racing. The team has a good engineering background because it has stopped activity in Supercars, it has more time and more capacity.”

Vukovic was at The Bend Motorsport Park to witness the TCR Australia finale where the Renaults of Chris Pither and James Moffat ran competitively, despite reliability still being a major issue. This will be addressed with the new car through GRM’s involvement, but Vukovic Motorsport will still remain the homologated manufacturer of the model.

“I have supported the team with parts and during winter I used GRM’s engineering office making upgraded parts,” Vukovic explained.

“Vukovic Motorsport has developed a new car with new homologation through the Renault Megane RS Evo including a new engine and front axle, which is being developed by GRM. This is the partnership between Vukovic Motorsport and GRM, but we’ll stay the homologated builder.”

The new Renault Megane RS TCR Evo will feature lighter body panels and a front-end designed in-house at GRM, adding to this the Melbourne-based squad will also service and support customers across both Australia and New Zealand.

GRM director, Barry Rogers lauded the work Vukovic had completed on the Megane already and told Auto Action his engineering team were excited by the new enterprise.

“I think we proved through that Volvo-era, when we’re given a project, we can have a bit of control over we can get the results,” Rogers reflected.

“At GRM, there are a great group of engineers and they like the challenge of being involved in projects like this. Milenko’s done a really good job to get this to the stage where he has, basically by himself. We got involved with him and we’re happy with the relationship.

“The good part is Renault Australia support the program strongly, in 2020 we believe the Renault will be one of the frontrunning cars.”

Vukovic shared the same sentiments for the Renault to be a title winner across the world and believes the arrangement with GRM can fast-track the process.

“We need to make sure there is much higher performance to fight for championships, now it’s not bad in Europe we are in the top five and here we are in the top four,” he concluded.

As reported by Auto Action GRM will also run at least two Peugeot 308 TCRs adding to the Alfa Romeo campaign it runs alongside Ash Seward Motorsport.

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