Proteam Racing officially withdraw from Malaysian TCR round

Proteam Racing have withdrawn their single car entry for Diego Romanini from the inaugural round of the 2015 TCR International Series due to gearbox issues with the Onyx Race Engineering developed Ford Focus ST, and hope to be back in Shanghai with the issue resolved.

The Italian has only set four laps all weekend, all of them in free practice two,

“In full respect of the TCR spirit we are using a production gearbox that is operated by a paddle-shift via an actuator,” said Onyx’s technical director Greg Simmonds. “Unfortunately the actuator proved defective and this resulted in downshifting problems; something we did not expect. We were not able to solve the problem here and decided to replace the gearbox with a racing unit before the next event in China.”

Romanini was disappointed to miss out on taking part in the first race weekend, but agrees with the team’s call.

“It is a shame, because in the rare moments when everything worked I was able to appreciate the potential of the car’s engine and chassis. I am disappointed for missing the opening races, but I agree with the decision to withdraw the car taken by Onyx and Proteam,” he said.