WTCC says never-say-never for Macau return, but there are new spectacles in 2015

At the WTCC launch event in Barcelona, the drivers and organisers of the championship have spoken encouragingly about the new events on the calendar this year at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, Qatar, Thailand and Vila Real in Portugal.

The Nordschleife, which will be held on the Saturday morning before the famous 24 hour race, will feature two three-lap races held back-to-back, with a pit-stop break and new grid between them and no repair time, with coverage handled by the same team that handled the live coverage of the Rallye Monte Carlo back in 2011 as part of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.

The WTCC will visit the Vila Real street circuit in July for the first time, a new Portuguese base after previously visiting the street circuit at Porto, as well as the permanent circuits at Portimao and Estoril, while the two final events of the season will take place the Buriram International Circuit in Thailand, a new country on the calendar, and another new country with Qatar in the middle east replacing Macau as the season finale, held under floodlights.

“I was questioning about where shall we finish the season, and Dorna (Moto GP promoter) told me something very important,” said series director Francois Ribeiro to TouringCarTimes. “They said take Honda, Ducati, Yamaha and look at all their team presentation brochures, see the amount of pictures which are night pictures, and you’ll understand how important it is to have a night event in your series, it’s a special atmosphere.

“Yes it will be very different from Macau of course, but also it will allow teams to get all their equipment back to Europe, in just two-three weeks, and we avoid the risk to have a massive crash in Macau involving four or five privateers and all of a sudden you get a million euros damage on the grid with no insurance, as it’s almost impossible to insure a car at Macau.

Moto GP tracks are normally the best to deliver quality racing and safe quality racing in touring car. The races in Valencia and Brno, in Qatar it will be the same.”

The new events has divided opinion between the drivers, but mostly the debate is which race the drivers are looking forward to the most. While Tom Coronel and other endurance racing specialists without question favour the Nordschleife addition, others are more interested in the street race addition at Vila Real, or the newer locations such as Thailand and Qatar.

“The Thailand circuit, I don’t know anything about it, Vila Real I don’t know anything about it, which is good, to have some new circuits in the season probably for all of us, a new destination,” said four-time champion Yvan Muller to TouringCarTimes.

“I think in touring cars, the only night race I did was Snetterton in the BTCC, but there was not as much light there as there will be in Qatar. Except the straight, it was completely dark everywhere else. “

Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz was more pragmatic about the Nordschleife event, but has higher expections for the challenging Vila Real street race in Portugal.

“At the Nürburgring you could drive for two weeks and still not have the right driving lines, so I think the strategy for everyone at the Nürburgring would be to drive at 95% and score some points,” said Michelisz to TouringCarTimes.
“If I’m in a race winning position, for sure I’d push, for me Nürburgring will be a special moment driving on “The Green Hell” but it will also be difficult as we’d need to be sure in saving cars.”

“A night race should be interesting, but there are quite modern floodlights, so after a few minutes your eyes will be adjusted, so I don’t think it’ll be a difficult challenge. In Thailand and Qatar, they’re new circuits, but we often have the situation that we have new circuits, but it’s the same for everyone, but somewhere in between Thailand and Nürburgring there will be Vila Real; which I think will be a real challenge to drive there. I love street races, I was checking the circuit on YouTube so I can’t really say what the possibilities are for us. My first race win was in Macau, so for me, I’m really looking forward to it.

WTCC director Francois Ribeiro added that returning to Macau could happen in the future, but explained the reasoning behind the decision to leave the Chinese Special Adminstrative Region, which has hosted the season finale for the last ten years.

“In the discussions I had with them, I said I’m not looking for this Sunday morning slot before Formula 3. I’d be more interested in the last slot on the Saturday where the motorcycles are as it’s better for TV in Asia and it’s much better for broadcasters in Europe and South America, but I think they were just not prepared, so we decided to stop after ten years. We left without any bad blood on the table, we just decided to organise ourselves differently.”