TCR Asia: 2015-2022
Multiple regional touring car championships have also utilised the TCR regulations debuted by the TCR International Series in 2015, including TCR Asia. These regulations provide a relatively accessible means of racing full-on customer tin-tops, with models available from a wide range of manufacturers.
Effectively a successor to the Asian Touring Car Series, the championship enjoyed a generally successful run; before eventually becoming somewhat redundant due to the rise in popularity of TCR China. Naturally the series primarily attracted top drivers from Asia, though there were some European drivers who entered as well.
TCR Asia’s role as an international championship became a little confusing fairly early on however. In 2015 and 2016 the calendar was pretty much what you’d expect: each round saw the series visit a different Asian country. However in 2017, the series primarily raced in China; four rounds out of six were held in the country.
2018 had been a more varied calendar, but the focus on China returned for 2019 with three out of five of the rounds held there. This was a strange decision due to the already existing TCR China championship; for those three rounds in 2019 the two championships even shared the grid.
With how heavily the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Asia, it wasn’t especially surprising that TCR Asia was cancelled that year. The series returned again in 2021, however the identity of the series was now even more confusing. Every round, bar the finale at Macau, was held in China and every round apart from Macau shared the grid with TCR China. This rather raised the question of why TCR Asia even still existed, if it was essentially just the same as TCR China.
This question appeared to be answered in 2022 when TCR China was not held, while TCR Asia again ran an all-Chinese calendar plus Macau. However for 2023, TCR China returned stronger than ever; while TCR Asia never had a calendar confirmed. Early in the year it was confirmed that the TCR China promoter would also be the TCR Asia promoter, but a calendar was never announced for the latter.
As if all that wasn’t confusing enough, in 2022 a new event was launched: the TCR Asia Challenge. Not connected to TCR Asia, this was a single-weekend event at Macau that acted as that year’s running of the Guia Race of Macau. It raced at Macau on the same weekend as TCR Asia, but did not share a grid. For 2023 the TCR Asia Challenge is set to run again, and with TCR China continuing to exist, it appears that TCR Asia has been scrapped. But with how confusing this championship’s existence has been, it’s hard to say.