Andreas and Jessica Bäckman have called time on their season in the FIA World Touring Car Cup, with the Swedish siblings electing not to race in the final four events of the year.
The duo joined WTCR with Target Competition at the start of the season, racing the all-new Hyundai Elantra N after spending two seasons in TCR Europe racing the Hyundai i30 N.
Having failed to break into the top ten in the eight races they have contested thus far, the brother and sister duo are currently last of the full-season entrants in WTCR, with Jessica having two points and Andreas just one.
Neither Andreas nor Jessica had the benefit of a pre-season testing programme with the new car prior to making their WTCR débuts at the Nürburgring Nordschleife in June.
It means Target Competition will not be present in the Czech Republic next weekend, although the team still plans to compete in its home event in Italy next month, but with different drivers who are yet to be revealed.
“The step up to WTCR has been a nice experience, but we felt the results weren’t as we hoped they would be,” explained Andreas, whose best finish is 15th in race one in Estoril.
“We have worked a lot together with the team to find a good set-up of the car but, unfortunately, we have not found the key to make it work properly and we have reached a point where we just go around in circles without improvement.”
Jessica Bäckman added: “We have really enjoyed the experience of racing in the WTCR and the knowledge we’ve gained will be invaluable for the future.
“We believe we can achieve more by sitting out this season and come back stronger in the future.”