What happened to…the Ford Focus TCR

This is the story of the Ford Focus TCR: how it came to be; why it became one of the first TCR project to be scrapped, and also its origins, which are partly in a TC1-specification WTCC car that never got off the drawing board.

First, let’s wind back to where it started, and that’s at the end of something else — the collapse of an earlier WTCC project, the Ford Focus S2000 TC and Arena Motorsport.

Arena was a British-based car builder which had joined the 2012 WTCC season, with its new Focus raced by drivers Tom Chilton, and James Nash.

Arena themselves had just left the BTCC after arguably one of the most heated seasons in the championship’s history, which was due a tumultuous season of regulation parity.

2011, with full Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC)-spec 2.0 turbocharged cars, some cars with 2.0 turbo engines in existing Super 2000 cars, or just Super 2000 cars with their original normally aspirated engines, not to mention both front and rear-wheel drive, was one of the most intense seasons in terms of parity tweaks, and arguing, and even threats of legal action.

While BTCC eventually got the mix right in the end, a few teams decided the FIA-governed landscape of WTCC would be a fairer playing field for 2012, and Arena Motorsport was the biggest team to make the move, having…