One third in, no surprises that it’s Muller vs. Tarquini

We’re already one third of the way into this year’s World Touring Car Championship, at least in terms of races. We still have almost seven months left in terms of time however to find out who will be the 2013 drivers’ champion, but it’s already turning into a two horse race between Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini.

That’s no surprise really; at the start of the year there was no question that it was going to be a fight between these two. There were hopes in some quarters that we may have had a four manufacturer battle, with reigning champion Rob Huff leading the charge with SEAT and Tom Coronel bringing the fight back with BMW, but those were always a little optimistic, and certaintly weren’t shared by Rob and Tom themselves, who fancied their goal was just to get in the way as much as possible.

Huff’s approach from the outset was realistic. Although we’ve seen Huff fully develop in the WTCC from a fast driver, to a consistent race winner, and now to a World Champion standard driver, there’s no reason to expect he’d be able to extract anymore out of the ageing SEAT than Gabriele Tarquini had done last year.

The BMW has struggled at the start of the year, and still is behind on speed, but arguably the application of compensation weight, coupled with BMW Motorsport’s provision of carbon fibre doors which finally allows the BMW 320 TC to reach its target weight, has helped bring the Bavarian manufacturer back into contention for overall wins – at least in the second race with the reversed grid and standing start. It is however perhaps quite rightly not on the overall pace of the Chevrolet Cruze and Honda Civic, given its age and the lack of development from the manufacturer since 2010.

The beauty of this season is that we have a really intense fight for ‘best of the rest’, which last year behind the three works Chevrolets was safely under the control of Tarquini driving for the Lukoil Racing Team. In 2011 that fight was a three-way battle between Tarquini, Monteiro and Coronel, the first two in the SUNRED-run León with its ‘unofficial’ 1.6 turbocharged engine and Coronel in the resurgent ROAL Motorsport BMW.

Now, Rob Huff, Tom Coronel, Pepe Oriola, Tom Chilton, James Nash, Alex MacDowall, Tiago Monteiro, Norbert Michelisz and Michel Nykjaer all have a significant shot at being third in the drivers’ standings. It’s an interesting mix, with Huff, Coronel and Oriola overdriving the older SEATs and BMWs; MacDowall, Nash, Chilton and Nykjaer being given a foot-up as it were with the heavily developed Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T whilst Monteiro and Michelisz ride the upwards development curve of the new Honda Civic.

If you took Muller and Tarquini out of the equation, you actually have the makings of one of the mose competitive seasons of motorsport in the world in 2013…but as the saying goes you only need two to make a race, and the skill and experience of Muller and Tarquini could well make for one of the most exciting fights in the WTCC’s history.

After Monza when Yvan took pole position and both wins, whilst Tarquini’s Honda looked lost at sea in the pouring wet conditions, the cries were that this could be the easiest season on record for Yvan. The Frenchman was remarkably more relaxed at Monza, he has no pressure from within the team for the first time since he joined the WTCC, with new team-mate Chilton still learning the car and the tracks in his sophomore year, and the Honda seeming to be not much of a threat at least at the start.

Fast forward two weeks to Morocco and Honda dug deep and found something, with Tarquini grabbing pole position and a second place finish, whilst the Chevrolet still showed it wasn’t to be messed with in the hands of Dane Michel Nykjaer who took the victory in race one. With Tarquini crashing out in race two, Muller was still able to extend his points lead, but in Slovakia, Honda took over, locking out the top three in both qualifying and the first race. Though Muller was able to limit the damage in race two by finishing ahead of Tarquini, the Italian was able to reduce the gap slightly.

At Hungary, the Honda again looked like the quickest car over a whole lap, with the three of them outqualifying four of the Chevrolets. Unfortunately the one that got through was Yvan, setting an exceptional pole lap and leading the way to victory ahead of home hero Norbert Michelisz in race one.

The second DNF of 2013 so far for Tarquini in race two saw Yvan extend that lead even further, perhaps with the Italian trying to defend a bit too optimistically into Turn 2 which saw his Honda propelled out in the barriers across the white and red nose of Muller’s RML-run Chevrolet Cruze.

Muller now enjoys a ‘comfortable’ 46 point lead after four meetings, whilst Honda’s development curve takes a knock as they’re forced to repair instead of improve Tarquini’s Civic before the Salzburgring, a track which is set to favour the Cruze’s top speed performance.

However, this season is always going to be a year of two different halves. The RML Chevrolet is having no development work done at all. Muller never saw the Cruze again after Macau until a short test at Snetterton in March, whilst Honda have been testing and testing and testing the all new Civic Super 2000 TC.

Honda will continue to test until the cars start their ‘world tour’, leaving the port of Porto at the beginning of July, but you can bet the team will still be flying out upgrades as the year continues, whilst RML are steadfastly working towards 2014 and their next programme. Honda will continue to catch and chip away at Muller’s early lead, the question is if the Frenchman can build up enough of a gap before Tarquini can start to bring it down, without the Italian having to over-drive and risk too much as perhaps we saw in Hungary last time out.