2019-1 Touring Car Championship season

The **2019-1 IVRC Touring Car Championship season** was the 2nd IVRC TCC season. Marc Stwerka of Repsol Swinegel Racing defended the drivers' championship, while MPG Competition was able to defend the teams' championship. Cupra managed to win the constructors' championship by only 1.5 points and Aurimas Auga became the first winner of the rookies' cup.

IVRC brought on several changes to the series, including a new calendar format in 2019 by splitting the year into two seperate seasons of TCC. This is due to the concept that a shortened championship usually gets a lot more action-filled compared to a full-year season, along with other minor benefits.

## Teams and Drivers

### Driver changes

* Bob Sacamano left his own team, Doghouse Racing, to compete for Repsol Swinegel Racing in 2019-1.
* After competing for TR Bluvos Motorsports in the final race of 2018, Jesús Chirinos switched back to his own team, C-Force Racing, for 2019-1.

### Team changes

* YTF1 Sim-racing Team changed it's name to MAD Bears YTF1 for 2019-1.
* Doghouse Racing stopped it's operation after Nick Atsidakos quit his sim racing career mid-season in 2018 and Bob Sacamano switched off to Repsol Swinegel Racing.
* Hola Viva Mexico Racing Team, Cotiteam and Fitness Racing didn't return in 2019-1.

### Mid-season changes

* After competing in a CUPRA León TCR in the first round, Dionysis Faraos switched to a Honda Civic Type-R TCR.

## Changes

### **Sporting regulations**

Not only has IVRC announced that 2019 will be splitted into two seasons, but also several changes to TCC's sporting regulations. Each event will now host three instead of two races, however with a shortened race distance of 15 instead of 20 minutes each. This should compensate for the number of lost races due to the shortened calendar, making up 30 races in total.

Also, IVRC introduced a new points distributions system, moving away from the famous F1 points scheme and adapting the all-new 2019 WTCR points distributions system. In consequence, not only the top ten of each race but the top 15 will be awared by points. Unlike WTCR however, TCC will not give bonus points for Qualifying.

As a consequence of heavy critizism during the 2018 season, the teams' championship saw minor changes aswell. While only teams with two or more entries were eligible to score points towards the teams' championship in the previous season, all teams are now eligible to fight for the teams' championship.

A rather drastical change will come with the weight penalties, as they will see their premiere in 2019-1 in TCC. This affects only Race 1 of each round, where the best drivers of the 1st race of the previous round will carry a weight penalty after Qualifying to bring the competition closer together. IVRC made the decision to add weight penalties for Race 1 only based on the fact that the quicker drives will be penalized by reverse grids in Race 2 and 3 already.

Finally, IVRC introduced a **Rookie Cup** sub championship for rookies. Each driver who hasn't competed at three or more events in 2018 will be eligible to score points towards the Rookie Cup. The scoring system will be identical to the main championship, giving 25 points for the rookie winner each race.

### **Technical regulations**

Several car models and manufactures have been dropped for the 2019-1 TCC season. While Ford and Opel had to leave the series with their Focus ST and Astra OPC Cup respectively, two manufacturers upgraded their cars to more actual models. While SEAT changed their whole brand to feature the CUPRA León TCR instead of the León Cup Racer, Audi changed from the TT Cup to it's latest RS3 LMS model. Honda planned to introduce the new Honda Civic Type-R TCR (FK8), however the plans were abandoned in the last minute and a facelifted version of the Civic TCR (FK2) will remain for at least another season on the grid. Peugeot and Alfa Romeo won't see any changes for 2019-1.

Also the mod has been improved even further, especially in the brakes area. During the late stages of the 2018 season, critizism of the weak and rather inconsistent brakes came up from several drivers. After a detailed inspection by IVRC, this issue was found to be caused by too much air flow through the cooling pods, cooling the brakes down below their performance window. The faulty parts will be fixed for 2019-1.

## Race calendar and results

A provisional ten-round calendar was announced on 2 February 2018.

## Championship results

### Scoring system

Points were awarded to the top 15 classified finishers in all three races equally.

### **Drivers' championship**

**Notes:**

* \* – Only half points were awarded for race 3, as it was stopped after 50% race distance.
* † – Driver did not finish the race, but was classified as he completed more than 50% of the race distance.

### **Teams' championship**

**Notes:**

* – Only the two best results of each race counted towards the teams' championship.
* \* – Only half points were awarded for race 3, as it was stopped after 50% race distance.

### **Constructors' championship**

**Notes:**

* \* – Only half points were awarded for race 3, as it was stopped after 50% race distance.

### **Rookies' cup**

**Notes:**

* \* – Only half points were awarded for race 3, as it was stopped after 50% race distance.