FIA World Touring Car Championship 2012

[Speed-King]

Some teams (Schubert comes to mind) have run S2000 cars in VLN, i.e. 4 hour races, but then I don't know if and how these cars had been modified.

[Sodemo]

BTCC races are maybe 30% or so longer, so it shouldn't be an issue re: fuel tank size.

[Jon411]

When the STCC races were 40 - 45 minutes with a pit stop, I can't remember but I think they were done without a fuel stop (no doubt we have an STCC expert on here who will be able to confirm) so based on that the cars would be capable of running longer.

I agree about the race length - the Monza race (and the ETCC races at Salzbergring) pretty much last just over 18 minutes each without a safety car intervention, which pretty much makes them the shortest touring car sessions of the whole weekend - even the practice and qualifying sessions last longer. I know that is down to both tracks having a high average lap speed but it seems a bit of a waste of money to go to race there and the races not to last very long.

[Valenok]

Originally Posted by Jon411

I agree about the race length - the Monza race (and the ETCC races at Salzbergring) pretty much last just over 18 minutes each without a safety car intervention

IIRC last year Monza round, tyres endurance was the main problem.

[JMeissner]

Originally Posted by Jon411

When the STCC races were 40 - 45 minutes with a pit stop, I can't remember but I think they were done without a fuel stop (no doubt we have an STCC expert on here who will be able to confirm) so based on that the cars would be capable of running longer.

They were done without a fuel stop but the majority of the cars had larger fuel tanks.

[E.J. Bird]

I'd also love to see slightly longer races, or at least a longer 2nd race with maybe a pitstop for just tyres like the BTCC during the supertouring era.

Plus maybe a race at Adelaide or another Australian circuit (in addition to the races currently on the calendar), and maybe MG entering the series with its MG6.

Does anyone from the FIA or WTCC read these forums?

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by E.J. Bird

Does anyone from the FIA or WTCC read these forums?

FIA World Championships? Hardly. IndyCar's Randy Bernard reads TrackForum and Global Rallycross PR reads this one.

[iceman-1987]

Originally Posted by AndySpeed

As far as I can recall, I've only ever seen S2000 cars do relatively short races. Does anyone know what the fuel tank capacity is, or why there have never been any longer races?

And, if anyone knows, what is the longest-ever S2000 race? Could it be the second 2010 Guia race, at 54 minutes in duration?

in the past btcc stw and italian touring car have a different duration from now but in every case it was longer than now.

italian touring car was made by 2 races from 75 km (25 more than now)
stw was made by 1 sprint race of 50 km and 1 endurance with pit stop of 100 km and the point system was the 3 times more high from endurance to sprint races.
btcc if i remind well was nearly the same as stw but the point system was the same between sprint and endurance race

[iceman-1987]

in my opinion the lenght of the races is also a limit for wtcc because it doesnt allow to wtcc cars to race in the best world circuit.
4 example this year wtcc will use just short track of suzuka and not the same of f1 (that is really wonderfull) and about the future if the lenght will continue to be this it will be impossible to see wtcc in tracks like SPA or SILVERSTON INTERNATIONAL or NURBURGRING.

[Andrew Abbott]

Yes but I asked what the longest S2000 race was, not the longest Super Touring

The WTCC doesn't need to use the longer version of Suzuka - it just means that trackside fans get to see the cars go past far fewer times and doesn't represent good value for money... yet.

[nickyf1]

I'd love to see the WTCC visit Bathurst, perhaps as a support to the 1000.

Unlikely? Yes.
Awesome? Very.

[E.J. Bird]

Current races:

• Brazil
• Belgium
• Italy
• Hungary
• Czechia
• Portugal
• UK
• Germany
• Spain
• Japan
• China
• Macau
• USA (2012)

Additional races?:

• Australia - Adelaide, Bathurst, Philip Island?
• Scandinavia - Jyllands-Ringen (Dk), Göteborg City Race (Sw), Karlskoga (Sw)?
• Austria - Red Bull Ring (aka Österreichring/A1-Ring)

Thoughts?

[iceman-1987]

Originally Posted by E.J. Bird

Current races:

• Brazil
• Belgium
• Italy
• Hungary
• Czechia
• Portugal
• UK
• Germany
• Spain
• Japan
• China
• Macau
• USA (2012)

Additional races?:

• Australia - Adelaide, Bathurst, Philip Island?
• Scandinavia - Jyllands-Ringen (Dk), Göteborg City Race (Sw), Karlskoga (Sw)?
• Austria - Red Bull Ring (aka Österreichring/A1-Ring)

Thoughts?

all depends by MANUFACTURES! without new manufactures it will be also impossible to think at add new tracks.


wtcc i think is the shorter championship of the FIA about lenght of races. anyone can tell me why???

[helgi]

Originally Posted by iceman-1987

wtcc i think is the shorter championship of the FIA about lenght of races. anyone can tell me why???

Because 20-minute race is perfectly fit between two advertising blocks at Eurosport. And 20 minutes is an average time for a drive to the shop - real cars, real racing.

[Valenok]

Originally Posted by helgi

Because 20-minute race is perfectly fit between two advertising blocks at Eurosport. And 20 minutes is an average time for a drive to the shop - real cars, real racing.

AFAIK, TV works with 26-min blocks. But SC roll-out help to fit 50-km race in 26-min format.

[helgi]

Well, there's some pre-race stuff for about a half an hour too. Compare to BTCC race-packed week-ends it's an absolute nonsense.

[iceman-1987]

Originally Posted by helgi

Because 20-minute race is perfectly fit between two advertising blocks at Eurosport. And 20 minutes is an average time for a drive to the shop - real cars, real racing.

i dont think that WTCC must be link for ever to eurosport! if eurosport cant give to wtcc more space i think that wtcc would be free to find another one channel!

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by iceman-1987

i dont think that WTCC must be link for ever to eurosport! if eurosport cant give to wtcc more space i think that wtcc would be free to find another one channel!

I think in a weird way, Eurosport is the perfect channel for WTCC. If the WTCC were to go to Sky Sports, it would just die, as the series isn't high profile enough for punters to warrant actually subscribing to Sky Sports. So it needs to be on a free (or nearly free) channel that can devote time to cover qualifying and live races.

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by iceman-1987

i dont think that WTCC must be link for ever to eurosport! if eurosport cant give to wtcc more space i think that wtcc would be free to find another one channel!

Not going to a happen any time soon. The commercial rights to the WTCC are owned by KSO, and KSO are are owned by Eurosport.

Not sure how long the current agreement lasts between the FIA and KSO, originally it was 5 years but that's since been extended. The only way coverage wil move off Eurosport is if the current FIA/KSO agreement expires and is not renewed, which I think is unlikely.

Regardless of what you think of Eurosport, if they didn't show it how many other channels do you think would be interested in showing WTCC live, or even at all. Look at the WTCC's former partner, what is now the FIA GT1 championship - that's now left with webstreaming or tucked away with no promotion on relatively obscure News channel.

[helgi]

Didn't Ratel said that the main groups for his new champ are students, who prefer to use web-stream, and rich people, who usually watch Bloomberg (or how it's called there). So, what's the problem? It was Ratel's wish to drop Eurosport.

[Andrew Abbott]

Eurosport has done so much to benefit the WTCC - they've heavily invested in it. It's not going to move away any time soon and nor should it really.

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by helgi

Didn't Ratel said that the main groups for his new champ are students, who prefer to use web-stream, and rich people, who usually watch Bloomberg (or how it's called there). So, what's the problem? It was Ratel's wish to drop Eurosport.

Great spin there, do you work in PR? Are you saying that the target audience is now largely penniless students.

Ratel wanted to drop Eurosport because he didn't like their suggestion to cut race length from 3 to 2 hours. Now they have minimal TV and 1 hour races - make of that what you will.

I'm not having a go at GT1, the point was that if WTCC drop Eurosport then chances are it will virtually disappear from the screens completely as there's no other TV channel who will be prepared to show it.

[iceman-1987]

Originally Posted by redshoes

Not going to a happen any time soon. The commercial rights to the WTCC are owned by KSO, and KSO are are owned by Eurosport.

Not sure how long the current agreement lasts between the FIA and KSO, originally it was 5 years but that's since been extended. The only way coverage wil move off Eurosport is if the current FIA/KSO agreement expires and is not renewed, which I think is unlikely.

Regardless of what you think of Eurosport, if they didn't show it how many other channels do you think would be interested in showing WTCC live, or even at all. Look at the WTCC's former partner, what is now the FIA GT1 championship - that's now left with webstreaming or tucked away with no promotion on relatively obscure News channel.

ok but at the end of each year the wtcc has increased its popularity and if i remind well at the end of last year the result was that wtcc was followed by more than 500 mln of people during the year.

so i think wtcc is one of the most important sport broadcast by eurosport and i think that it would be possible to find a solution between wtcc and eurosport to increase some km for each race.


about FIA GT1 why does not come back to race together with wtcc??? it could be a good way to give new life to the series! of course they should accept to dnt be anymore the main event but they would be the second main after wtcc.

[helgi]

As for Ratel, I wrote his own words about his main audience. That penniless students now are playing GT4, for example, and in a short time they are able to become well-payed specialists to buy a real GT. Just can't remember where I've read it. Maybe here, maybe at Endurance-Info.

As for WTCC - it's not normal when a World championship is obviously ruled by a channel. Is it a TV show?

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by helgi

As for Ratel, I wrote his own words about his main audience.

As I said, good PR spin. Of course Ratel is going to say how great it is, that's his job. The series organiser is hardly likely to tell you it's a poor deal. Funny how there was no mention of this key demographic when they had decent TV coverage.

As for WTCC - it's not normal when a World championship is obviously ruled by a channel. Is it a TV show?

Is it really that different to F1 where FOM (commercial rights holder and host broadcaster) dictate the start time of Far Eastern races to suit their mainly European TV audience?