WTCC 2008 Off-season: News & Rumours

[Matt]

Originally Posted by PorscheFanNo1

I'll jump on that bandwagon!

Same with me!

[SEATFreak]

Originally Posted by JMeissner

Defending SEAT, are we?

No, course not! That was never my intention! No matter how much of a fan of the team I am.

If SEAT are doing something irregular then they should be made to pay the consequences.

I was just an innocent worry that's all that if we slap a ballast penalty on the diesels then it might set a trend where other types of cars might follow suit.

Polestar ran bio-diesel at Anderstorp.
A good team (not necessarily Polestar) decides to do a full debut WTC campaign running an engine in a car powered by bio-diesel. The bio-diesel engine proved every bit as efficient and competitive as SEAT's diesel and the success is a big factor in the team deciding to do a second year where it proved succesful enough again for the team to go for a third season.

Can you give a cast-iron guarantee that because of their success in their first two years, their wouldn't be calls from some quarters for the car to have a penalty ballast slapped on in the third year?

It seems success gives an unfair advantage on the others and it should have restrictions on it.

[Robbe]

Polestar ran a Bio-Ethanol car in Anderstorp.

Penalty weights for good cars, or less weight for old/bad cars are a big problem in WTCC anyway, and diesel cars made it only worse.

From a spectator's view, I'd love to see no diesels in WTCC. They sound so... ahm, they don't even have a sound...

[Stefvh]

They already are heavier than the non-diesel

[Sodemo]

Just slap another 20Kg on for the oil-burners.

Though perhaps a weight penalty might deter BMW from going down the smokey route?

[JMeissner]

As long as the turbo pressure is free I dont think it matters how much penalty weight they get.

[redshoes]

I'm with Johan on this one. For me it makes no difference if they use petrol, diesel, bio-ethanol or strawberry yoghurt. Whatever the weight penalty all SEAT have to do is wind the boost up to 11.

[Gil Abobeleira]

Bring back the Group C rules!

Engine-type is free of choise (has to have a minimum rum of 5.000 cars though), but has to have a mileage of 20 littres per 100 km!

May the best engine win!

[duke_toaster]

Originally Posted by Gil Abobeleira

May the best engine win!

Yes, let's jack up the costs and force out all the privateers, killing off touring car racing!

[Bramzel]

Originally Posted by Gil Abobeleira

Engine-type is free of choise (has to have a minimum rum of 5.000 cars though), but has to have a mileage of 20 littres per 100 km!

Make it 5L per 100km then so they will develop technology that will shut up the treehuggers and result in usefull developments for roadcar use. That's something that I miss in modern racing; because of tight rules it's no longer the wide platform to experiment with technology for roadcars it used to be. On the other hand, such loose regulations would definitely kill the sport again because the budgets would skyrocket.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by JMeissner

What I think its quite astonishing that diesels are allowed to run with free turbo pressure. In virtually all other classes where turbos are involved, diesel or petrol, they get a lot of weight compared to the N/A.

Not so in rally raid There you also only have an air restrictor for turbodiesel cars.

That seems to work quite fine because BMW and VW have not succeeded in beating Mitsubishi with their two-stage turbo diesel. Mitsubishi however acknowlegdes that diesels have an advantage, because they are developing their own diesel engine for next year.

[Alex K]

Geez. I can honestly say now that Nilsson was indeed right, TC is going in bad direction with technical rules...

[SEATFreak]

Originally Posted by Robbe

Penalty weights for good cars, or less weight for old/bad cars are a big problem in WTCC anyway, and diesel cars made it only worse.

How do you mean?

I got the sense certainly that the organisers of touring car championships try to equalise every car and seemingly have chosen to do this by taking away weight from old or bad cars to compensate for perhaps a lack of pace and add weight to strong cars who have quite a lot of it. Perhaps too much of it. But never did I imagine the situation to be this bad where everything has penalty ballast slapped on it.

[FIRE]

#	Driver	Class	Team	Car	Status
1	Andy Priaulx (GBR)		BMW Team UK (Racing Bart Mampaey)	BMW 320si	Confirmed
2	Jörg Müller (GER)		BMW Team Germany (Schnitzer Motorsport)	BMW 320si	Confirmed
3	Augusto Farfus (BRA)		BMW Team Germany (Schnitzer Motorsport)	BMW 320si	Confirmed
4	Alessandro Zanardi (ITA)		BMW Team Italy-Spain (ROAL Motorsport)	BMW 320si	Confirmed
5	Félix Porteiro (ESP)		BMW Team Italy-Spain (ROAL Motorsport)	BMW 320si	Confirmed
6	Alain Menu (SUI)		Chevrolet Racing (Ray Mallock Ltd)	Chevrolet Lacetti	Confirmed
7	Nicola Larini (ITA)		Chevrolet Racing (Ray Mallock Ltd)	Chevrolet Lacetti	Confirmed
8	TBA (Huff?)		Chevrolet Racing (Ray Mallock Ltd)	Chevrolet Lacetti	Confirmed
9	Gabriele Tarquini (ITA)		SEAT Sport (Oreca?)	SEAT León TDI	Confirmed
10	Yvan Muller (FRA)		SEAT Sport (Oreca?)	SEAT León TDI	Confirmed
11	Jordy Gené (ESP)		SEAT Sport	SEAT León TDI	Confirmed
12	Tiago Monteiro (POR)		SEAT Sport	SEAT León TDI	Confirmed
13	Rickard Rydell (SWE)		SEAT Sport	SEAT León TDI	Confirmed
14	Pierre-Yves Corthals (BEL)	I	Exagon Engineering	SEAT León	Confirmed
15	TBA	I	Racing for Belgium	TBA (SEAT León?)	Confirmed
16	Franz Engstler (GER)	I	Engstler Motorsport	BMW 320si	Confirmed
17	Andrej Romanov (RUS)	I	Engstler Motorsport	BMW 320si	Confirmed
18	Mikael Nykjær (DEN)	I	Poulsen Motorsport	BMW 320si	2 or 3 races
19	Kristian Poulsen (DEN)	I	Poulsen Motorsport	BMW 320si	2 or 3 races
20	Melvin Choo (SIN)	I	Melvin Choo	BMW 320si	JAP & MAC
21	James Thompson (GBR)		N.Technology	TBA (Honda Accord?)	Confirmed
	TBA (Tielemans?)		N.Technology	TBA (Honda Accord?)	Rumour
	TBA (Hernández?)	I	Proteam Motorsport	BMW 320si	Likely
	TBA	I	Proteam Motorsport	BMW 320si	Likely
	Tom Coronel (NED)		SEAT Team Holland (GR Asia?)	SEAT León	Likely
	TBA (Turkington?)		West Surrey Racing	BMW 320si	Unlikely
	TBA (Huisman?)		West Surrey Racing	BMW 320si	Unlikely
	TBA	I	Brazilian team	SEAT León	Rumour
	TBA	I	Brazilian team	SEAT León	Rumour
	TBA	I	Russian Bears Motorsport	BMW 320i	Rumour
	TBA	I	Russian Bears Motorsport	BMW 320i	Rumour

[Icebaby]

Is there any up to date news on James Thompson and which car he is driving for N technology, I understand there chasing a works Honda contract but If this fails will continue with the Alfa, is this where they are at the moment?

[wolfi_555]

Where is Wiechers Sport with the BMW 320si in the list?

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by Icebaby

Is there any up to date news on James Thompson and which car he is driving for N technology, I understand there chasing a works Honda contract but If this fails will continue with the Alfa, is this where they are at the moment?

Even if they get no factory support I expect they enter JAS Accords.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/64440

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by wolfi_555

Where is Wiechers Sport with the BMW 320si in the list?

I have put only drivers/teams in the list who are confirmed/rumoured in printed and online media.

I expect Wiechers will be back with at least one car. As a German do you have more news about Wiechers (or other German drivers/teams)?

[SEATFreak]

Originally Posted by FIRE

I have put only drivers/teams in the list who are confirmed/rumoured in printed and online media.

I expect Wiechers will be back with at least one car.

Could you have put Weichers and Stefano D'Aste down as 'likely'?

Speaking of which like Tom Coronel in 2006 will this mean Stefano will be competing for the Drivers Trophy this season?

[cos]

Chevrolet have confirmed their lineup - same as '07 (and 06, and 05 come to that)
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/64554

[Les]

phew - pleased about that. They (ok I really mean Rob) will hopefully have a great 2008

[Stefvh]

Good news.

[Valenok]

Once i've got a thought, that the best decision for tcc will be adopting of new S2000+ rally rules - AWD is equal for FWD and RWD cars, especially with standartized transmission, 2L turbo petrol or ethanol engine will be the single choice, and finally, same model's would run in both world champoinships

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by Valenok

Once i've got a thought, that the best decision for tcc will be adopting of new S2000+ rally rules - AWD is equal for FWD and RWD cars, especially with standartized transmission, 2L turbo petrol or ethanol engine will be the single choice, and finally, same model's would run in both world champoinships

S2000 rally uses a 2L NA engine, no turbo.

[Go_For_Pole]

Yes but there was a proposal to stick a compressor on S2000 cars and let them replace current WRC cars. Not surprisingly Prodrive and MSport are not thrilled to move away from regs that gave them monopoly on a strong customer base even if that meant more constructors for WRC.