Geely’s maiden FIA TCR outing ends in historic triumph
GEELY has won its first ever race in the top-tier FIA TCR World Tour and achieved the victory in just the first round in its first ever season.
Chinese racing driver Ma Qinghua was the hotshoe behind the wheel of the Geely Preface TCR that took the chequered flag ahead of the field.
Victory came in Race 2 of Round 1 of the 2026 TCR World Tour that was held at Italy’s Misano circuit. Running on the reverse grid format from Race 1 the day before, Ma started in third before diving into second at the first corner of Lap 1. He then took the lead, keeping the rest of the field behind to win the 15-lap race.
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The win was the cherry on top as Geely took third in Race 2, following its first ever podium in Race 1 the day before. Geely’s race programme is managed by Swedish racing firm Cyan Racing. The outfit was founded as Polestar Racing to run Volvo racing programmes and is now the official motorsport partner of Geely Group Motorsport.
Prior to this, Cyan Racing was running Geely’s sub-brand Lynk & Co cars in the TCR World Tour before principle Geely stepped in and announced its participation at the end of last year.
Cyan Racing’s participation with Lynk & Co saw them win six world championships in the manufacturer category and three world championships in the driver’s category.
Now the outfit runs the new Geely Preface TCR, which is distantly related to the Lynk & Co 03 TCR as both are underpinned by Volvo’s CMA platform.
Road-going versions of both cars are powered by Volvo’s 2.0-litre fourcylinder turbo Drive-E engine and the manufacturer of the engine, Sweden’s Aurobay, was acquired by Horse Powertrain, of which Geely owns a stake i0n.
TCR World Tour race cars are highly modified, front-wheel-drive production-based touring cars that must be based on the same bodyshell and 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo engine as the production road cars.
Output is closely regulated to approximately 340PS with strict Balance of Performance (BoP) implementation for door-to-door racing.
Other cars in the series include the likes of the Honda Civic Type-R, Hyundai Elantra N and Cupra Leon VZ.
