Hyundai Motorsport has revealed the Elantra N TCR touring car for sale to teams racing in the various TCR series around the world.
Unveiled at the Beijing Motor Show, the Elantra is the third Hyundai to be built for TCR, following the i30 N and Veloster N.
Its reveal comes less than a week after the South Korean brand withdrew cars run by its customer teams in the FIA World Touring Car Cup, in a row over balance of performance and ECU requirements.
According to Hyundai motorsport team principal Andrea Adamo, the Elantra TCR makes use of the experience gained in two years of racing the i30 N and Veloster but is a clean-sheet design.
“By starting with a clean sheet of paper the Customer Racing department designers and engineers have been able to take advantage of the opportunity to further improve all-round performance of the car,” Adamo said.
“We have already made great progress in developing the chassis with a number of different drivers to create a strong overall package for our customers to allow them to continue the success of Hyundai Motorsport Customer Racing in TCR competition.”
The front-wheel-drive car is powered by a new 2-liter turbo engine developed from a base unit in the Hyundai road-going car range. It retains the 6-speed paddle shift transmission of previous Hyundai TCR models.
Over the past three months the car has completed more than 5,000km of testing at circuits across Europe, focusing on both sprint and endurance specifications and involving several Hyundai-contracted drivers, including 2018 WTCR champion Gabriele Tarquini.
“There are lots of small changes which customer teams and drivers will really appreciate, such as improvements in the steering system over the previous cars,” Tarquini said.
“Clearly the Elantra N TCR is much bigger, but the handling means that behind the wheel you cannot notice the difference,” he added.
The Elantra will go on sale to customer teams alongside the i30 N and Veloster, which will continue to be available in the Hyundai motorsport range.
