By Mick Palmer

TCR UK veteran Darelle Wilson has announced that he and his stalwart DW Racing outfit will return to compete in the category for a sixth consecutive season.

With double champion Lewis Kent stepping back from the championship Wilson remains as the only original driver remaining in the series since its launch at Silverstone in 2018.

Once again Wilson will be campaigning his Vauxhall Astra. The ‘Green Mean Machine’ has become a recognisable emblem of TCR racing in the UK thanks to the stand out colour that it has run with for the last five seasons.

“I’m excited to get back in the car and to show that we’ve moved on from last season, where as a team, we struggled with several issues on the car,” he stated. “The extra support from my sponsors is also a boost as this means we can put more resources into our 2023 season.”

Aalco returns as a primary supporter again for Wilson, but could there be a change in the air? At the Snetterton pre-season test Wilson did tease that there could be a change in livery on the horizon, but whether or not that was a  red (or green) herring will be revealed at the TCR UK Media Day at Donington Park on March 28^th.

The arrival of many new generation TCR machines in the UK will likely see drivers of older machinery trying to take advantage of the knowledge bank they have with cars that have trodden the TCR path for the last few years, but none have the levels of experience that Wilson carries.

“The championship has moved on so much since I competed in the first season back in 2018,” he said, “and to see the arrival of the new driver’s teams and second-generation cars is great. However, I know I can extract the best out of the Astra and I look forward to a better 2023 season in TCR UK.”

Wilson will be hoping to add to his Castle Combe win from 2021 this term as the team has managed to develop their way beyond a series of gearbox problems that stymied their 2022 campaign. Early season testing went well, and has placed DW Racing into a more competitive position for the upcoming season. The growing confidence around the team has allowed them to make the move to take onboard a second Astra, with a hope to run as a two car team for the first time.