Photo: PSP

Chevrolet wants weight penalty for TDI’s

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2007 has been a very succesfull year for Chevrolet, in which they scored seven victories. Because of this success, Chevrolet will drive in the World Touring Car Championship in 2008 again, and RML has been given the ok to start developing a car for 2009 during the coming season. Despite that SEAT has had a big success with it’s TDI and BMW is developing a diesel car for next season, Chevrolet doesn’t want to go that way and expects the FIA to interfere.

“Next season we will drive with the same car as in 2007”, Eric Nève, Motorsport Manager of Chevrolet Europa, said. “So no diesel for us. It’s an evolution the FIA isn’t forbidding, but they’re not encouraging it either.” Especially on twisty tracks like Macau the TDI has proved to be an advantage.

“It was a tremendous opponent, accelerating better out of the slow corners. However, we fully trust that the FIA will come with to good balance in weight difference between petrol and diesel powered cars, just like they did with front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive cars.”

“There will be no real changes to the Lacetti for 2008. That’s very hard to do with a car that’s going to run it’s fourth season. At the moment we’re working on the geometry of the suspension. There are some minor changes to the aerodynamics of the car, but hardly noticable for an outsider”, according to Nève. “Due to a change in the regulations, which standardises the diameter of the valves, we had to make a change to the cylinder head as well.”

“The winterstop is very short this year. The first race at Curitiba is already on March 2nd. The cars have to be shipped to there at the end of January. That’s why we’ve already been working a long time on the development, approval and production of new parts. The first tests have started in England and soon we’ll be doing some more testing in Portugal.”

“Our goal for 2008 is to win the drivers’ title. With just three cars on the grid, of which only two can score points, we don’t have a chance for winning the constructors title”, concludes Nève.