Race Incident » WTCC

Safety car unsafe at Pau

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:30:12 +0000

The second World Touring Car Championship race at Pau turned out to be eventful. The pre-race bickering about turbo pressures, rev-limits and disqualifications got overshadowed by total carnage on the lovely streets of Pau.

After a couple of wrecks on the first lap the safety car turned out of the pitlane to race leader Franz Engstler’s big surprise who were storming down the long straight and into the quick right-hander only to have a safety-car right in the middle of the street.

The incident is under investigation. According to Dutch TV Channel RTL the safety car had never been given the green light to come out on track and was only in stand-by-mode. (Touring Car Times)

The mayhem of the first laps can be viewed here:

Boardman lands WTCC SEAT Leon drive

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:04:47 +0000

The 2008 Spanish SEAT Leon Supercopa champion Tom Boardman has signed for the 2009 World Touring Car Championship with the Spanish team SUNRED Engineering Development. He will run a petrol-fuelled SEAT Leon and will have the experienced Tom Coronel as team mate.

Boardman ran two WTCC races for SUNRED at Estoril, a prize for winning the European Supercopa race at Pau. The 25 year old British driver made his racing debut in the T Cars championship in 1999 and became champion after winning seven of eight races. He then joined the British Touring Car Championship’s Production class in 2001 where he raced three seasons until moving to the British SEAT Cupra championship in 2004. After winning that championship in 2005 he moved to the Spanish championship in 2006.

In the press release Tom comments on his coming WTCC season:

“It all feels like a bit of a dream at the moment – I feel like the luckiest man alive. Racing in the WTCC has been my aim for some time now, and I feel my time has come to show everyone what I’m capable of.”

“Tom Coronel did really well in the SUNRED Leon last year, and even won the second WTCC race in Japan outright. I think together we’ll make a very strong team and be able to challenge for the Independents’ titles in both the teams’ and drivers’ categories.”

“I’ve raced at half of the circuits already and it will be fun to go to new places like Brazil, Mexico, Morocco, Japan and Macau. I can learn a new circuit very quickly. As soon as I arrive somewhere new I go for a jog around the track and that helps me learn the layout, so racing for the first time at these new tracks won’t be such a disadvantage.”

Formula 1 style qualifying in WTCC for 2009

admin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:10:49 +0000

The FIA World Touring Car Championship will change its qualifying system in 2009 to something along the lines for the F1 way of doing things. There will be a 30 minute session split into two part: Q1 and Q2. All competitors will take part in the twenty minute Q1 part and at the end of that session all cars will reutn to the pits for a five minute break. Only the drivers with the ten fastest laps in Q1 will qualify for Q2. Q2 will be a ten minute session and the fastest laps determine the first ten places on the grid. Places 11 and down will be determined by the fastest lap times set in Q1.

Q1 and Q2 will be extended to 30 and 15 minutes respectively on street circuits.

The grid for the second race of the event will work just like before; top eight reversed from the first race’s results.

Eng gets F1 prize at the World Finals

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:47:25 +0000

Last year Philipp Eng won the Formula BMW World Final. The prize for the win is a test with the BMW Sauber Formula 1 team. The 18 year old Austrian will now claim his prize during the 2008 Formula BMW World Final at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City this weekend. Eng has this season run in both the German F3 championship as well as the inaugural European Formula BMW championship.

Also behind the wheel of the BMW Sauber F1.08 will be Robert Kubica and Augusto Farfus. Augusto Farfus, works driver for the BMW WTCC team will make his second appearance in a Formula 1 car. Farfus went down the Touring Car road after he winning both the European Formula Renault and the Euro 3000 single seater championships.

Photos of the new WTCC Chevrolet Cruze

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:55:01 +0000

Chevrolet will dump the Chevrolet Lacetti model in favour of the new Chevrolet Cruze for their 2009 WTCC campaign.

Here are some photos of the new S2000 car:

It’s looking quite good, isn’t it?