Touring Car discussion - WTCC, BTCC etcTouring Cars

[Ardius]

First WTCC race (race 1) I've managed to catch live this year and I see that nothing has changed, if anything the series has got worse since I last watched it (2010). At least back in 2010 there was at least a close fight between the Chevrolets, Seats and BMWs - even if the BMWs were starting to lose out due to their age. Now its basically the same races but without the factory support and top drivers. It says it all really that people are relying on Tarquini to mount the serious challenge (if any!) to Chevrolet.
The only stories in that race were Coronel and Michelisz. Everyone else generally maintained position or fell back to where their car's pace should be (Nash, Thompson).

I don't think I'll be going out of my way to watch WTCC for a while still, the series really needs to sort itself out. I'm pretty sure I said something similar 2-3 years ago.

Sounds like race 2 was better but still...

 

[tribolik]

First WTCC race (race 1) I've managed to catch live this year and I see that nothing has changed, if anything the series has got worse since I last watched it (2010). At least back in 2010 there was at least a close fight between the Chevrolets, Seats and BMWs - even if the BMWs were starting to lose out due to their age. Now its basically the same races but without the factory support and top drivers. It says it all really that people are relying on Tarquini to mount the serious challenge (if any!) to Chevrolet.
The only stories in that race were Coronel and Michelisz. Everyone else generally maintained position or fell back to where their car's pace should be (Nash, Thompson).

I don't think I'll be going out of my way to watch WTCC for a while still, the series really needs to sort itself out. I'm pretty sure I said something similar 2-3 years ago.

Sounds like race 2 was better but still...

Same here... Ive lost all interest in this series

 

[Prince.M5]

The only person that can really challenge the Chevrolet is.... None. Seriously, none!

Neither Tarquini nor Coronel can do anything about the Chevrolets. I don't know what else to comment about the Chevrolet but I'm watching this series, as I said because I am supporting a number of BMWs. I will do my best to forget the first three places because mostly they will be filled by the three Chevy boys and I'll only concentrate on 4th place and below.

Another problem I'm seeing this weekend is, there's no reason for the Yokohama Trophy drivers to just give an easy pass to the Chevys! An example has been shown by Engstler who gave a place to one of the Chevy as if he was lapped! If this keeps on happening, the Chevys will just go on for a relaxing Sunday evening drive and not racing. Seriously though, this is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[RX-7_FD3S]

Not so bad week-end for Menu, I'm quite happy. Also cool for Michelisz, he finaly ended his bad luck. I didnt know he came in Touring Car with console gaming, that's pretty cool too

 

[Prince.M5]

I didnt know he came in Touring Car with console gaming, that's pretty cool too

I don't know if he played console games but he did play online PC racing games like GP Legends and GTR. He won both of the games online and he topped the Hungarian online racing leaderboard which made the Zengo Team interested with him. They gave him a test drive and here he is now.

 

[Prince.M5]

It was a good race in Salzburgring yesterday. Race 1 was boring as hell as you know, the Chevys.. 1...2...3...

The second race was very good and the BMWs of D'Aste and Coronel put on a whole lot of pressure on all 3 Chevrolets. The first casualty of tyre failure was Alain Menu, then on the last lap, Yvan Muller.

It was a very dangerous move by Rob defending his position from Coronel when his tyre was already punctured. I'm not impressed by that, something bad could've happened!

Congratulations to D'Aste for his first WTCC win ever after years and years of trying. Love that guy's racing suit

 

[Ardius]

Eh, race 2 was only good because the Chevy's suffered punctures (and bizarrely no safety car was called!). Before that it was just watching them dominate the field. Its sad really to hear Coronel & Co get talked up like they have a chance of winning and within 3-4 laps the Chevrolets have already come from 10th to taking the lead.

Martin Haven (though he is a bit of twit anyway) doesn't help by constantly talking down everyones chances, everytime Matt Neal tried to build up the interest by talking up someones chances, Martin would shoot it down with "no, theres no chance, Chevrolet win blah blah", "no BMW tyres don't work till too late to win". I don't need the commentator himself reminding me how much of a joke these races are! If it was Murray Walker or Ben Edwards or any decent commentator, they'd talk the race up and make it seem more exciting. Not talk down everyones chances.

Bad track for touring cars too - flat out all the time and no places to really pass even for them.

Does anyone else feel that its strange to hear the American anthem for Chevrolet when pretty much no one involved with the team is American? Its just kind of funny to watch the podium with a national anthem played that nobody there has any connection to.

 

[Prince.M5]

Does anyone else feel that its strange to hear the American anthem for Chevrolet when pretty much no one involved with the team is American? Its just kind of funny to watch the podium with a national anthem played that nobody there has any connection to.

Strange and funny. In fact, the Cruze itself wasn't engineered and designed by Americans anyway

 

[RX-7_FD3S]

What a stupid track honestly, I dont get it, we got so many good tracks in europe and they go to tracks like that which got 0 interest at all. I just dont get it. I'm happy for D'aste it was a well made pass, I dont really like how Huff blocked Coronel tho.

And what a disapointing week-end from Menu, first he gave pole position and 2nd place to Muller and Huff, then he did 2 pretty bad races. What a shame.

 

[Prince.M5]

...I dont really like how Huff blocked Coronel tho.

The track simply doesn't suit a touring car at all. True though, out of many tracks in Europe they have that but it's not entirely their fault. To come to a certain track, there needs to be an interest in behalf of the track management too otherwise, nada...

I've questioned Huff's block on Coronel a little up there but the block made by Huff was extremely dangerous. There could've been a massive accident considering that he was defending his position (even on the straight) with a flat tyre! The FIA should have a look into that but I'm disappointed that they made no action on that dangerous move.

 

[Prince.M5]

I think all the stewards for WTCC should be fired altogether. I don't understand why Huff didn't get a penalty for spinning Tarquini around?

Also, Huff put Monteiro sideways and also no penalty? At least a black and white flag?

Given that any BMW drivers in the place of Huff, they could've got a balck flag instead. This is seriously becoming a cheap joke...

 

[Rossell2]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100908

O_O

 

[matt-mtb]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100908

O_O

WOW wasn't expecting that.

 

[Prince.M5]

One good thing that we can get from this is that the streak of Chevy domination might end. The bad thing is, after this there might be no more full manufacturer team until we see another one in the future.

Seriously, I thought they were planning until at least 2014. Definitely never expect that to come out...

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The bad thing is, after this there might be no more full manufacturer team until we see another one in the future.

Is a grid full of independent teams really such a bad thing?

Honestly, the WTCC is broken. The organisers have announced that the UK is "unlikely" to return to the calendar as the series tries to get races going in India, Russia and Argentina. When I read that, my first thought was "well, that's the WTCC's loss", rather than "well, that's British motorsport's loss".

Right now, there are four domestic touring car series - V8 Supercars, the BTCC, SuperGT and DTM - that are all better than the WTCC. The WTCC needs a serious overhaul, starting with the race lengths (the support series races are longer than the WTCC races, which makes the category a joke) and going from there.

 

[Ardius]

^Race lengths are fine. Increase the number of races per weekend instead. I like the contrast of touring cars featuring shorter races, we have plenty of race series out there which are medium length races.
Once you start needing pit stops, I personally think that at that point the races are too long for these cars.

BTCC also has short race lengths and has a philosophy of sticking to short tracks - the idea being that because the number of laps increase for smaller tracks, the spectators get to see more of the cars than at a bigger track.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I like the contrast of touring cars featuring shorter races, we have plenty of race series out there which are medium length races.
Once you start needing pit stops, I personally think that at that point the races are too long for these cars.

I'm sure the series organisers could lengthen the races enough to give the drivers more opporunity for racing without requiring a pit stop. Races are currently run to the first lap over 50km; perhaps that number could be increased to as much as 100km without the need for a stop.

BTCC also has short race lengths and has a philosophy of sticking to short tracks - the idea being that because the number of laps increase for smaller tracks, the spectators get to see more of the cars than at a bigger track.

Then perhaps the series also needs to reasses which circuits they use. Some, like Suzuka and Monza, are simply too long for the category. I'm sure they could find some better-suited and more-interesting circuits if they looked hard enough - like Sugo instead of Suzuka, or Misano instead of Monza.

 

[Prince.M5]

Is a grid full of independent teams really such a bad thing?

When there's not even at least one full manufacturer team on the grid, how can they gain others interest to join the series when there is no competition from other brands? That's just how I understand it. Unless, one manufacturer is going on the Chevy way of being the only one and dominate everything.

I'm sure the series organisers could lengthen the races enough to give the drivers more opporunity for racing without requiring a pit stop. Races are currently run to the first lap over 50km; perhaps that number could be increased to as much as 100km without the need for a stop.

Raising it up to 100km is a problem, unless they can somehow provide a tyre that could last that long for a FWD car. But the introduction means there could be more problem for the BMW because the new tyre to favour the FWD car might be too easy for the BMW's RWD and that they will struggle so badly as a result of the RWD easy nature to the tyres.

My suggestion is to keep it as it is, but add another race. Much like how the BTCC is nowadays.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Why is it so important that manufacturers have a presence in the category? There is one manufacturer in the WTCC, and they are dominating the championship. No manufacturers is better than one manufacturer, but at least when there are no manuacturer teams, everyone has a chance to compete.

 

[Prince.M5]

Why is it so important that manufacturers have a presence in the category? There is one manufacturer in the WTCC, and they are dominating the championship. No manufacturers is better than one manufacturer, but at least when there are no manuacturer teams, everyone has a chance to compete.

The way you're saying is as if I've never watched the WTCC before...

You're right, it's better having none than one dominating and that everyone has a chance to compete.

But what's the point of the Yokohama Trophy anyway? That's the point of why we're having the manufacturers and independent to race together. I just take that when there are at least 4 manufacturers, with each running 2 cars, well I won't expect all 8 cars to be far too superior than the independent cars but there might be some competition still. Leaving it all to be done by the independent is also risky because not many of them have a lot of cash to stay on racing and when one of them falls into the black hole, many will follow. We could also see the demise of the WTCC all in all!

 

[matt-mtb]

I do agree that WTCC needs a overhaul. They should stop racing on grand pix circuits.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Robb Holland will become the first American to compete in the BTCC in nearly forty years:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/101145

It's believed the last American driver in the series was Bill Gubelmann in 1975, but even the author of the article seems unsure of that.

 

[matt-mtb]

Good luck to him, looking through his history, he seems competent

 

[Ardius]

Robb has posted on the btcc.net forum too, explaining his background for those of us who don't/can't follow US touring series:

Hello all. Robb Holland here. Tony G. pointed me over to this site so I though I'd drop in and say hello... which I just did.

Not surprised that I'm not well known outside the US as almost all my racing to date has been strictly in the US and mainly in Touring Car (actually I'm curious if any US touring car drivers are known outside the US). In the past I have driven for factory supported teams from both Dodge and Honda.

Last year I drove for K-PAX Racing which ran the factory Volvo program in the Pirelli World Challenge series. After some early season teething issues with the cars, I finished in 3rd place overall (Volvo was 2nd in the Manufacturers Championship) with a win and several podiums and a track record at Mid Ohio. This year Volvo decided to focus on the S60 as their racing platform and that unfortunately ended the Touring Car program. Currently without a full time ride, I had been bouncing around to several teams, some competitive and some not, when the opportunity with Team HARD came up. I'm supported by HPD (Honda Performance Development), Oakley, and Optima Batteries with some additional sponsors to be named at a later date.

In addition to the driving, I also write for several prominent websites. The most known (at least in the US) is Jalopnik. I'm also on Twitter (robbholland3) and Facebook.

I'm in the Civic for the next two rounds for sure and we'll see how looks after that.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to meet all of you at the races at some point this season.

Cheers

He will be the first non-British Isles (careful wording there ) driver since Giovanardi in 2010.

Rumours are that Gilham will still drive a second car but thats likely to be an S2000 Vauxhall Vectra rather than another S2000 Civic as thats currently over in the STCC.

Will be fun to see a foreign driver again mixing it up, hope this brings some American fans on board too. 👍

 

[hornet_burnout]

@Drive video on BTCC + Robb interview:

 

[Ardius]

^Nice, seems a cool guy and its good to hear he's planning on a 2013 season. 👍

Its also great that he's presumably bringing a bit of cash to Tony Gilham as he thoroughly deserves to keep going.

Judging by his experience I'm going to guess one top 10 is not completely out of the question. I think as long as he is around roughly Andy Neate/Aron Smith/Jeff Smith laptimes he's doing pretty damn good. Depends how competitive the old Civic can be really as Gilham has struggled to get it much higher into the top 10.

If he can get a top 10 in race 2 and get in the draw for the reverse grid he could on to a special weekend. Which is what is so great about BTCC's format - drivers who don't always get a chance to run at the front can work their way to a win if they play their cards right.
Its going to be tough though as the midfield of BTCC is pretty tight at the moment.

 

[homeforsummer]

I'm looking forward to seeing him race. Seems like a decent chap too, and has a realistic idea of just how tough and rough the racing is. Wise, since I doubt the regulars will cut him any slack, particularly as he'll likely be in the back half of the field at first.

Given how quick some of this year's NGTC-spec are I'm not sure how well he'll really be able to do, but he'll have my support as the underdog anyway. I've always liked the concept of an outsider competing and an American is overdue in the BTCC. Also good to see him want to commit to the 2013 season too.

 

[matt-mtb]

Yep sounds good, the news about seat returning to wtcc as a full world team and backing a privateer for NGTC regs sounds exciting

 

[prisonermonkeys]

With Chevrolet backing out of the WTCC in 2013, Rob Huff is talking up the idea of a full-time drive in V8 Supercars.

 

[Mac K]

WTCC is on Speed now from Infineon/Sonoma. I don't believe it's live, but it did happen some time today.