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results. Sure, in the past Alfa Romeo, BMW and SEAT have dominated various eras, but usually they have battled against each other. This year, with the majority of factory teams gone
Exit logic, stage leſt T
he World Touring Car Championship has been going strong for six years but, in 2011, it faces its toughest challenge yet, with a single manufacturer, Chevrolet, dominating the
and competition coming from privately-funded teams, a scan through the results does not make for good reading. Unless you are a Chevrolet fan. The RML- prepared Chevrolet Cruze has won 13 of the first 14 races, and set new records as Rob Huff and Yvan Muller won twice in a single weekend (at Monza and Donington respectively). On paper, it looks as though Chevrolet has taken a sledgehammer to crack a nut but, in truth, Ray Mallock’s team started work on its version of the Global Race Engine (GRE) months before anyone else, and have consequently stolen the march by some margin. Other manufacturers have now moved to the 2.0-litre, four-cylinder engine formula, but their delay was entirely unnecessary. Like everything logical in racing, things got
what should have
been a sensible, logical step has backfired
engines, and the common harmony evaporated. The WTCC was facing its own problems anyway.
BMW left as a factory team to concentrate on endurance racing and then DTM, SEAT ceased its manufacturer involvement, Honda never committed, and the other Japanese manufacturers, targeted by organiser Marcello Lotti with a race in Okayama, never materialised. What should have been a sensible, logical step has backfired. The WTCC now needs to convince manufacturers to build cars to its regulations and, judging by the paddock visitors in Donington, it seems to be on the right track. Volvo is going through the homologation process with the C30 and will run a full factory team next year. Ford’s Jost Capito, the director of global performance vehicles and motorsport business development, was an interested observer at Donington mid-July, and many expect the manufacturer to commit for 2013. Lotti has followed the
same formula to attract Ford
complicated. The WTCC had a fantastic formula – Super 2000 – which united race series around the world. The World Championship had the newest cars, the factory teams and the star drivers, while the national series had a steady supply of customer cars. The Intercontinental Rally Challenge also ran to Super 2000 regulations, and so the technology could be shared in different disciplines. It was simple, brilliant, and it worked. When the Global Race Engine concept was announced, it made even more sense. A manufacturer could produce an engine that would serve as a basis for any number of racing programmes, including the WRC and, if the concept was adopted as planned, Formula 3, IndyCar and even Formula 1. Sadly, the GRE didn’t work as planned, and only the
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WRC and WTCC share the engine architecture. Other Touring Car series decided to follow their own route on
as he did with the Japanese, and pencilled in a race at Sears Point, or the Infineon Raceway as it is officially called these days, next September. It is the right track for the WTCC cars anyway, and it will be interesting to see who else responds to this open invitation. BMW and SEAT continue to support their customer teams, but are both reaching a point where they need to make decisions. In September, BMW will decide whether or not to homologate the new 3-series for sale to its private teams, but with a DTM programme sucking up time, money and effort, it remains to be seen whether it has the capacity to do so. The SEAT Leon is also getting long in the tooth, though in Gabriele Tarquini’s hands it is the only car to have broken Chevrolet’s dominance this season. Whether the appetite or the finance is there to produce a new car has yet to be seen. For now, though, the series is concentrating on Volvo for 2012 and Ford in 2013, and hoping logic will prevail for others.
EDITOR Andrew Cotton
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www.racecar-engineering.com • September 2011 August 2008
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