Macau 2025 notebook: Yann Ehrlacher takes his third title
2025 Kumho FIA TCR World Tour drivers’ champion Yann Ehrlacher. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
It was my 12th visit to the bizarre Macau Grand Prix event this year, my first was in 2010. Of course I missed the COVID years, as well as just one other due to a clash when two international touring car events took place on the same weekend, but otherwise I’ve been at every opportunity, and mainly to cover the “Macau Guia Race” as it’s known, the event reserved for tin-top racers, the cars which often deliver the most exciting racing, in my humble opinion of course.
So, the 2025 Kumho FIA TCR World Tour came to an exciting conclusion at the Guia Race of Macau, and while the title battle was not as intense as the first two years of the new series, it was still an interesting end with both Lynk & Co Cyan Racing team-mates Ehrlacher and Thed Björk vying for the crown in what’s been a fascinating season, and with new manufacturers coming in next year, there’s interesting times ahead.
Disclaimer: I was the press officer of the series during the first four events of the 2025 season, and was working with the communications team of the championship during the Macau finale as well.
The race weekend itself was interesting. In fact, almost incredibly well-behaved. Not only were there no red flags during the races, but no safety cars as well. Néstor Girolami scored his third win of the season, and his first at Macau for BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse, while Josh Buchan took an incredible second win of the season, and his first win at Macau on his first time of trying for the Australian privateer squad HMO Customer Racing on Sunday, to put himself and Australia into the record books of the Special Administrative Region’s race.
I’m going to look at Macau, and the 2025 season, team-by-team, starting with the new champions.
Yann Ehrlacher’s Lynk & Co Cyan Racing Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR in Macau. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
Lynk & Co Cyan Racing – third drivers’ title in final year for the Lynk
The Swedish team that run the young Chinese brand Lynk & Co cars picked up their first FIA TCR World Tour drivers’ title, and the third ‘world title’ for 29-year-old Yann Ehrlacher, meaning he’s now one short of his famous uncle’s four-time record - that uncle being Yvan Muller, for the uninitiated.
I say that, as I feel we’re past mentioning now that Yann is Yvan’s nephew. It barely comes up, Yvan departed the team at the end of 2022, and hasn’t really been to the track since - Yann has carved his own way in the team, and came out on top in a year where since the first race at Mexico City, he seemed to be completely in control
While oddly he didn’t win a race in the three-heat season-opener, that’s more down to oddities. A slightly cheeky pass on the edge of track limits on his own team-mate cost him one of the wins, while a rare technical glitch in the third race robbed him of what was probably a certain victory, and meant he left Mexico behind in the standings, but absolutely confident in himself and his new approach after two challenging seasons where he wasn’t able to battle for the championship.
He went into Macau with a comfortable lead in the drivers’ standings, and just needed to finish ahead of his team-mate Thed Björk in the first race to wrap the title up with a race to spare, and that’s what he did - resting on Saturday in the knowledge he’d won the title, and it was the first time he’d achieved the feat at world touring car racing’s traditional season-ending locale of Macau, rather than at a pandemic-restricted wilderness like Aragón in 2020, or Sochi in 2021.
With four wins from 20 races, Ehrlacher had a fantastic season, finishing 24 points clear of team-mate Björk, while Lynk & Co Cyan Racing’s programme hardly put a foot wrong either. It would turn out that the Swedish touring car powerhouse was running the Lynk & Co programme for the last time, after first turning up with the unique looking car in 2019, and running them for seven consecutive seasons, to three drivers’ titles, and six teams’ titles, only missing out on this particular accolade in 2022, when the withdrew mid-year in the WTCR - FIA World Touring Car Cup’s final season following issues with the series’ tyre manufacturer.
Thed Björk meanwhile was a steady competitor, and had a stronger middle to end of the season, and was able to keep applying the pressure to his team-mate. Coming off of 2024, where Björk, after a slow start, and turned around his performance and become the team leader, taking the fight to Hyundai and Norbert Michelisz, it was a strong year even if Ehrlacher had the measure of him for most of it, and Björk’s performances made sure it wasn’t a complete walkover for Ehrlacher.
Santiago Urrutia also had a strong season after an erratic 2024, although the Uruguayan didn’t pick up any race wins, his more level-headed approach kept him as a good points hauler, with a few exceptions, mostly technical, which cost him a handful of points especially in the middle of the season.
“The year has been amazing,” said Ehrlacher. “We’ve scored 13 podiums out of 20 races, four wins, I’m very happy about the job we’ve done. Consistency has been the key, we’ve performed all year, all the time apart from China we were always in the top three in qualifying which I think is a great achievement, and apart from Mexico, I’ve been carrying 30 or 40kg every weekend in compensation weight.”
“I was a bit disappointed that both of my world titles were in COVID, so no media, no party, and not a lot of people at the track, and historically touring cars has always finished here in Macau, now I’m happy - I don’t want to say a proper title, but winning in Macau always adds something.”
Ehrlacher puts a change in focus as the reason he’s been able to turn around his performance this season, all the way since the first round in Mexico back in May.
“I’ve reset the focus in my life and the priority which maybe wasn’t so clear after ‘21, and it’s worked out very well. I’ve sacrificed a lot of things from January until now, so I’ll keep doing that, but I’ll now enjoy a bit of time off with the family.”
Thed Björk in Macau. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
Thed Björk, in his ninth year with Cyan Racing in world touring cars, and an incredible 14th counting his programme with the team in its former identity of Polestar Racing in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, is happy in himself and hopes to continue on the battle in 2026, when Cyan Racing bring in the new brand Geely, and its new Preface TCR.
“In the big picture, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing,” said Björk. “But Yann had the points heading into this weekend. I was chasing him only really in the second part of the season, but it’s not easy because he’s really fast, and he’s really reliable.
“Usually in the year, in 20 races, someone has a problem, makes a mistake in qualifying, but not having that was one of the strong points of Yann. I’m only 24 points behind, so was still chasing him, but that was enough for him to be the champion. I had some races where I had some troubles and didn’t score, and usually that happens for everyone, but he just kept scoring.”
Björk was unfazed by finishing the championship second again, counting his speed and experience as his key assets.
“Maybe no one remembers who’s second, but I remember the race wins and the feeling I have, and I feel I’m getting faster all the time, which means I’ll have the possibility to win the championship again. I’m only here to win races and the title, I’m still motivated for that. I’d love to be back next year, and my expectation is to be back next year and continue to deliver.”
Néstor Girolami’s BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse Elantra N TCR in Macau. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse – Title defence destroyed before it even started
The hard-hitting Italian team BRC Racing Team, running as BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse with the omne trium perfectum of drivers Norbert Michelisz, Mikel Azcona, and Néstor Girolami can almost consider their second place in the teams’ championship, and best-placed drivers’ position of sixth (for Girolami) as a victory after a fundamental disaster at the first event of the season in Mexico City, in which the team picked up just 42 points from 190 available in the first weekend, as the Hyundai Elantra N TCR struggled with a performance problem on its first visit to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit at a competitive level.
First, let’s focus on Macau first, and the Hyundai was absolutely the car to have. Had they been in contention for the title, all of its rivals would have cause to be worried. Mikel Azcona looked set for pole position with the Spanish racer absolutely on fire around the complicated city track, but a small mistake in qualifying meant he did all he could to qualify in the top ten in a hastily repaired car (Macau’s Macau), while Néstor Girolami caught everyone out but storming to pole position unsighted, and in the first race he took complete control, romping to his third win of the season (taking the most wins of any Hyundai driver this year), and cementing sixth place in the championship in his second year driving for the South Korean manufacturer.
Azcona put on a brilliant show in the race too, avoiding trouble at the start and working his way up to second place, after which it was formation flying to the finish, while outgoing champion Norbert Michelisz was out at the start after damage from an unfortunate sideswipe from Esteban Guerrieri’s Honda, who in turn was swerving to avoid his own team-mate Ignacio Montenegro.
Speaking to Girolami after the Macau weekend, the 36-year-old said:
“Finishing the year with pole position and a win in Macau is something special. I feel like I’ve unlocked something in my connection with the car and the engineers, I’m starting to understand what I need to do with the car a bit more and what I want the car to do for me.
“This has been my best weekend so far with Hyundai and I’m very happy, and our 1-2 in Race 1 shows we haven’t lost anything. I hope next year we can start in the same way we finished this year, because with the championship being so competitive we can’t miss one weekend like we did in Mexico.”
2025 Macau Race 1 winner Néstor ‘Bebu’ Girolami. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
It was Girolami’s sixth time at Macau, and it was his first victory, with second place two years ago while driving for the MacPro Racing Team in the Honda Civic his previous best result.
“My dream was to win Macau one time,” Girolami added. “It’s not easy to win Macau, you need to put together many things and you only come here once per year. “In qualifying, you have to be in the right window and risk a lot but only on the one lap where it counts. On my pole lap I felt like I was in a tunnel, just following my flow and instincts without looking at the barriers, I just sent it all around the corners - you need to disconnect your fears and your mind, I think I was completely in this flow on that lap.”
Girolami had reflected on the problem that unravelled Hyundai’s season, the performance issues in Mexico City, which has generally been attributed to the high altitude of the circuit not favouring the Elantra’s turbo configuration.
To resolve this, given Mexico isn’t going away and is back on the calendar next year, and also given that there’s a TCR Mexico championship which races almost exclusively at the central city circuit, Hyundai Motorsport Customer Racing has been working on a solution, with the new homologation Hyundai Elantra N EV TCR (no, the EV doesn’t mean electric vehicle), having had a test run at Inje Speedium earlier this year, winning a race at the hands of Azcona.
“We’re collaborating with the team that was racing in Mexico to develop the solution as quickly as possible. I think the solution works, and now we need more mileage to make sure the solution is working well,” explained Girolami. “So far we haven’t had any issues with (our existing) turbo, but I think the new one is more promising in every situation, in high altitudes and hotter conditions, and I think it’s the right move, we just need more development.
“It’s definitely not been the easiest year for us, to start the year in Mexico with the bad weekend like we had, and we came out of Mexico with -70 points, and to recover that is super-difficult when all the rivals are having super clear weekends.
“We pushed really hard to come back, we had many ups and downs,” added Girolami. “I’m very proud of how we’ve finished, we showed that the car is very strong and competitive, and as a team and drivers we’ve worked very hard to bring the car where it belongs, as if we look back at the last two years we’ve always been in Macau with the possibility to fight for the title, but this year we couldn’t.”
Esteban Guerrieri’s GOAT Racing Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR at Macau. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
GOAT Racing – Strong start for the privateer Honda squad
The Spanish GOAT Racing team (Where GOAT actually means goat, as in “maaaah”, not the Gen-Z acronym), was a surprise contender for the drivers’ championship last year, with Esteban Guerrieri, in his first year back in touring cars after a year experimenting with endurance racing (as every manufacturer seems to be these days), an outside contender for the title.
After the opener in Mexico City, in which Guerrieri led the championship after two wins, you’d have rushed to the bookmakers to make a bet (before somebody looks at you strangely and asks if you mean Formula 1?). Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be, and the Honda team that lacks Honda support dropped away throughout the course of the season against an in-form Cyan Racing, and was just out for glory in Macau.
A year after a sensational top three lockout in the Guia Race, in which an inspired tyre choice by team manager Pepe Oriola resulted in Dusan Borkovic leading Guerrieri and Marco Butti in the last race of the season, Oriola decided maybe it was worth racing the car instead and jumped into the third car and provided most of the entertainment in the first race, blocking Santiago Urrutia’s Lynk & Co for half of the race as Urrutia battled back from an engine change penalty to find the wider-than-wide Civic refusing to let him through.
Eventually Urrutia managed to pull off a move into San Francisco, but by then Oriola had done the damage to his race, and the 31-year-old hung up his helmet for the rest of the weekend, pitting early in the final race to avoid adding any more to the spare parts bill for the weekend.
In terms of the championship, Guerrieri’s challenge had faltered when GOAT Racing had come back to Europe, struggling with the compensation weight and tyre compounds in Spain and Italy, and losing more points than it could recover to Ehrlacher and Björk in the standings, and the rest of the season was more about damage limitation and waiting for the ‘blue meanies’ to run into any troubles of their own, which unfortunately wasn’t forthcoming.
“I think it was a pretty solid year in terms of consistency, and taking opportunities as they came,” said Guerrieri.
“We had a couple of bad qualifyings in Valencia and Monza where we weren’t right there, but we rebuilt the weekend again in the races so I didn’t lose too much of a gap in the championship - but better qualis would have probably helped.
“Then I think we maximised all the opportunities that we had. Our car, when we put kilos on it, the pace just disappears, whereas other cars when they’re carrying 20, 30, 40, they seem to not suffer so much. We are similar potential but only when we have no kilos. It’s not about excuses, but it makes sense – as if you compare our budget to the Hyundai or Lynk & Co teams’ budget, they’re probably at least five times more. Nacho (Montenegro) and I just did one test pre-season in Barcelona, and after that it was just going to the races, and many times I think we nailed it, but a couple of times we didn’t.
“I think we should be proud of the season we had, we finished third in the championship, in front of all the Hyundai drivers and two of the Lynk & Cos, I think it was quite an achievement.
“Life is not only about lifting the trophy at the end, we’ve had a very good season and learning on the personal life side as well.”
2025’s star rookie Ignacio Montenegro and his coach at Macau. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
Guerrieri had a new team-mate this year in Ignacio Montenegro, a 21-year-old who is already the Spanish and South American (TCR Spain / TCR South America) series champion, and was a title contender in the competitive, though undersubscribed 2024 TCR Europe season.
Montenegro put on a brilliant performance in the last race, driving to fourth, just missing out on his second podium of the season after he was passed in one of the most unpassable places on the track by 2017 world champion Björk – (check it out here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DRHFoGrjduh).
“So close to the podium, I’m really happy,” said Montenegro. “Björk made a mega-move on me at Turn 11 which I didn’t expect, but it was a really good move.
“But I’m happy, I made a mega-lap in qualifying, and then I nearly got P7 in Race 1 before I got a puncture, and then a P4 in Race 2, I cannot believe it - my first time at Macau. We know we don’t have the best car on the grid here, and our money compared to the official teams is not too much and we couldn’t test enough during the season.”
Reflecting on the season, Montenegro’s happy with his season and the strong performance of the team, and hopes to be back next year.
“I’m really happy Esteban (Guerrieri) finished P3 in the championship. It’s been a very good first season for me. I want to say thank you to the team, the engineers, to my coach Lucas who’s been with me the whole year, and everyone who’s helped me, and let’s see what I’m going to do next year.”
SP Compétition driver Aurélien Comte’s CUPRA Leon VZ TCR at Macau. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
SP Compétition – Comte takes three wins on CUPRA’s return to the world stage
Even smaller an operation than GOAT Racing was SP Compétition, the small French team which made the leap from TCR Europe to the FIA TCR World Tour this year, and punched well and truly above its weight, with Aurélien Comte taking three victories over the course of the season.
The Frenchman was in his first Macau since 2018, and while it wasn’t a great race for the Spanish marque, it was certainly a good season, with incredible wins at Monza and in Zhuzhou China for Comte, who for the best part of the year was on his own in the team started from driver-turned-team-owner Sylvain Pussier.
Corsican racer John Filippi had started the year with the team, one of the most experienced drivers in world touring cars, having first raced in 2013, then with the CUPRA forerunner SEAT brand, but after Monza, Filippi stepped aside for personal reasons, leaving the team to run the competitive CUPRA Leon VZ TCR for just Comte, until Macau winner Max Hart received a last-minute draft to join the team for the finale.
Comte recognised that the team’s performances were strong, but understood the lack of a team-mate, and the relevant support and data put him on the backfoot, and should the team return in 2026, it would need to at least field another car for the full season.
“For sure it’s not too bad a year,” said Comte. “The car has had good pace, and we’re a small team so it’s difficult to fight with the Hyundai and Lynk & Co guys. It’s been a very good season. I had a lot of punctures and DNFs so we lost a lot of points, which is a shame but that’s racing.
“I hope we’re back next year, but I don’t know the plans of the team. To fight for championships you need to have some teammates, as you need support – like we saw in Korea when Lynk & Co protected Yann, so if we don’t have more drivers it’ll be difficult.”
SP Compétition’s Macau wild card Max Hart. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
Hart, who at just 26 is already a highly experienced racer in TCR, starting in TCR UK back in 2020, and has since raced in TCR China, TCR Asia, and most recently TCR Europe, where he was an outside contender for the championship in his first year, was delighted with his Macau performance, two years after taking a sensational victory in the finale of the TCR China championship leading a 30+ car grid.
“We know this track is more suited to the Hyundais and the Lynk & Cos, so to be there or thereabouts with them I’m happy with that.”
The Irish driver was involved in a close battle with Hong Kong racer Lo Sze Ho, a driver with much more experience of the Macau circuit in Race 1, while in Race 2 Hart was right on the tail of the TCR World Tour regulars at the end of a safety-car-free race.
“I’m still learning the car I still don’t know it’s capabilities under braking, and that was something I was exploring in Race 1 in the fight with Lo, and I could use it to my advantage in Race 2. I was able to be much braver on the brakes into Turn 3, I think I passed two or three into the braking zone, so I was able to learn and adapt quickly, which I’m very happy about.”
Looking to next year, the TCR Europe title contender hopes to make the step to be a full time racer in the FIA TCR World Tour.
“It’s been my dream to race in the World Tour since I started TCR in 2020,” he said. “Last year I never finished the race, but this year to be properly with them, finish in the top ten and to be competitive, it’s huge for me and I hope some teams will take note and I get a good opportunity next year.”
2025 Macau Guia Race winner Josh Buchan. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
HMO Customer Racing – Josh Buchan puts Australia in the Guia Race record books
The FIA TCR World Tour’s other privateer team was HMO Customer Racing, the Australian squad which was racing without a home, after the postponement of the TCR Australia series this year. Instead, the Campbelltown-based outfit entered the flyaway leg of the tour, and put on some sensational performances, with two-time Australian Josh Buchan taking two victories ahead of the experienced pack of world racers.
While the first race for the team at Tailem Bend is where they probably would have been expected to shine, it was next time out at the Inje Speedium circuit in South Korea that they messed with Hyundai’s plans, with Buchan winning the first race instead of the factory-supported BRC team. Buchan had to miss the next race in China, instead 2019 champion Will Brown (and 2024 Supercars champion) filled in and picked up two fourth places and a sixth, the best of the non-regulars in all three races to keep the points coming, while Buchan struck lucky in qualifying and put his Elantra on the reversed grid pole for the second race at Macau, which gets recognition from the event’s authority as the “Macau Guia Race”.
Expecting Buchan to hold off a thirsty bunch of world tour regulars in the last race for the cars, indeed with Cyan Racing’s Ma Qing Hua, who started alongside him on the front row, remarking that all that was needed at the end of the day was “to put something in the container”, Buchan held off the pressure, first from Urrutia (who immediately got the jump on Ma), until Urrutia then hit the rear of Buchan at the San Francisco corner, and then fell back and got tagged by Azcona, with both retiring with punctures.
Ma took over the attack, but ultimately failed, and Buchan took the first Guia Race victory for an Australian, and the first heat win since 1999, when Paul Morris won the second leg of the weekend in a BMW for NEMO Racing, but unfortunately for Morris back then the Guia Race was decided by an aggregated result, and so Audi driver Michael Bartels was classed as the race winner.
Reflecting on his three-round season, Buchan said:
“I didn’t really know what to expect,” said Buchan. “ As a driver, I feel I’m as equal to anyone on the grid, but these are big budgets, big teams, and I hadn’t driven a TCR car since basically a year before, so we were a long time out of the seat and the category had moved a long way in that time.
“For us to compete, even at The Bend being in the top five all weekend was an achievement, but we didn’t want to just compete. We went from Tailem Bend to Korea, and had a massive swing at things, with a totally different philosophy on the car, totally different ideas, a full gamble, and it paid off. In Korea we were genuinely the best Hyundai. China I missed but the boys had a really good car there, Macau is an outlier – I certainly wasn’t the fastest car, but I was quick enough to obviously do the job.”
On his Macau success, Buchan explained: “In the Guia Race starting on pole, I was never giving that up,” said Buchan. “The car was coming back on a tilt tray, or it was coming back with a trophy, and I got the latter.
“I’ve spoken to a few boys, Rob Huff, Thed, Yann, Bebu, they’ve all been kind with their advice and their time. I knew Lisboa was the danger point, I did what I thought I needed to do, and in the end it was enough.”
Josh Buchan’s HMO Customer Racing Hyundai Elantra N TCR leading at Macau. Photo: Jun Qian Motorsport
Now to 2026…
The 2026 calendar was announced at the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Tashkent, Uzbekistan - with a fairly stable calendar with only two new events compared to the 2025 season.
In the European leg of the season, Monza gives way to Paul Ricard, while the Australian round at Tailem Bend is replaced with a second visit to China, competing at the new Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit in Tianfu New Area.
2026 Kumho FIA TCR World Tour calendar
April 23-25 - Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City - Mexico
June 12-14 - Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia - Spain
July 4-5 - CIrcuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet - France
July 11-12 - Circuito Internaticional de Vila Real, Vila Real - Portugal
October 2-4 - Inje Speedium, Inje - South Korea
October 16-18 - Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit, Tianfu New Area- China
October 23-25 - Hunan International Circuit, Zhuzhou - China
November 19-22 - Guia Circuit - Macau
