2007 World Touring Car Championship
- Thread starter Bram Hengeveld
- Start date
New Car In Wtcc - Toyota Corolla
www.fiawtcc.com reports:
Philip Geipel and his TFS-Yaco Racing Toyota Corolla T-Sport will take part in this weekend’s fifth FIA WTCC race meeting at Brno, Czech Republic.
This is the second appearance in the series for the 21-year old German driver, who made his World Championship debut last year in Brno.
Geipel was classified 7th in the Independents' Trophy in last year's Race 1, but did not finish in the second race.
www.fiawtcc.com reports:
Philip Geipel and his TFS-Yaco Racing Toyota Corolla T-Sport will take part in this weekend’s fifth FIA WTCC race meeting at Brno, Czech Republic.
This is the second appearance in the series for the 21-year old German driver, who made his World Championship debut last year in Brno.
Geipel was classified 7th in the Independents' Trophy in last year's Race 1, but did not finish in the second race.
Yoeri Gijsen
Premium
A Short History of the World Touring Car Championship
Twice is the Charm
A short history of the World Touring Car Championship
By: Yoeri Gijsen
Sources: www.touringcarracing.net and Wikipedia
After Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship the World Touring Car Championship is considered the 3rd most important championship backed by the FIA. It is in fact a relatively new championship, especially when they are compared with the F1 and the WRC which both have quite a long road behind them. WTCC goes back to 1987, so it goes back quite a long time for a ‘new’ championship. But its youthfulness is not displayed by its starting year; rather it is displayed by its season count. That count is currently on four, as WTCC is only running its fourth official season. So, no great and glorious past to hang on to for the WTCC. Or is it?
The 1987 trip was a one-time adventure of the FIA. WTCC was supposed to be the counterpart of ETCC, a championship that did have history. But instead it was a farce. The WTCC started off as a promising championship in which many works teams would participate. However due to high entry fees (ten times that of the ETCC) a lot of team didn’t even start, causing only fifteen cars to enter the first race. Furthermore the season got spoiled by homologation and legality issues, as some cars did not meet up with the rules as posed by the FIA. These cars were disqualified. These problems were a big stain on the WTCC, practically killing itself in its wake.
The WTCC did not just pop from the ground, instead it was based on the ETCC, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1987. However, it was not really a celebration: the ETCC got leeched by the WTCC, which took away most of the works team and the attention. In short: the WTCC dealt the deathblow to ETCC in 1987. Although it was still organised in 1988, it was going to be a predictable season, just like the 1987 WTCC, where Ford was considered all-powerful and got away with most wins and the constructor’s championship. The only surprise was the eventual victory of a BMW driver, who profited from Ford’s mistakes and got away with the individual championship in both years. This driver was Roberto Ravaglia from the Schnitzer team who scored all of BMW’s points for the 1988 season, eventually beating the runner up, Steve Soper (who scored most of Ford’s points that season), by 7 points.
Roberto Ravaglia was the man of success of those years, the only one that was able to put the BMW on top of Ford’s obvious domination. In 1987 Ravaglia entered the season as the 1986 ETCC winner and won the 1987 WTCC championship by just one point. It was a tight score as the championship ended with two runners up, who both had twice the amount of wins Ravaglia had that season (Ravaglia won 2 of the 22 races). Ford ended up with five cars in the top six, but failed to claim the top spot.
After 1988 no new international touring car championship was organised until the year 2000. Before we go there we will a have a short look into the history of the ETCC, the undisputed ground on which the WTCC was founded. The ETCC started off in 1963 as a championship open to all classes and therefore a lot of cars. The cars were divided into classes, which all had their own winners. Many manufacturers entered the scene, amongst which were Alfa, Lancia, Ford, Jaguar, Mercedes and, yes, the Mini Cooper. Despite all the classes the championship was still competitive, as the differences between them weren’t that big (yes even the Mini Cooper had its successes).
The history of the ETCC is marked by the narrowing down of the homologation rules and the constant lobbying of different manufacturers to legalise their cars and to shut the competition out. This lead, slightly and steadily to the dominion of Ford and BMW over the other manufacturers, as their lobbies appeared the strongest, overruling for example Alfa’s car in 1973. However the road to 1988 wasn’t as slight and steady as I may have suggested previously. The oil crisis of 1973/74 nearly killed ETCC as manufacturers and sponsors withdrew from the championship out of fear of the crisis. The ETCC was now down to a few expensive private teams, who postponed the championship’s demise for fifteen years by participating in it during the years of the crisis. In 1982 the world of motorsport faced a reorganisation, in which a new class system was introduced. This opened the way for some manufacturers to (re)enter the ETCC and compete with Ford and BMW. Amongst these were Alfa, Jaguar and Mercedes again, but also some new ones, like Rover, Volvo and the eastern manufacturers like Toyota and Mazda. The success of the ETCC in the eighties lead to the introduction of the WTCC in 1987, where not only historical European tracks, like Monza, Brno and Spa were part of the calendar, but also some races in South-East Asia, like Bathurst and Fuji. In that year the WTCC overshadowed the ETCC and died as described above. The ETCC followed a year later.
The years between 1988 and 2000 were dominated by national touring car championship, which, with their different rules, complicated international racing series. This lasted until 2000 when the FIA promoted the Italian Superturismo Championship to a European level (European Superturismo Championship), which was named ETCC in 2002.
The ESC continued much in the way the ISC had done, with the dominion of Fabrizio Giovanardi and the Alfa Romeo 156. Giovanardi had won the 1998 and 1999 ISC seasons and would continue his streak until 2002. The year the ESC transformed into ETCC was the last year Giovanardi took the title. Alfa would extend it success into the following year, however for the last time. The 2003 season was a prey for the old Gabriella Tarquini, the only current WTCC driver that participated in the 1987 season as well.
This season also marked the rise of BMW and its future champion Andy Priaulx. BMW got hold of the 2003 ETCC constructer’s championship for the first time in since 1987 and Priaulx was able to finish second in the championship. 2004 was the year of success for BMW: they claimed both the individual and the constructer’s championship. The individual championship was very close all the way, until in the last race Priaulx claimed the title. He ended with the same amount of points as Dirk Müller, another BMW driver, but won the championship due to his higher amount of wins that season.
In 2005 ETCC was promoted to WTCC and covered event outside Europe as well. This however did not change the situation drastically. Both BMW and Andy Priaulx prolonged their reign for a year with a quite comfortable gap to the rest of the competitors. This time WTCC was successful enough to go for a second season or actually a third. New efforts were made to attract more visitors and spectators to the 2006 season. Eurosport, the broadcasting channel that had loyally broadcasted WTCC and ETCC for a few years now decided to give the WTCC more air time and started advertising their WTCC broadcasts as well. However they decided to promote the WTCC with Andy Priaulx as “the only driver ever to win both the ETCC and WTCC championships”. Readers of this article will have noticed that this is not only wrong, as the honour is all Roberto Ravaglia’s, it is also irrelevant and quite meaningless. The WTCC has always been a mere extension and expansion of the ETCC, not a completely different championship. Moreover there has only been one occasion in which a driver could have come in the position to achieve this, as there has only been one WTCC season before 2005. That occasion was the 1987 WTCC in which a driver (Ravaglia) took that chance. A bit unfortunate, as I may say, but the campaign must have had the desired effects as Eurosport decided to support the making of an official WTCC video game by SimBin: “RACE: The WTCC Game”, which was released in the autumn of 2006, during the final stage of that year’s WTCC season. A season, that like the previous season, was won by BMW and Andy Priaulx. However, appearances deceive, as multiple competitors were still in the race to win the championship on the thrilling last round of the season in the “Hell of the East”: the Guia Circuit in Macau. Priaulx took it away before Jörg Müller, Augusto Farfus and Yvan Muller with a win and a fourth place. Eurosport may now safely claim that Priaulx is the first driver ever to prolong a WTCC title.
Special thanks to Frank de Jong for his great touring car site: www.touringcarracing.net
Twice is the Charm
A short history of the World Touring Car Championship
By: Yoeri Gijsen
Sources: www.touringcarracing.net and Wikipedia
After Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship the World Touring Car Championship is considered the 3rd most important championship backed by the FIA. It is in fact a relatively new championship, especially when they are compared with the F1 and the WRC which both have quite a long road behind them. WTCC goes back to 1987, so it goes back quite a long time for a ‘new’ championship. But its youthfulness is not displayed by its starting year; rather it is displayed by its season count. That count is currently on four, as WTCC is only running its fourth official season. So, no great and glorious past to hang on to for the WTCC. Or is it?
The 1987 trip was a one-time adventure of the FIA. WTCC was supposed to be the counterpart of ETCC, a championship that did have history. But instead it was a farce. The WTCC started off as a promising championship in which many works teams would participate. However due to high entry fees (ten times that of the ETCC) a lot of team didn’t even start, causing only fifteen cars to enter the first race. Furthermore the season got spoiled by homologation and legality issues, as some cars did not meet up with the rules as posed by the FIA. These cars were disqualified. These problems were a big stain on the WTCC, practically killing itself in its wake.
The WTCC did not just pop from the ground, instead it was based on the ETCC, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1987. However, it was not really a celebration: the ETCC got leeched by the WTCC, which took away most of the works team and the attention. In short: the WTCC dealt the deathblow to ETCC in 1987. Although it was still organised in 1988, it was going to be a predictable season, just like the 1987 WTCC, where Ford was considered all-powerful and got away with most wins and the constructor’s championship. The only surprise was the eventual victory of a BMW driver, who profited from Ford’s mistakes and got away with the individual championship in both years. This driver was Roberto Ravaglia from the Schnitzer team who scored all of BMW’s points for the 1988 season, eventually beating the runner up, Steve Soper (who scored most of Ford’s points that season), by 7 points.
Roberto Ravaglia was the man of success of those years, the only one that was able to put the BMW on top of Ford’s obvious domination. In 1987 Ravaglia entered the season as the 1986 ETCC winner and won the 1987 WTCC championship by just one point. It was a tight score as the championship ended with two runners up, who both had twice the amount of wins Ravaglia had that season (Ravaglia won 2 of the 22 races). Ford ended up with five cars in the top six, but failed to claim the top spot.
After 1988 no new international touring car championship was organised until the year 2000. Before we go there we will a have a short look into the history of the ETCC, the undisputed ground on which the WTCC was founded. The ETCC started off in 1963 as a championship open to all classes and therefore a lot of cars. The cars were divided into classes, which all had their own winners. Many manufacturers entered the scene, amongst which were Alfa, Lancia, Ford, Jaguar, Mercedes and, yes, the Mini Cooper. Despite all the classes the championship was still competitive, as the differences between them weren’t that big (yes even the Mini Cooper had its successes).
The history of the ETCC is marked by the narrowing down of the homologation rules and the constant lobbying of different manufacturers to legalise their cars and to shut the competition out. This lead, slightly and steadily to the dominion of Ford and BMW over the other manufacturers, as their lobbies appeared the strongest, overruling for example Alfa’s car in 1973. However the road to 1988 wasn’t as slight and steady as I may have suggested previously. The oil crisis of 1973/74 nearly killed ETCC as manufacturers and sponsors withdrew from the championship out of fear of the crisis. The ETCC was now down to a few expensive private teams, who postponed the championship’s demise for fifteen years by participating in it during the years of the crisis. In 1982 the world of motorsport faced a reorganisation, in which a new class system was introduced. This opened the way for some manufacturers to (re)enter the ETCC and compete with Ford and BMW. Amongst these were Alfa, Jaguar and Mercedes again, but also some new ones, like Rover, Volvo and the eastern manufacturers like Toyota and Mazda. The success of the ETCC in the eighties lead to the introduction of the WTCC in 1987, where not only historical European tracks, like Monza, Brno and Spa were part of the calendar, but also some races in South-East Asia, like Bathurst and Fuji. In that year the WTCC overshadowed the ETCC and died as described above. The ETCC followed a year later.
The years between 1988 and 2000 were dominated by national touring car championship, which, with their different rules, complicated international racing series. This lasted until 2000 when the FIA promoted the Italian Superturismo Championship to a European level (European Superturismo Championship), which was named ETCC in 2002.
The ESC continued much in the way the ISC had done, with the dominion of Fabrizio Giovanardi and the Alfa Romeo 156. Giovanardi had won the 1998 and 1999 ISC seasons and would continue his streak until 2002. The year the ESC transformed into ETCC was the last year Giovanardi took the title. Alfa would extend it success into the following year, however for the last time. The 2003 season was a prey for the old Gabriella Tarquini, the only current WTCC driver that participated in the 1987 season as well.
This season also marked the rise of BMW and its future champion Andy Priaulx. BMW got hold of the 2003 ETCC constructer’s championship for the first time in since 1987 and Priaulx was able to finish second in the championship. 2004 was the year of success for BMW: they claimed both the individual and the constructer’s championship. The individual championship was very close all the way, until in the last race Priaulx claimed the title. He ended with the same amount of points as Dirk Müller, another BMW driver, but won the championship due to his higher amount of wins that season.
In 2005 ETCC was promoted to WTCC and covered event outside Europe as well. This however did not change the situation drastically. Both BMW and Andy Priaulx prolonged their reign for a year with a quite comfortable gap to the rest of the competitors. This time WTCC was successful enough to go for a second season or actually a third. New efforts were made to attract more visitors and spectators to the 2006 season. Eurosport, the broadcasting channel that had loyally broadcasted WTCC and ETCC for a few years now decided to give the WTCC more air time and started advertising their WTCC broadcasts as well. However they decided to promote the WTCC with Andy Priaulx as “the only driver ever to win both the ETCC and WTCC championships”. Readers of this article will have noticed that this is not only wrong, as the honour is all Roberto Ravaglia’s, it is also irrelevant and quite meaningless. The WTCC has always been a mere extension and expansion of the ETCC, not a completely different championship. Moreover there has only been one occasion in which a driver could have come in the position to achieve this, as there has only been one WTCC season before 2005. That occasion was the 1987 WTCC in which a driver (Ravaglia) took that chance. A bit unfortunate, as I may say, but the campaign must have had the desired effects as Eurosport decided to support the making of an official WTCC video game by SimBin: “RACE: The WTCC Game”, which was released in the autumn of 2006, during the final stage of that year’s WTCC season. A season, that like the previous season, was won by BMW and Andy Priaulx. However, appearances deceive, as multiple competitors were still in the race to win the championship on the thrilling last round of the season in the “Hell of the East”: the Guia Circuit in Macau. Priaulx took it away before Jörg Müller, Augusto Farfus and Yvan Muller with a win and a fourth place. Eurosport may now safely claim that Priaulx is the first driver ever to prolong a WTCC title.
Special thanks to Frank de Jong for his great touring car site: www.touringcarracing.net
Yoeri Gijsen
Premium
I made a small change to the part about the oil crisis as I appearently had the works teams withdraw for the wrong reasons.
Robert Wiesenmüller
RaceRoom eMotorsports Manager
Thanks for the nice history
Didn't know much about the pre-Supertouring times, but now I do
Didn't know much about the pre-Supertouring times, but now I do
very helpful... i used it for my presentation from technology of course i wrote: info by Yoeri Gijsen ;]
of course i wrote: info by Yoeri Gijsen ;]
Yoeri Gijsen
Premium
Szefo[RPM];56284 said:very helpful... i used it for my presentation from technology
I'm honoured Maciek!
Glad you two like it.
W
Wido Rossen
-
Wido Rossen
Trouble in indepentdents bmw camp
Proteam Motorsport announced yesterday that Davide Roda will replace Sergio Hernández at the wheel of one of the team's BMW 320si cars in Brno and for the rest of the season.
Roda, a 35-year old from Como, had already joined Proteam alongside his new team-mate Luca Rangoni.
Why the deal between the italian team and Sergio Hernández has come to an end is not reveiled
Last year Roda teamed with Roberto Colciago at SEAT Sport Italia, taking part in the Italian Superturismo Championship at the wheel of a SEAT León.
Roda was classified eighth in the championship and took also part in the two FIA WTCC events at Monza and Magny-Cours.
Proteam Motorsport announced yesterday that Davide Roda will replace Sergio Hernández at the wheel of one of the team's BMW 320si cars in Brno and for the rest of the season.
Roda, a 35-year old from Como, had already joined Proteam alongside his new team-mate Luca Rangoni.
Why the deal between the italian team and Sergio Hernández has come to an end is not reveiled
Last year Roda teamed with Roberto Colciago at SEAT Sport Italia, taking part in the Italian Superturismo Championship at the wheel of a SEAT León.
Roda was classified eighth in the championship and took also part in the two FIA WTCC events at Monza and Magny-Cours.
W
Wido Rossen
-
Wido Rossen
MrMystic[RPM];54538 said:Well the broadcasting in Belgium on Eurosport is exaclty the same as in The Netherlands
Yep , they suck bigtime ,everytime.
SEAT GIVE NEW ENGINE TO JORDI GENE
In Brno Jordi Gené will be the first SEAT Sport driver to use the new engine with the 13:1 compression ratio during a race weekend.
"We have tested it before, but we are still not sure about the reliability. However we think that is worthy to take the risk and try it in the races," SEAT Sport director Jaime Puig said.
Using the new engine means that Gené loses the benefit of the 25-kilo reduction granted to SEAT by the Touring Car Bureau.
"The engine delivers 5 or 6 bhp more, and although we feel that this and the weight reduction are equal benefits, we hope the engine helps Gené to solve the problems we have with top speed," explained Puig.
(source: www.fiawtcc.com)
In Brno Jordi Gené will be the first SEAT Sport driver to use the new engine with the 13:1 compression ratio during a race weekend.
"We have tested it before, but we are still not sure about the reliability. However we think that is worthy to take the risk and try it in the races," SEAT Sport director Jaime Puig said.
Using the new engine means that Gené loses the benefit of the 25-kilo reduction granted to SEAT by the Touring Car Bureau.
"The engine delivers 5 or 6 bhp more, and although we feel that this and the weight reduction are equal benefits, we hope the engine helps Gené to solve the problems we have with top speed," explained Puig.
(source: www.fiawtcc.com)
W
Wido Rossen
-
Wido Rossen
Whooo 5 bmw`s with the first 6 place`s.
Must be a bmw track.
And Gene with his new engine on P5 and the first of the seat`s.
Tommy at P16 and a bad beginning tomorrow.
hmmmm, i dont know what to think.
Must be a bmw track.
And Gene with his new engine on P5 and the first of the seat`s.
Tommy at P16 and a bad beginning tomorrow.
hmmmm, i dont know what to think.
W
Wido Rossen
-
Wido Rossen
Yeah , but you know the start`s of the bmw`s.
No other car can start like they do.
But we will see and hope for exiting race`s.
No other car can start like they do.
But we will see and hope for exiting race`s.
Wido[RPM];56703 said:
yep, consider that Andy carries 50 or 60 kgs of penalty weight, where would he be without those extra kilos?
probably way to much at front ....
BMW is strong.. but also the driver are really good.
Seat and Chevi need more power in acceleration and topspeed.
BMW is strong.. but also the driver are really good.
Seat and Chevi need more power in acceleration and topspeed.
W
Wido Rossen
-
Wido Rossen
PLEASE can someone shoot that belgian commentator on eurosport ?
Rub Huff in the Seat .....???
Tom Coronel in de kattebak
Ahhhhhh
Rub Huff in the Seat .....???
Tom Coronel in de kattebak
Ahhhhhh
haha yhea he is so stupid
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