NEW PEUGEOT MAKING STRONG PROGRESS

Garry Rogers Motorsport’s first Australian designed and built TCR race car has knocked off some big objectives as its racing debut approaches.

Two new Peugeot 308 P51s are hoped to make their first global racing appearance in the TCR Australia series at Sydney Motorsport Park on October 18-20.

But to make that happen, a number of boxes have had to be ticked.

In late August the GRM built Peugeot hit the track for the first time at Sandown and enjoyed a follow up test at Winton.

Last week WSC head technical advisor Andrea Adamo inspected the car to complete the certification process of homologating cars for TCR competition.

This all followed two GRM members heading to Italy for engine certification where the turbo charged 4 cylinder engine, plus ECU and the six different power levels required for TCR were tested and signed off.

The new Peugeot’s maiden shakedown at Sandown.

GRM’s Stefan Millard has been at the centre of all of it and said all the milestones are good news for the SMP racing debut.

“The last month was pretty busy for us,” Millard told Auto Action.

“Obviously we got the car out on track and testing went well.

“Then we had the engine certification over in Italy on the dyno in mid September and that was successfully completed.

“Andrea came here last week and spent a couple of days at our workshop to complete the inspection for the certification.

“We had been keeping them up to date on the progress over the last 18 months and Andrea was happy with the progress that was made which was great.

“Our plan now is to have some cars on the grid for the Sydney round at the end of October.

“Like anything we are dealing with supply things like getting parts and having them all available for us to put the cars together is the critical factor.

“But everything is on track to deliver that.”

After inspecting the Peugeot in the GRM workshop at Dandenong, Melbourne Adamo was impressed by what he saw.

“I know the work needed to start from a white sheet of paper and have a running car,” he said.

“It’s something that most people underestimate and they don’t know the hard work that there is behind. They think’s easy; it’s far from it.

“I have to say, the job that they have done in such a short time with the amount of things that they have to face between all the other things that they are doing, it’s amazing.

“I think everyone has to appreciate the effort that these young people have done, and it’s nice to see that they are such a nice organisation where everything is done inside. 

“I think they have to be proud of what they have done so far.”

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