Photo: Lada Sport Rosneft

New Lada Vesta set to miss media day launch and test

Lada Sport Rosneft look set to miss the preamble for the 2015 FIA World Touring Car Championship season, with the Russian marque falling behind schedule to prepare their three all-new Vesta WTCCs for the season.

In a consecutive year where the Russian manufacturer has charged itself with the task of developing three new cars for the season to the Super 2000 TC1 class ruleset, Lada will again be on the backfoot for the season start, with limited if any testing possible before the season opener in Argentina on March 8th.

A Lada Sport Rosneft spokesperson confirmed to Motorsport-Total that the team is faced with a very quick turnaround in order to get the cars to Argentina, stating: “We will do our best, but the timetable is extremely tight.”

The new engine, built by ORECA, has completed initial testing, but the new car is yet to hit the track. The team will opt out of the media event and test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, and instead test privately at their base at Magny-Cours, France.

Should the cars not be ready, the team’s alternative plan would seem to be to enter the Lada Granta from last season for the opening weekend, but the intention is still to start the season with the new Vesta model for all three drivers.

Lada are building three new cars for the 2015 season, while the stability of the regulations from 2014-2015 mean their competitors have been able to focus on developing their existing cars and less focus on new car builds.

RML are building two new Chevrolet Cruze TC1s, one of which will go to the returning Craft-Bamboo team for this season, bringing the total of RML Chevrolets on the grid to eight, while Citroën and Honda are only building one new car each, increasing their totals to five.