BARRY Rogers has offered insight into the new Peugeot 308 TCR being developed by Garry Rogers Motorsport.
GRM and Peugeot struck a deal earlier this year for the Dandenong-based organisation to be the exclusive worldwide developer, builder and provider of the French marque’s next-generation TCR car.
Plans to have the car cut demonstration laps at this month’s Bathurst International have been scrapped due to the delayed arrival of parts from Europe.
“If you went back six months ago, that was certainly the plan but the body shells didn’t arrive until probably five weeks ago,” Rogers recently explained to V8 Sleuth.
That in turn will see the global homologation of the car pushed back too, but Rogers is content with how the process is coming along.
“Once you homologate the car, you’re sort of done,” said Rogers.
“They’ll certainly be debuting next year – it’s just whether it’s by Round 1 or not, we’ll see how we go.”
Asked how they’ll compare to the existing Peugeot 308, of which GRM is fielding five at this weekend’s Race Sydney, Rogers detailed their intentions.
“Every generation of car, you seem to learn something from the previous one of course,” he said.
“The one thing, with the BoP, there’s no real incentive to build an absolute rocketship. You just need to build a car that is tuneable.
“You always need to have something in it, rather than be maxed out the whole time.
“The current car, it is maxed out. It’s running at its highest horsepower level, it’s running at its lowest ride height and it’s running at its lowest weight. You can’t get any more out of it.
“On a good day it’s up there amongst it, but it’s not the same level as the new Audis and the Hyundai. I mean, the old Hyundai is particularly impressive still, isn’t it?
“We just need to make sure we build a car that you have a bit in reserve, if that’s the right way of saying it.”
