HYUNDAI TAKE 2 FROM 2 AT THE BEND AS BUCHAN DROPS A BOMBSHELL

September 17, 2025
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BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corsa completed a clean sweep out during the Australian round of the 2025 FIA Kumho Tires TCR World Tour at the 2025 AirTouch 500 at Shell V-Power Motorsport Park.

The team was first past the post with driver Mikel Azcona in Race , though it was teammate Norbert Michelisz who held the winner’s trophy after Azcona received a five-second penalty for a starting infringement.

Nestor Girolami made it a double for the Sqaudra Corsa outfit in the inverted Top 10 Race 2. The Argentinian fell behind the Cupra Leon of Aurelien Comte as the race began, but positioned his Hyundai Elantra N TC mid-track on the approach to Turn 1 and swept around the outside of Comte for the lead.

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He quickly sprinted away, in much the same way that teammate Azcona had done the day before as the GOAT Racing Honda Civic Type R Fs and Australian champion Josh Buchan found passing the grey Cupra a harder proposition than one might imagine.

The quartet ran high and low down the front straight on Lap 2, with Buchan poised to repeat Girolami’s move from the lap before. It was a case of the best laid plans, when Ignacio Montenegro nudged into the side of the HMO Customer Racing #30 on the approach to Turn 1, forcing Buchan to open the steering.

That saw the two Honda’s move into third and fourth, which Buchan came under pressure from Yann Ehrlacher, the 2025 Khumo World Tour championship leader.

Guerrieri and Montenegro eventually cleared Comte and looked to reduce Girolami’s lead, whilst Buchan was faced with the sight of the Cupra dead ahead and the #168 Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR immediately behind.

The GOAT Racing duo worked together to bridge the gap, reducing the deficit to a little over a second at the chequered flag. Guerrieri took second with Montenegro a further seconds back in third.

“It was all about the start”, race winner Girolami explained in the post-race press conference.

“ I had to take the risk. Esteban (Guerrieri) respected me well and that opened the race for me. I used the first five or six laps to build a gap, then just managed the tyres because it was very demanding. The car felt fantastic this weekend. At the beginning of the year, we struggled a lot. Mexico was terrible, Vila Real too. We are still quite behind in the championship, but the main goal now is to take it race by race. Korea is very important for us. Today was much hotter than yesterday, at least 10° more, that’s why lap times were slower than Saturday.”

Comte remained in contention for a podium, finishing just under a second from the third place finisher, while Josh Buchan was another second in arrears, four-tenths ahead of Ehrlacher.

That result was enough to see Buchan awarded the TCR Australia Cup with the HMO Customer Racing driver unexpectedly called to the podium to receive his trophy.

“It’s fantastic, an amazing opportunity to race with these guys, ”Buchan declared during the post-race press conference.

“They are the best touring car drivers in the world, to be competitive and not just here to make up the numbers feels really good. The last couple of years fighting for the TCR Australia title was so stressful. Here I didn’t have to think about a championship, I could just enjoy the racing, go wheel-to-wheel, and help my Hyundai friends where I can. We’ll do the rest of the World Tour season now. Next up is Korea, so it’s very appropriate that the journey continues there,”

TCR debutante and fellow HMO Customer Racing driver Ryan MacMillan finished second of the Australian contingent and twelfth outright. It had been a character building introduction to the category for the teenager, who is dividing his focus between racing as well as Year 12 exams over the coming months. That includes an examination under the guidance of local educators whilst racing in Macau in mid-November.

MacMillan’s weekend was made all the more challenging by a persistent issue with the blip and clutch during gear changes, which intermittently had the driver of the #5 a gear higher than expected throughout the opening race. Two gearbox changes prior to Race 2 had hopefully fixed the problem for MacMillan.

It was a problem that also afflicted Race 1 winner, Norbert Michelisz earlier in the weekend, with the team reporting that the problem had been traced to the steering wheel.

Fellow Aussies, Zac Soutar, Jordan Cox and Ian McDougall all made it to the finish line in cars that had been starved of opportunities throughout 2025, while Bradley Harris and Cody Burcher were non-finishers in Honda Civic Type R F and Lynk & Co 03 TCR respectively.

During the post-race press conference, two-times TCR Australia champion Josh Buchan announced that the TCR Australia Trophy victory marked his last race on Australian soil as a Hyundai TCR driver.

Buchan later elaborated to Velocity Motorsport magazine that his announcement was made on the basis that his contract with Hyundai Australia contract had concluded. Buchan had moved into the SRO GT4 category throughout 2024 and 2025, with a move to a GT3 Ferrari on the cards for 2026.

He also added that, whilst it currently marks and end to the Australian season, he wasn’t about to dismiss another tilt at TCR racing with the South Korean brand should the opportunity arise.

With that bombshell, the FIA Kumho World Tour cars and two of the HMO Customer Racing entries were packed into containers no sooner than the engines had finally cooled down, with Gibson Freight on hand to ship the field to South Korea.

Round 6 of the FIA Kumho Tire TCR World Tour heads to the Inje circuit in South Korea for Round 6 on 17-19 October.

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