[WTCC] 2017 WTCC News & Rumours

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Electric rallycross and electric karting are great ideas.

Back to touring car racing, my view is that the World Championship era is sadly gone. The WTCC will implode soon. TCR International is successful and international, but to me it's not a proper world championship.

I mean, big audiences want extremely fast cars, not 300hp Civics and Corollas. We are a minority.

Is it as black and white as that? BTCC seems to be pretty popular. What's it doing differently?

[Juntos]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Is it as black and white as that? BTCC seems to be pretty popular. What's it doing differently?

Shouldn't we be discussing in this topic if Honda will win this WTCC once and for whole? How big will be for Polestar if they get kick by a mediocre Honda driver line up? Or how big will be the fiasco of Ningbo track in China? and What will be to celebrate in the night race of Losail? Sharpen the senses and drawn the knife...

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Is it as black and white as that? BTCC seems to be pretty popular. What's it doing differently?

BTCC is quite popular in Britain. But internationally? I don't think so. How many non-British sports fans know Turkington, Neal, Shedden, Jordan, Jackson, Collard?

Sports car racing is a team sport, so people don't need to tell Rigo from Pier Guidi or Werner from Lietz to root for Ferrari or Porsche.

But except for in places like Argentina and Australia, touring car racing is very individualistic.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Electric rallycross and electric karting are great ideas.

Back to touring car racing, my view is that the World Championship era is sadly gone. The WTCC will implode soon. TCR International is successful and international, but to me it's not a proper world championship.

I mean, big audiences want extremely fast cars, not 300hp Civics and Corollas. We are a minority.

To get the general people interested that normally only watch F1 is difficult for every series. More bhp and faster laptimes does not mean people start loving it.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

BTCC is quite popular in Britain. But internationally? I don't think so. How many non-British sports fans know Turkington, Neal, Shedden, Jordan, Jackson, Collard?

Sports car racing is a team sport, so people don't need to tell Rigo from Pier Guidi or Werner from Lietz to root for Ferrari or Porsche.

But except for in places like Argentina and Australia, touring car racing is very individualistic.

Anyone who's interested in touring car racing in general knows those names.

The big national series aren't very popular on an international level in general to the wider sporting audience. To think otherwise is just silly.

That said, I'd say that on a global scale, the BTCC, DTM, and VASC are MUCH more popular from a touring car standpoint than WTCC or anything from Argentina.

[BobJones]

Honda should do a whip around, check behind the sofa, and put the cash together for a 4th Civic on the flyaway rounds for Gordon Shedden. That way they'll have three cars in the points fighting for the title, and not just two...

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by Matt

, I'd say that on a global scale, the BTCC, DTM, and VASC are MUCH more popular from a touring car standpoint than WTCC or anything from Argentina.

I disagree. On a global scale, BTCC and Australian Supercars aren't well known.

Again, I'm not talking about gearheads like us, but general sports fans.

They are much more likely to have heard of Yvan Muller, Gabriele Tarquini, Mattias Ekstrom or Jamie Green than Neal, Shedden, Whincup or Winterbottom.

[Matt]

On a global scale, the only two racing series I'd say that the general public even knows about are F1 and NASCAR.

The latter due to things like Talladega Nights.

[S griffin]

WEC's starting to get up there. Not sure about WRX though. And Formula E will no doubt be heard about.

[Juntos]

Eurosport Events is dealing with Marcello Lotti. We may have TCR spec cars in place of TC1 cars. Why is the British press hiding this from us?


We all want to see that which is hidden, we all want to stare the forbidden in the face. Cheese?

[SRBRNG]

Originally Posted by Juntos

Eurosport Events is dealing with Marcello Lotti. We may have TCR spec cars in place of TC1 cars.

Should that prove to be true (and I have my doubts), it would come as a salvation for WTCC. The TC1 concept has run its course - technically far superior to TCR, but does anybody care?

Now I'm not sure what would Eurosport Events compensate Volvo with if they as a promoter actually made this U-turn. Volvo's involvement was based on a 5-year campaign and they obviously invested large sums of money into it.

Honda would simply switch to their TCR (new) Civic, hardly anyone would miss outdated Chevy and Citroen when there's a plethora of (TCR) cars to replace them. The only problem I see is Volvo - big factory program, potentially left betrayed by the people who lured them into WTCC. And with no adequate (TCR) car to replace the S60 TC1 with.

[Racing Harz]

Originally Posted by Juntos

Why is the British press hiding this from us?

Because the post from monday was wrong...
http://hosszabbitas.hu/wtcc/tcr-ninc...das-a-wtcc-vel

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Matt

On a global scale, the only two racing series I'd say that the general public even knows about are F1 and NASCAR.

The latter due to things like Talladega Nights.

Originally Posted by S griffin

WEC's starting to get up there. Not sure about WRX though. And Formula E will no doubt be heard about.

My co-workers have never heard of WEC or LMPs. They know what Le Mans is, but they have no idea what kind of cars race there - they just know they aren't F1 cars. They've heard of F1 (some casually watch it), heard of NASCAR, heard of Formula E (but seem to think it's some sort of weird practical joke), and that's it. Nothing else what-so-ever. Touring Cars, especially World Touring Cars, not a chance. If you start mentioning things like WTCC, V8SC, or sportscar stuff like Bathurst 12H, Spa 24H, they give you this look of "wait...there's an entire world of racing I didn't even know existed".

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

My co-workers have never heard of WEC or LMPs. They know what Le Mans is, but they have no idea what kind of cars race there - they just know they aren't F1 cars. They've heard of F1 (some casually watch it), heard of NASCAR, heard of Formula E (but seem to think it's some sort of weird practical joke), and that's it. Nothing else what-so-ever. Touring Cars, especially World Touring Cars, not a chance. If you start mentioning things like WTCC, V8SC, or sportscar stuff like Bathurst 12H, Spa 24H, they give you this look of "wait...there's an entire world of racing I didn't even know existed".

That's modern day television for you

[Bramzel]

Originally Posted by S griffin

That's modern day television for you

How is that modern day television? Back in the 90's it wasn't any different, and I can't imagine everybody in the 70's knew about all the different series either.

[Matt]

If anything, those in the 70's knew even less.

[pimmy]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

My co-workers have never heard of WEC or LMPs. They know what Le Mans is, but they have no idea what kind of cars race there - they just know they aren't F1 cars. They've heard of F1 (some casually watch it), heard of NASCAR, heard of Formula E (but seem to think it's some sort of weird practical joke), and that's it. Nothing else what-so-ever. Touring Cars, especially World Touring Cars, not a chance. If you start mentioning things like WTCC, V8SC, or sportscar stuff like Bathurst 12H, Spa 24H, they give you this look of "wait...there's an entire world of racing I didn't even know existed".

My sister went on a college field trip to France a few years ago, around the time Le Mans was on. Everyone on the coach happened to see a load of Le Mans-related stuff about the place but none of them knew what it was. My sister only knew because she's related to me .

On another occasion, I got talking to a temp at work and he mentioned that he thought Kimi Raikkonen was a cool dude, from seeing him in F1, and that he wanted to go to watch a rally (this was when Kimi was in WRC). I mentioned to him that I like touring cars and he looked at me as if I was speaking Swahili!

I also have a friend who thought that F1 was the only racing series on Earth.

[FIRE]

Monteiro in hospital after crash:

https://www.touringcartimes.com/2017...t-crash-spain/

[S griffin]

Not good, hope he recovers in time for the next round.

[Pettersson]

Swedish media (Expressen) reports that Volvo is about to pull the plug on their WTCC project. Polestar will stand for luxury high performance electric vehicles from now on. But not necessarily Formula E... Volvo has a deal with Cyan, but Volvo make it sound like that's not a problem. We'll see what other media reports on this.

[Bramzel]

Why am I not surprised. I'm sure some Australians will recognize that story

[Cinghio44]

Enter in the WTCC to do only 2 full season it's a complete no sense

[S griffin]

Be a blow to the series if true

[FIRE]

No surprise because of their electric plans.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Be a blow to the series if true

It's OK, current WTCC has no future.