March 5, 2007Print this page
Next weekend, the 2007 World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) will kick off in Curitiba, Brazil. There will be plenty of new faces, new tracks and new rules for the teams to get under their belts. One of the novelties will be the rolling start for the first of the weekend’s two races, thus doing away with the relative advantage rear wheel drive cars had at standing starts. For the second race the standing start and the inverted grid remain as before.
There will also be new tracks to be sampled and learned. Former F1 tracks Anderstorp (Sweden) and Zandvoort (Holland) replace Istanbul (Turkey) and Puebla (Mexico) respectively, while Porto (Portugal) and Pau (France) are new venues.
In order to keep the momentum, Chevrolet is the only one of the works teams to keep the same drivers (Alain Menu, Rob Huff and Nicola Larini) for the third year in succession, something which not only guarantees the continuity within the team, but is also a sign of confidence in the cars and team by the drivers.
“I’m really looking forward to Curitiba. I had a good car there last year and with all the improvements we’ve made over winter we should be at the sharp end of the field. We ran quick and reliable all winter so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t continue to do so in Brazil, even if we still have to introduce some new parts when we’re back in Europe. The rolling start will be the biggest change for us, drivers. It takes away the pressure of a standing start, but at the same time it adds some pressure because we will all be going into the first corner at a considerably higher speed,” said Rob Huff.
Friday, 9 March 2007
19:30 – 20:00 Testing
Saturday, 10 March 2007
13:00 – 13:30 Free Practice 1
16:00 – 16:30 Free Practice 2
19:00 – 19:30 Qualifying
Sunday, 11 March 2007
13:00 – 13:15 Warm up
16:20 – 16:45 Race 1 (14 laps=51.730kms) (Rolling start)
19:20 – 19:45 Race 2 (14 laps=51.730kms) (Standing start)
The races will be broadcasted live on Eurosport.
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chevrolet
There will also be new tracks to be sampled and learned. Former F1 tracks Anderstorp (Sweden) and Zandvoort (Holland) replace Istanbul (Turkey) and Puebla (Mexico) respectively, while Porto (Portugal) and Pau (France) are new venues.
In order to keep the momentum, Chevrolet is the only one of the works teams to keep the same drivers (Alain Menu, Rob Huff and Nicola Larini) for the third year in succession, something which not only guarantees the continuity within the team, but is also a sign of confidence in the cars and team by the drivers.
“I’m really looking forward to Curitiba. I had a good car there last year and with all the improvements we’ve made over winter we should be at the sharp end of the field. We ran quick and reliable all winter so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t continue to do so in Brazil, even if we still have to introduce some new parts when we’re back in Europe. The rolling start will be the biggest change for us, drivers. It takes away the pressure of a standing start, but at the same time it adds some pressure because we will all be going into the first corner at a considerably higher speed,” said Rob Huff.
CURITIBA RACE SCHEDULE (CET)
Friday, 9 March 2007
19:30 – 20:00 Testing
Saturday, 10 March 2007
13:00 – 13:30 Free Practice 1
16:00 – 16:30 Free Practice 2
19:00 – 19:30 Qualifying
Sunday, 11 March 2007
13:00 – 13:15 Warm up
16:20 – 16:45 Race 1 (14 laps=51.730kms) (Rolling start)
19:20 – 19:45 Race 2 (14 laps=51.730kms) (Standing start)
The races will be broadcasted live on Eurosport.
gmeurope chevrolet
That's a terrific beast. Any plans of launching such high end vehicles in the Indian market?