Drivers voice concerns that Muller could run away with the title

A number of drivers have voiced their concerns over the Monza race weekend, fearing that Yvan Muller is in the position to run away with the drivers’ title unchallenged for the first time in the Championship’s history.

Yvan Muller took pole position and completed his fourth ever “double victory” last weekend, and leads the standings by 23 points after the first meeting with the RML Chevrolet Cruze. With Rob Huff and Alain Menu having left the team, replaced with new team-mate Tom Chilton in only his sophomore year, and the remaining Chevrolets being run by smaller independent teams, there’s a concern that Muller could wrap the title up early this year.

The Championship has always gone to final round of the season at Macau, with the sole exception of 2010 when Muller won Chevrolet’s first drivers’ title one race early at Japan. On that occasion the title was decided in the courtroom, after BMW Motorsport were excluded for running a non-homologated car at the Okayama circuit, handing the already favoured Muller the title without a fight.

Apart from a new engine upgrade for the 2011 season, the BMW 320 TC has had limited development since BMW’s factory team left the Championship, and the teams currently running the car are struggling to keep the pace with the overweight BMW.

“The thing is with the BMW we know we are having difficulties. We know that all the other manufacturers are faster,” said ROAL Motorsport driver Tom Coronel to TouringCarTimes, “so we’ll wait and see what happens after two races,” he added, referring to the compensation weight which will be applied at the third race meeting.

“The Chevrolet is unbeatable this year, you can forget it, it’s over. During the season it’s too difficult to get updated components. The Chevrolet will just (blast) everybody away, it’s in a different category.”

Coronel had previously been optimistic about the season, with Chevrolet officially leaving the Championship, but now believes that may have been too hasty.
“There was a rumour they had a lot of waivers because they were a factory team, so everybody thought they would take these things out, but they didn’t, so the car is the same as last year just with different stickers.”

Honda Racing Team JAS driver Gabriele Tarquini refused to be downhearted, despite struggling to keep the pace with the RML Chevrolets over the weekend, saying there’s still a long way to go.

“It is good for us to know the level,” said Tarquini to TouringCarTimes. “I know Chevrolet is the car to beat, but our team is still a new team, we must compare ourselves with a very new team like Ford last year, like Chevrolet in 2005, like SEAT’s first year, we are a little bit more close to the top.

“They are as fast as last year, they don’t lose speed because they’re not the manufacturer team. They are at the same level, maybe they won’t improve, but the car’s still at the same level as at the end of last year.

“Our plan is to close the gap, but not from the first race, we need more time, and after the mid-season we must measure the performance. We have plenty of time to improve, and our target is to improve the car, the engine, the whole package, I don’t know if we’ll reach the Chevrolets pace, but it’s our target.”

WTCC Series Promoter Marcello Lotti warned it was too early to judge how the season will pan out after just one race, but didn’t rule out that measures could be taken to close the performance if things were the same after the application of Article 79, when a number of cars are able to remove weight from their cars.

“For me it’s too early to arrive to a conclusion after Monza, as Monza is Monza, it’s not a circuit to make a reference”, he told TouringCarTimes. “Sure, we have enough experience to say that after this weekend we know that Chevrolet is not the last car on the grid in terms of performance, perhaps they have a bit of an advantage compared to the others for the moment.

“We will perhaps see something after three or four events. First, from Slovakia we will see the application of Article 79, and then we’ll see what the decision of the Committee of the FIA would be, because they can’t have a decision before the application of 79.”