Teamwork Motorsport close CTCC programme to focus on TCR

Hong Kong-based outfit Teamwork Motorsport has closed its race-winning China Touring Car Championship programme as it aims to focus on campaigns in either or both TCR Asia and TCR China in 2017.

The team ran a Citroën C-Elysée between 2014 and 2016 in the CTCC, winning its first race last season in the Super Cup 2.0T class, before taking the cars to Macau, where the team entered the Guia Race with both its CTCC-spec Citroëns and its TCR-spec Volkswagen Golf GTI TCRs.

The team has bought the championship winning Golfs from Team WRT (Leopard Racing) for 2017, and says it could race them in the TCR Asia or new TCR China series this year, if not both series.

“We were honoured to have run in the China Touring Car Championship between 2014 and 2016,” said team principal Paul Hui.

“The 2.0T class is gaining huge momentum and 2017 will be extremely competitive with new manufacturer teams coming in, but it also represents increased pressure for privateer teams and, having achieved multiple race wins on the way to the independents’ title last year, it is the right time to modify our model of participation in the CTCC. After one season of TCR Asia, we are confident about the future of this category and we will start to move more resource in that direction.”

Sunny Wong, who raced for the team last year in the CTCC and drove a TCR-specification Honda Civic at the Macau finale in 2015 with WestCoast Racing, is proud of his involvement in the CTCC, but is looking ahead to TCR.

“I am very proud to have been part of Teamwork Motorsport’s three seasons in the CTCC,” he said. “Looking back, we learnt, grew and won together as a team, and we also witnessed big regulation changes to the official engine and chassis that made the competition more intense for teams and more entertaining for spectators. I am sure we can apply what we learnt in the CTCC to the TCR programme and I’m very excited to see how well we do.”