Josh Buchan’s three weekend campaign in the 2025 Kumho FIA TCR World Tour was a late change, and the two-time TCR Australia champion is overjoyed with his and HMO Customer Racing’s performance that resulted in two race wins.
“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.”
Buchan ended the year winning in Macau, the first Australian to be awarded the Macau Guia Race title.
“I certainly wasn’t the fastest, but I was quick enough to do the job. Starting on pole, I was never giving that up. 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 (Björk), Yann (Ehrlacher), Bebu (Girolami), they have 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.”
Picture: WSC/Jun Qian Motorsport
