The Opel Astra will return to competition in TCR, with three of the cars taking part in the fifth round of the season at the Nürburgring this weekend, being driven by Jordi Oriola, Jasmin Preisig and Pierre-Yves Corthals.
Having made a brief appearance in the TCR International Series at the start of the year, Opel subsequently withdrew its cars in order to focus on the further development of the new racing machine.
And although Corthals has run the Astra in the TCR BeNeLux Series in recent month,s the car has not been seen anywhere else in the TCR world. This weekend the car will make its first appearance in the all-important German market, with the cars taking to the grid of the new series.
“We have already carried out two successful test operations with the Opel Astra TCR in TCR BeNeLux,” said Christian Jupsin, who runs the DG Sport Competition team which ran the car in Belgium. “We now want to show that the Astra TCR can also be strong in the fierce competition of the ADAC TCR Germany against the strong competitors.”
Oriola, who had intended to run more events with the Opel car in 2016 but had to make a last-minute switch to Honda machinery in order to keep racing, is looking forward to getting back behind the wheel of the car in Germany.
“To compete in the ADAC TCR Germany Series is an opportunity for the team, because we have been working with the car,” said Oriola. “We are very satisfied with the results and now we will show it. Being in a national championship of the TCR it will be a great experience.
“This is an atypical year in my career, but also a good opportunity to work with the set-up of the car from the beginning. The TCR is my championship, but this season the results are not the most important. We are sure that the Astra TCR will be competitive.
“It is a very technical circuit but is well suited to my driving. We arrive at Nürburgring to work on the performance of the Astra TCR. This will be our goal.”