FIA WTCC NEWSLETTER # 10 – 16 March 2007
A GREAT START FOR WTCC IN BRAZIL
The season’s opening meeting at Curitiba was a success
in terms of promotion and attendance.
Grandstands of the Autódromo Internacional de Curitiba
were absolutely packed to their full capacity with Brazilian
fans, whose roars and cheers propelled local hero Augusto
Farfus to a brilliant victory in the second race.
Media attendance was also good, with 60 national and international
publications and agencies represented, along with 20 TV and
radio crews. The FIA WTCC will resume on May 5th and 6th at
Zandvoort, Netherlands.
BMW’s DOMINANT WEEKEND
The season couldn’t have started better for BMW. Three
of their drivers – Jörg Müller, Augusto Farfus
and Andy Priaulx – are joint at 16 points on top of
the Driver’s classification after the first meeting,
where they claimed two 1-2-3 finishes, something that BMW
had only achieved twice in the WTCC previous seasons: at Oschersleben
in 2005 and Valencia in 2006.
The German make have already built a solid margin in the
Manufacturers’ championship.
SEAT DRIVERS SCORE POINTS
SEAT Sport’s Gabriele Tarquini and Yvan Muller collected
points in both the Brazilian races, meaning that they are
the closest competitors to the BMW trio in the points.
“I could have had two fourth places, but it would have
meant taking a big risk to overtake Yvan in the second race.
Of course, I am not happy to fight for fourth place, but I
have nine Championship points and I’m the best non-BMW
driver in the series at the moment. That’s the best
I could do in Curitiba,” said Tarquini.
More points from SEAT were scored by GR Asia’s Tom
Coronel, whose SEAT Holland-backed León mingled with
the works cars.
CHEVROLET’s GREAT TEAM EFFORT
Chevrolet saw Nicola Larini’s and Alain Menu’s
cars immediately out of contention when they were caught in
the pile up at the start of the first race. Robert Huff was
placed a promising fifth in Race 1, but was also eliminated
at the start of the second race in a collision with Alessandro
Zanardi.
“The team did a great job in rebuilding two badly damaged
cars from race one using every minute of the extra time we
now have between the two races. This allowed us to start race
two with both Alain’s and Nicola’s cars and Nicola
to finish tenth. In all this is the testament of the improvements
we made over winter to increase serviceability and reduce
time needed make repairs,” team manager Mark Busfield
commented.
BAD LUCK FOR ALFA ROMEO
Alfa Romeo’s N.technology team had bad luck as both
their drivers – James Thompson and Olivier Tielemans
– were eliminated in the Race 1 crash. Thompson, who
also suffered from an early stop in Saturday’s qualifying
because of gearbox problems, said: “It was a big disappointment.
I think I should have been about eighth on the grid, and if
I’d have qualified higher then I probably would have
avoided the big crash. I’ve got to give so much credit
to the team. After the crash they only had an hour or so to
fix my car. When we got it back to the pits it was amazing
how much damage we had. The impact had moved the engine and
gearbox out of position by nine inches! So they got out the
sledgehammer, and drilled holes everywhere and that was real
rally-style. They were brilliant!”
INDEPENDENTS: SLIM MARGIN FOR CORTHALS
Pierre-Yves Corthals of Exagon Racing is the first leader
of the Yokohama Independents’ Trophy, only 4 points
ahead of Stefano D’Aste. In his SEAT León, the
Belgian won Curitiba’s first race and finished behind
Luca Rangoni in the second. With Roberto Colciago sidelined
after the dramatic crash with Michel Jourdain in Thursday’s
testing, the remaining five Independents proved to be equally
competitive. Corthals emerged victorious in Race 1 putting
pressure on Emmet O’Brien until the Irishman made a
mistake; but earlier the race had been led by Sergio Hernández
until he spun on lap 9. In the second race Rangoni had to
overtake D’Aste and Corthals before reaching the top.
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