Chevrolet leaves WTCC after 2012 season

[cos]

Just seen a tweet from TcT saying Chevy are out after this season...

[Craner Curves]

http://www.chevroletwtcc.com/news/20...-championship/

Ah well, goodbye WTCC.

[BtccLee]

Honda are coming in but I fear that this might be a huge hit for the series....

[FIRE]

That's a shame but after 8 years not really a surprise.

Hopefully SEAT will enter officially next season.

[W.A Trichlorostyrene]

Huge blow for the series and touring car racing in general, for sure.

That said, as a side effect, 2013 suddently becomes the most open season in years. No returning manufacturers, and several top-class drivers in the market.

[I Rosputnik]

Would RML carry on in the WTCC with another manufacturer then? (Not likely if it's this soon.)

BMW, Seat and now Chevrolet gone, now I'm not sure about what happens next. Sure it could mean we will have Lada vs Honda vs Ford next year, but with Chevrolet gone what does this mean for the future direction of the series? I'm more worried about the future of touring car racing in general.

I guess the flipside of this is that this might mean Chevrolet might of killed the WTCC program for a full season of WEC, and RML might head there as well.

[rustyfan]

Originally Posted by FIRE

That's a shame but after 8 years not really a surprise.

Agreed, they had to get tired of winning against basically zero opposition sooner or later.

While this is far from good for the WTCC, I suppose it might make other players more interested in the series seeing as they now won't have to worry about beating Chevrolet's well-funded works team.

[Alfa Fan]

I don't think there will be a WTCC next season.

Chevrolet OUT

BMW OUT - Busy with DTM

Alfa Romeo OUT - No motorsport at all anymore

SEAT OUT - Things not exactly rosy in Spain

Ford UNDECLARED - I would have thought doubtful, seems there only involvement is some badging and blessing on Aon

Honda UNDECLARED - Toe in the water later this year, no firm news.

[PorscheFanNo1]

Volvo OUT - Toe in the water, program canceled after 1 year

[skells22]

want about other makes

[rustyfan]

Originally Posted by skells22

want about other makes

Why would they bother about the WTCC? I doubt any totally new players would be interested in the WTCC in its current shape.

[MikeD]

WTCC might just want to change the Manufacturers Championship to being only a Team's Championship, and then run only privateers ... and that's actually fine aswell. F1 ran with almost only Privateers for years without problems.

Anyway it's the same in all the classes. There are only 3 manufacturers left in F1 (Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault) and that series is doing fine.

MotoGP and WRC on the other hand, are in massive problems. Rumours say that Ducati will leave MotoGP at the end of the season and only run in SBK and there are also rumours that Ford will be leave WRC due to lack of results.

It's the biggest econimic crises since WWII, so it's expected that motorsport is hurting because cars sales are dropping like a stone.

[iceman-1987]

I'm speechless!
wtcc was already surviving thanks many efforts and now this hard hit!
difficult to image how could be wtcc 2013 and moreover with which drivers.
honda will enter officially with i guess 2 or almost 3 car (but i suppose 1 car will be for a japanese driver), then we have to hope in Ford, Seat and Lada.
let's hope atleast that chevy will continue to run on the field with indipendent drivers as are doing bmw.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Anyway it's the same in all the classes. There are only 3 manufacturers left in F1 (Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault) and that series is doing fine.

MotoGP and WRC on the other hand, are in massive problems. Rumours say that Ducati will leave MotoGP at the end of the season and only run in SBK and there are also rumours that Ford will be leave WRC due to lack of results.

I personally think WTCC is a joke, but you make a good point here. Other than F1, World Endurance Championship and WSBK, WTCC is actually looking relatively healthy compared to the other world championships as WRC has always been on shakey grounds for years now and I believe the Ford rumour is correct, MotoGP has been dropping manufacturers like flies and FIA World GT is well, not that great to say the least...

At least WTCC has a fair number of private teams and SEAT if Honda decides to drop the WTCC program like Volvo did.

[DS"]

That's really unexpected. But I guess Chevy is tired having to race itself for the championship. And I wonder if this couldn't resurrect a certain attempted touring car series in the United States...

As for the WTCC: The series has a rather healthy list of private teams. As long as the organizers support them, the series should have a future. But what future will it be?

[I Rosputnik]

Chevrolet leaving puts things into perspective. If this is down to economic reasons then do we break the wall between touring car racing and sportscar racing? Why spread things so thin and something that works for all production cars regardless of how many doors they have? Similar to how the VLN deals with its classes.

Is there any international series in a good state of health right now bar WEC or F1 or DTM?

[The SpeCTator]

Lets hope we get Rob Huff back to BTCC, some of the establishment needs a quality driver to challenger them

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by I Rosputnik

Chevrolet leaving puts things into perspective. If this is down to economic reasons then do we break the wall between touring car racing and sportscar racing? Why spread things so thin and something that works for all production cars regardless of how many doors they have? Similar to how the VLN deals with its classes.

Is there any international series in a good state of health right now bar WEC or F1 or DTM?

International? Not really. A lot of national championships (although I guess you could include DTM in that mix as well) are doing just fine.

[I Rosputnik]

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

International? Not really. A lot of national championships (although I guess you could include DTM in that mix as well) are doing just fine.

If everything screws up and the privateers bail, then I don't see any harm in having a cup style event they had during the supertouring era if the FIA want some form of international event.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by I Rosputnik

Chevrolet leaving puts things into perspective. If this is down to economic reasons then do we break the wall between touring car racing and sportscar racing? Why spread things so thin and something that works for all production cars regardless of how many doors they have? Similar to how the VLN deals with its classes.

The problem with that is speed differentials, though.

The advent of strong fields of high powered GTs to VLN also brought a rash of races being red flagged for heavy accidents. Some of this is of course also Nordschleife related, but if speed differentials get too high, things do get dangerous.

Now there are two ways to prevent that:
1) Make the GTs relatively slow. That's basically the way it used to be in VLN before the advent of GT3 when Cup-Porsches and the SP6 Z4s were regular podium contenders. There were a few faster cars (Land and Manthey RSRs, Alzen Turbinchen, Zak Viper) but those were just very few in a 200 car field and not a full class. The problem with that is that it's just nort very exciting, especially with more awesome GT-cars racing in other series.


2) The other way around, one could make the touring cars faster. This seems to be happening in Japanese GT300 right now, with CR-Zs and Priuses coming into the series that can take the fight to the Euro GT3s. The problem with that is that these cars have hardly anything in common with their road going counterparts, definitely not 'Real Cars - Real Racing'.

Oh, and then of course many GT-series seem to have bumper grids right now, so there really is no need for them adding touring cars.

[I Rosputnik]

And the second you make the GT's slower there would be an uproar...

Here's the reasons why.

At least RML get to keep the cars if they wish to race next year.

[MJones94]

Originally Posted by MikeD

WTCC might just want to change the Manufacturers Championship to being only a Team's Championship, and then run only privateers ... and that's actually fine aswell. F1 ran with almost only Privateers for years without problems.

Anyway it's the same in all the classes. There are only 3 manufacturers left in F1 (Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault) and that series is doing fine.

It was always going to happen really, Chevrolet had nothing more to prove (Even if they were by far the best team/car in the latter years).

I personally do not share the view that WTCC can survive with the majority being privateer teams and the odd factory team here and there. The F1 argument is that there is so much more prestige and mainstream media coverage that allows privateer teams such as Williams keep fighting, whereas the WTCC does not have that advantage. At the end of the day, manufacturers join to sell cars, so if there are a small amount of factory teams, then fans just view it as a few guys doing it as a hobby. This erodes the world championship status, which is why the WTCC is much more dependent on factory teams than say the BTCC is.

WTCC has taken a huge hit, I am not sure whether it would be better for the series to fail and to be replaced in a few years time with a better economic climate, or for problems the series faces to carry on.

[Thaw Daggerslash]

Originally Posted by MikeD

MotoGP and WRC on the other hand, are in massive problems. Rumours say that Ducati will leave MotoGP at the end of the season and only run in SBK and there are also rumours that Ford will be leave WRC due to lack of results.

Actually, WRC's doing quite well for itself. VW is returning next year, Toyota are looking at entering in 2014, and there's speculation that Hyundai and Nissan are also interested. Plus Ford aren't quitting - their issue is to do with the whole lack of promoter problem, and they've said that they'll do IRC if it isn't solved. It is not like they're withdrawing from motorsport completely.

Doom-monger.

But anyway...

Whilst it is a shame to see a manufacturer withdrawing, this may do some good for the series. Fair to say Chevrolet have been far too dominant these last two years, so as others have said, next year could be the most open in quite a few season, especially if the likes of Muller, Huff and Menu find drives.

I think manufacturers aren't as important to racing as they once were - a series can survive quite happily with a grid of privateers or minimal manufacturer presence. Look at BTCC - for a number of years it had loads of manufacturers, then a few years later it was the other end of the spectrum with hardly any and people were quick to write it off, but it survived.

It'll be the same for the WTCC. It just needs to find a new way to market itself and it'll be fine. It is always the case that whenever a manufacturer pulls out of whatever series that everyone is quick to think that the end is nigh when it never really is the case.

[I Rosputnik]

Some more opinions including the promoters.

[Alfa Fan]

Originally Posted by I Rosputnik

Some more opinions including the promoters.

The usual valueless stuff. It's like the stuff TOCA put out when SEAT, Vauxhall and then Chevrolet left.

The last line, for a professional news report, is embarrassing.