Rent-a-Wreck nearing a move away from Honda for 2018 says Marcus Annervi

Rent-a-Wreck’s Marcus Annervi says his team will likely move away from the Honda Civic TCR race car at the end of 2017, after being plagued with reliability issues all year.

The one-car team has battled engine troubles since the opening round of the year at Knutstorp and has struggled to get to terms with the Japanese power-plant, serviced by Ultra Motors in Sweden, ever since.

Ironically, Annervi recorded a season’s-best result in the second race at Mantorp with sixth at the flag.

But the 2016 Renault Clio Cup champion says his team has grown impatient of the continuous reliability concerns throughout the course of the year and is looking for an alternative car for 2018.

“We’ve had engine problems all year and it is getting too much. We basically had to write off our weekend in Falkenberg and then again in Anderstorp,” Annervi told TouringCarTimes.

“We have lost a lot of points this season and usually it has been down to reliability issues. It’s almost certain that we will not use Honda next year. We don’t know what we will use but the Honda engine is just not working.”

Annervi was also halted in qualifying by a fresh engine failure, the team’s fifth this season. Despite finding a fix and enjoying two untroubled races, Annervi then failed to finish the final race of the day.

Annervi is also confident of appearing on the STCC grid for 2018, with partner talks leaving the 21 year-old optimistic about a potential second season of touring car racing.

“We have been speaking to a number of partners and sponsors and we are fairly confident of getting onto the grid for 2018,” Annervi said.

“Our main concern is just finding another engine manufacturer so we can score some better results than we have this season.”