New Peugeot 308 P51 TCR turns maiden laps in Australia

The first Australia-built TCR car, the Peugeot 308 P51, has broken ground after completing a successful shakedown at Sandown Raceway.

The task of designing and producing the second generation of Peugeot TCR machinery was awarded to Garry Rogers Motorsport and the first of many cars to come hit the track last week at Sandown, with TCR Australia race winner Ben Bargwanna at the wheel, 18 months on from the initial design phase commencing.

The shakedown is the latest milestone on the charge towards the P51’s competitive debut. After a rigorous dyno testing programme, GRM have sent one of their new engines to Modena in Italy where it will undergo further testing and official certification from WSC Sports – the global rights holder of TCR. A WSC representative will also spend time at the GRM workshop as part of the certification process for the car itself. The chassis which hit the track at Sandown is one of four currently being prepared by GRM, as the team looks towards building cars for customers across the world.

Bargwanna said: “We knew that we had a lot to learn. So far from the small sample of the new P51 we’ve quickly learnt that it is very different from the previous generation 308, but we ran through plenty of programmes and collected plenty of data to do some homework on it. GRM have put in countless hours of work on this project and to even get it to the track was special. I think everyone felt a massive sense of pride as the car rolled out of pitlane for the first time. I had a huge smile on my face all day!”

Barry Rogers – Director, Garry Rogers Motorsport – added: “To see not just a new car but one that we have designed and developed in house roll out was an extremely proud moment for everybody at GRM. The day went well, and we achieved what we wanted to, just making sure it went through all the process how we expected it would. There is a lot of new equipment going into this car. The Transmission was a big thing, as we trusted our local company Holinger Engineering and the feedback from the day was positive. We will test again at Winton in ten days, so look forward to that.”

Picture: Garry Rogers Motorsport