{"id":343465,"date":"2023-11-01T23:36:34","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T00:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=343465"},"modified":"2023-11-02T04:02:26","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T04:02:26","slug":"race-winners-season-on-verge-of-financial-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=343465","title":{"rendered":"Race winner&#039;s season on verge of financial collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Far from the glitz and glamour of Formula 1, there are family-run racing teams just trying to make ends meet.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/speedseries\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"TCR Australia Series\">TCR Australia Series<\/a> up-and-comer Michael Clemente is one of those privateer drivers reliant on sponsorship dollars to race.<\/p>\n<p>The fan favourite has been a force in 2023, twice winning at Phillip Island and Winton earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Stan Sport is the only place to watch every second of the 2023 SpeedSeries.<\/strong><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/9.nine.com.au\/DnH61N\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>All the action streaming ad-free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>However, his season is on the verge of collapse after coming up short on dollars.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"e551871d-44b8-4e32-9e93-1fcbecd408f6\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/e551871d-44b8-4e32-9e93-1fcbecd408f6\" alt=\"Michael Clemente races the Carl Cox Motorsport-back Cupra in the TCR Australia Series.\" data-width=\"6006\" data-height=\"4004\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Cupra pilot confirmed via social media that he&#x27;ll not contest the forthcoming night races at Sydney Motorsport Park on Friday and Saturday owing to a funding shortfall.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Unfortunately we won&#x27;t be able to make this weekend&#x27;s TCR Australia round at Sydney,&quot; he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We&#x27;ve done absolutely everything we could to try and put together the funds to make it there but ultimately there just wasn&#x27;t enough left in the kitty.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s a massive shame to miss such an incredible opportunity to race against the internationals, something I&#x27;ve been looking forward to all year and have been super focused on, as well it being a track that I thought would suit our Cupra perfectly.&quot;<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"021471e0-e50a-4d4f-8c6a-56aae30021ac\" src=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/021471e0-e50a-4d4f-8c6a-56aae30021ac-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Michael Clemente celebrates wit his family.\" data-width=\"3000\" data-height=\"2000\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There is still hope Clemente will raise enough dough to get to the season finale a week later at Mount Panorama for the three-day Bathurst International on November 10-12.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We&#x27;re still working nonstop to attend the final round at Bathurst, where hopefully we can put in a strong performance against the world&#x27;s best,&quot; Clemente concluded.<\/p>\n<p>Although Clemente will be absent, there will still be a bumper 25-car grid at Sydney Motorsport Park for back-to-back nights of racing.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Catch race one of the TCR World Tour and National Trans Am Series<\/strong><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/stream.9now.com.au\" title=\"live and free-to-air on 9Gem and 9Now\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>live and free-to-air on 9Gem and 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a> <em><strong>from 2pm on November 4.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Of those 25 cars, 10 of them will feature international drivers as part of the TCR World Tour.<\/p>\n<p>World Touring Car Cup champions Norbert Michelisz (2019) of Hungary, Frenchman Yann Ehrlacher (2020, 2021), and Spaniard Mikel Azcona (2022) will form part of that grid.<\/p>\n<p>The international contingent is completed by Jimmy Clairet (France), Thed Bjork (Sweden), Santiago Urrutia (Uruguay), Frederic Vervisch (Belgium), Nestor Girolami (Argentina), Ma Qing Hua (China), and Rob Huff (United Kingdom).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportAU\/status\/1719859387626377590\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"embed-social embed-twitter\" data-show-caption=\"false\" data-conversation=\"none\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportAU\/status\/1719859387626377590<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Stan Sport will have all the action from the penultimate SpeedSeries event at Sydney Motorsport Park from 5pm AEDT on Friday and 2pm on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Live free-to-air coverage will be on 9Gem and 9Now from 2pm to 5pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Far from the glitz and glamour of Formula 1, there are family-run racing teams just trying to make ends meet. TCR Australia Series up-and-comer Michael <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=343465\" title=\"Race winner&#039;s season on verge of financial collapse\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":343467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343465"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343473,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343465\/revisions\/343473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/343467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}