Young Argentine touring car racer Ignacio Montenegro will move up to the FIA TCR World Tour in 2025 after being named as the first driver for GOAT Racing.
Montenegro, 20, made his TCR début in 2022 when he took part in selected races at the end of the TCR South America season.
He moved to the series full-time in 2023, dovetailing his campaign with racing in his native TC2000 championship, and immediately excelled, claiming four wins in the first seven races of the year on his way to the title.
Last year, as a member of the JAS Motorsport Driver Development Programme, Montenegro moved to Europe and took part in TCR Europe and TCR Spain, finishing third overall in the former with one win and winning the title in the latter.
He will move up again as part of a multi-car GOAT Racing campaign in this year’s FIA TCR World Tour, once again at the wheel of a Honda Civic Type-R.
“I’m so excited to be stepping up to the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour this year,” said Montenegro. “From my first time in a touring car, my dream was to compete against the best in the world and prove that I deserved to be there.
“It’s happened a bit faster than I expected as this is only my third year in TCR, but I feel ready.
“Most of the countries and circuits on the calendar will be new to me and will add to the challenge, but I’m looking forward to it and I know that GOAT Racing and JAS Motorsport will help me to be as prepared as I possibly can be when the season starts in Mexico.”
Spain-based GOAT Racing ran a trio of cars for Esteban Guerrieri, Dušan Borković and Marco Butti last year and will reveal more of its driver line-up in the coming weeks.
“We are delighted to welcome Ignacio into the GOAT Racing family,” said GOAT Racing Team Manager Pepe Oriola.
“He is a driver we have had our eyes on since he won the TCR South America championship and as he has progressed as a JAS Motorsport Development Driver, the natural step was to jump into the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour with our team and compete at the very highest level of TCR competition.
“I’m sure that he will fit perfectly into our team and that together we will achieve our goals.”
Mads Fischer, COO at JAS Motorsport, is pleased that GOAT Racing will continue to race its cars at the top level of touring car racing.
“After fighting for the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour title all the way to the Macau finale last year, we’re very pleased to see the Civic Type R TCR again in the series in the very capable hands of GOAT Racing, who did a fantastic job in 2024, especially when you consider that the team didn’t even exist at the start of the year,” added Fischer.
“In Ignacio Montenegro they have one of the undoubted stars of global TCR racing; a young man whose talent was clear from the first time we saw him in the Civic in the TCR South America endurance races in 2022, and whose title-winning successes once again prove the value of the JAS Motorsport Driver Development Programme, of which he was a vital part last year.”