More information has been revealed by WSC Group about the 2023 TCR World Tour, which will serve as the top-level of international touring car competition this year culminating in the TCR World Final.
Announced last year, the TCR World Tour effectively takes the place of the now-defunct FIA World Touring Car Cup as the top-level of international touring car racing – and means 2023 will be the first time since 2000 without an FIA title attributed to touring car racing.
A maximum of 16 full-season TCR World Tour entrants will be permitted, with the deadline for entries being the end of February 2023.
Only teams which commit to the full season are eligible for a logistics contribution for the events outside Europe (in South America, Australia and Asia).
The series will adopt the sporting regulations of the local championship which it is part of the event at. The control tyre for the series will be the Kumho TCR tyre.
The qualifying format for all events except the finale will be a two-part split, with a 20-minute Q1 session followed by a 10-minute A2 session open to the 12 fastest drivers in Q1.
Only for the event supporting the TCR Asia Challenge, expected to be at Macau in November, will the format be slightly different (owing to it being a street circuit), with a 30-minute Q1 and a 15-minute Q2 open to the 12 fastest drivers in Q1.
For the first four events (three supporting TCR Europe and one supporting TCR Italy) there will be two 55 kilometre races per weekend.
When the series then moves to South America in August, two 30-minute races (plus one lap) will be held.
For the first of the TCR Australia events in November, three 30-minute races will be held. The second TCR Australia event at Bathurst will be limited to three 21-lap races.
The season finale in Asia then reverts back to a brace of 55 km races as per the opening four events.
Points in qualifying will be allocated on a 15-10-8-6-4-2 basis to the top six drivers in the final result.
Points in the races will be consistent irrespective of the number of races per weekend, and will be allocated on the basis of 30-25-22-20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1 to the top fifteen drivers.
All drivers in the TCR World Tour events are eligible to score points for the TCR World Tour and the TCR world Ranking. But TCR World Tour full-season drivers will not score points for the local TCR series hosting the event.
In the TCR World Ranking system, drivers who compete in the TCR World Tour will gain an additional 50% points compared to other eligible TCR World Ranking series.
Compensation weight will be deployed, as has been the case in recent World Touring Car seasons. The system will be based on the fastest qualifying laps set in the previous TCR World Tour event, with a range of 0 to 40 kg in 10kg increments.
Local competitors in TCR World Tour events are subject to the compensation weight system taking into account the results in their local TCR series.
The TCR World Final
Following the ninth event of the season in November, the top 15 drivers in the overall classification of the TCR World Tour will directly qualify for the final race of the TCR World Final event.
They will be joined by additional drivers who are the first 15 TCR World Ranking competitors classified after the play-off.
The opening round of the 2023 TCR World Tour takes place at the Autodrómo do Algarve in Portugal, as part of TCR Europe, on 28 – 30 April.