The Mazda 3 TCR is your perfect entry level touring car

It could be on its way to the UK – but not as part of the BTCC. Mazda’s latest motorsport project complies with TCR regs, the fledgling touring car formula that is part of the world and European touring car championships.

The BTCC it is not, but, reflecting increasing global popularity, there is a six-meeting TCR series in the UK (the next race is at Donington Park on the 19^th October) and the hope is a privateer will fall in love with the car you see here and enter one for 2020.

The Mazda 3 TCR has been put together for Mazda North America by the US company that turns out the competition MX-5s for that global series, Long Road Racing. As a car built to TCR regs – the aim of which is to make the cars more cost effective for privateers – the Mazda 3 TCR will be eligible for all 36 TCR-sanctioned championships around the world, along with certain endurance events.

The first of those to be confirmed for Mazda’s latest track weapon is the 2020 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge in the US, which begins with a four-hour race at Daytona Speedway in January. The first driver to be confirmed is 2019 Global MX-5 Cup champion Bryan Ortiz.

The latest Mazda 3 is the Japanese firm’s take on a Golf class hatchback and descendant of the popular 323 of long ago. It has notably clean-cut looks and Mazda designers in California have done a seamless job of turning it into a racer. With its low front end and giant rear wing it should look at home on a race circuit.

TCR regs mean far fewer changes than are allowed in, say, the BTCC. Like all TCR cars, the new Mazda is powered by a turbocharged four-cylinder engine restricted to 350bhp. It drives the front wheels through a six-speed paddle-shift competition transmission. The minimum weight is 1,285kg, and body panels and suspension components are essentially reinforced versions of the standard production car’s

Available to privateers in 2020, Mazda sees the development of the Mazda 3 TCR as another rung in its already impressive motorsport ladder, extending as it does from the MX-5 series right up to prototype sports car racing with Mazda Team Joest in IMSA.

Strange but true, it is said that in American amateur motorsport more Mazdas are raced on any given weekend than the cars of any other manufacturer. 

TCR touring car racing is big in the US, Japan, Malaysia, Australia and throughout Europe, Scandinavia and the Middle East, but the category is so far less well known in the UK. In the British series so far this year, James Turkington is leading going into the final round in his Ciceley Motorsport Cupra TCR. Other cars represented in TCR racing include models from Audi, Honda, Hyundai, Peugeot and Volkswagen.

To that we can now add Mazda… and a welcome further boost to the fortunes of amateur motorsport.