Overseas trips set to boost DPE Motorsport, DW Racing

Both the DPE Motorsport and DW Racing teams will hope to benefit from trips overseas when the TCR UK Series season resumes at Castle Combe next month.

The two teams endured troubled weekends at Brands Hatch last time out, with the two DPE-run Alfa Romeo Giuliettas being withdrawn from the action before race day and Darelle Wilson’s Vauxhall Astra struggling for speed throughout the weekend.

Following the Brands Hatch meeting, the engines from the Alfa Romeos were transported back to Italy to be examined by car builders Romeo Ferraris, with DPE boss Derek Palmer confident that the issues have now been resolved.

“Two of our technical team, Ricky and John, loaded the two engines into an estate car and headed for Italy, where the engines were stripped and inspected,” he said.

“It turned out to be a similar issue with both engines and it was something that Romeo Ferraris had seen in their WTCR cars, so they knew the solution. It’s actually a production item that failed; they’ve replaced that part on both our engines and so we shouldn’t have a problem with that again.”

Wilson’s Vauxhall headed for Germany for a series of diagnostic checks with car builder Kissling Motorsport, which also allowed the team to resolve a number of other issues it had encountered in the early stages of the season.

“We have to say a huge thank you to both Kissling Motorsport and Vmax Performance for being so thorough,” team coordinator Les Latham said. “Not only did they discover the cause of the problem that we had at Brands Hatch, but they also solved a number of other small issues.

“Because of the way TCR works, we were able to say to the guys in Germany that we could see other Astras winning races elsewhere while we were struggling for speed. They really took that on board and worked hard to solve the problem.

“We’re now back where we should be and so we’re looking forward to going to Castle Combe where the circuit should really suit the Astra.”