Fresh from wrapping up the Swedish Touring Car title this weekend (24-25 September, 2016) WestCoast Racing have had little time to savour their success before returning to Asia and Malaysia for the next installment of the TCR International Series.
The Formula One support event at the Sepang International circuit on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur was the first race of the inaugural TCR International series and the debut for the team in 2015 and holds good memories having secured pole position for Kevin Gleason on his Touring Car debut and the teams first TCR podium for Gianni Morbidelli.
Gleason and Morbidelli will return to try and better the 2015 results having gone on to secure multiple victories for the team in the series following the Malaysian event last year.
They will be joined by Mikhail Grachev, already a four-time winner for WestCoast Sportpromotion this season after victory two weeks ago on the streets of Singapore in the curtain raiser for the Formula One Grand Prix. Grachev will be keen to look for win number five of the 2016 campaign to continue his late charge up the Championship standings.
Grachev will be competing this weekend with support from Acronis, a global data protection company focused on providing companies with backup, disaster recovery, file sync and share, monitoring, and data storage solutions based on the new hybrid cloud architecture.
Team Manager James Nixon reflected on the team’s participation in the TCR International Series as it enters the penultimate round of the second campaign.
“Two years ago when we were packing cases in Halmstad to leave for WestCoast’s first race outside of Europe it was an adventure we were relishing and two years on we feel like seasoned campaigners on the International stage,” said Nixon. “The team has demonstrated its winning mentality and ability to deliver results taking five drivers to victory (Morbidelli, Gleason, Grachev, Pellinen and Huff). Hopefully we can return to where it all began and add to our win tally.”
Rounds 19 and 20 of the TCR International Series take place on Friday and Saturday in front of the Formula One cameras and crowd at the Sepang International Circuit this weekend (30th September and 1st October 2016). The races will be broadcast live on the TCR TV YouTube channel.