SUNRED aiming for six car assault again

SUNRED hopes to enter six SEATs in this years WTCC, and hopes to retain the services of Tiago Monteiro and 2009 champion Gabriele Tarquini.

The team ran six cars last year, with four cars under the SR-Sport banner for Gabriele Tarquini, Tiago Monteiro, Tom Coronel and initially Jordi Gené. SUNRED ran Michel Nykjaer and Fredy Barth under their own names SUNRED Engineering.

SUNRED’s lead charge Tarquini was only ruled out of the title at the penultimate round at Japan when he crashed out of the lead in the wet weather conditions, as had three-times champion Andy Priaulx.

“We will run six cars again,” said Team Principal Joan Orus to Autosport.

“It will be interesting, with two young drivers like Oriola and Aleksei Dudukalo, two former rookies like Fredy Barth and Michel Nykjaer and – hopefully – two experienced guys like Tarquini and Monteiro.”

As previously reported, SUNRED will start the year with the 2.0 litre diesel TDI engine which took the team to the 2008 and 2009 championships, before switching to the new regulation engine later in the season.

Monteiro and Tarquini were present at the test in Barcelona this week alongside SUNRED’s new signing Pepe Oriola and Hong Kong driver Paul Ip.

Russian driver Aleksei Dudukalo competed in the SEAT Eurocup last year alongside Oriola, and finished ninth in the championship taking one win at Brno.