Lynk & Co is an automotive brand jointly owned by Geely and Volvo, positioned as a global connected-car brand. Cyan Racing, headquartered in Sweden, had previously developed championship-winning touring cars for Volvo, including the car that secured the World Touring Car Championship title in 2017, and the close corporate ties between Cyan, Volvo, and the broader Geely group made the partnership a natural progression. The 03 TCR was developed at Cyan's facilities in Changzhou, China, reflecting the brand's dual European and Chinese identity.
The road car foundation, the Lynk & Co 03, is a front-wheel-drive compact sedan sharing platform architecture with the Volvo family of vehicles. Cyan Racing adapted it into a full TCR-specification race car, incorporating a roll cage, aerodynamic bodywork, a racing suspension setup, and the safety and technical equipment mandated by the TCR homologation process.
Development work began in earnest through 2018. In October of that year it was confirmed that the 03 TCR would enter the World Touring Car Cup for the 2019 season, marking the first time a Chinese automotive brand would take part in an FIA world championship. Testing began in November 2018, with Swedish touring car specialist Thed Björk conducting initial shakedown runs at venues in Sweden and Portugal, validating the car's setup and providing development feedback ahead of its championship campaign.
For the 2019 WTCR season Cyan Racing concentrated all its competitive resources exclusively on the series, fielding the 03 TCR as its sole racing programme.
In September 2019 Cyan Racing announced that customer teams would be able to purchase the 03 TCR for use in national and regional TCR series, opening the car to a wider competitive audience beyond the works effort. The decision mirrored the customer-racing model widely adopted by manufacturers competing in the TCR framework.
By 2020, Chinese squad Shell Teamwork had acquired 03 TCR cars for competition in the TCR China Touring Car Championship, bringing the model back to the brand's home market. In 2021 the Swedish operation MA:GP purchased vehicles for the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, adding a further domestic competition for the car in one of its development territories. That same year the 03 TCR made its debut in the newly formed TCR South America Touring Car Championship, extending the car's reach across a third continent.
Also in 2021, Lynk & Co released a road-going special edition called the Lynk & Co 03+ Cyan Edition, a street car inspired by the racing programme's success and carrying Cyan Racing's visual identity, acknowledging the brand recognition built through motorsport.
Despite strong competitive results, the programme with Cyan Racing ended abruptly in 2022. Cyan withdrew all five of its entered cars from the FIA WTCR Race of Italy, citing safety concerns about the Goodyear tyres specified as the mandatory control tyre for the series. The team raised the issue publicly, stating that it could not guarantee driver safety with the tyre compound under certain conditions encountered at the event. The withdrawal escalated into a full departure: in August 2022 Cyan Racing and the Lynk & Co team officially pulled out of the WTCR entirely, ending the factory programme in the world championship for the same stated reason of tyre safety.
The Lynk & Co 03 TCR's significance extends beyond race results. Its entry into the WTCR in 2019 was a milestone for Chinese automotive manufacturers in international motorsport, marking the first time a brand from China competed under its own name at FIA world championship level in touring cars. The car's subsequent spread to national series on three continents demonstrated that the model had genuine competitive appeal in the customer racing market. The controversy surrounding the 2022 WTCR withdrawal drew attention to tyre safety governance within the TCR framework and highlighted the weight that a leading manufacturer team carries when raising technical concerns formally.