Historic laps for GRM’s new Peugeot TCR

Garry Rogers Motorsport has notched up a major milestone in its build of the worldwide Peugeot 308 P51 TCR.

On Friday the new TCR hit the track for the first time by completing a successful shakedown at Sandown Raceway.

The Dandenong based GRM squad has been tasked to design and produce the second generation of Peugeot TCR for the world.

Friday’s shakedown completes an 18 month journey from when the initial design phase commenced, while it follows a rigorous dyno testing programme, where GRM sent one of its new engines to Modena in Italy to obtain official certification from WSC Sports – the global rights holder of TCR. 

It is hoped the 308 goes racing for the first time at SMP in October.

GRM’s Ben Bargwanna was the man behind the wheel cutting the history laps and was able to tick all the boxes.

“Coming into the day we obviously knew that we had a lot to learn,” Bargwanna said. 

“So far from the small sample of the new P51 we’ve quickly learnt that it is very different to the old generation 308, but we ran through plenty of programs and collected plenty of data to do some homework on it.

“GRM have put in countless hours of work on this project and to even get it to the track was special, I think everyone felt a massive sense of pride as the car rolled out of pit lane for the first time that’s for sure. 

“By no means are we there yet, but I most definitely had a huge smile on my face all day.”

GRM Director Barry Rogers said the vital day went to plan.

“To see not just a new car but one in particular that we have designed and developed in house roll out was an extremely proud moment for all of the crew here at GRM,” he said. 

“The day went well and we achieved what we wanted to, just making sure it went through all the process how we expected it would.

“There is a lot of new equipment going into this car and the focus for us whenever we build new cars is utilising not just Australian but Victorian manufacturing, which is no different to when we built the S5000’s. 

“The Transmission was a big thing with this car, the global TCR cars all utilise transmissions from two or three main suppliers. 

“We trusted our local company in Holinger Engineering and the feedback from the day was really positive.

“We test again at Winton in 10 days, so look forward to that.”

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