Chevrolet unveils WTCC 2009 plans

The Chevrolet World Touring Car Championship 2008 program was launched at the Vienna Auto Show last week together with plans for 2009. The 2008 specification Lacetti was unveiled and Chevrolet Motorsport Manager Eric Néve was present.
“Chevrolet’s objective for this year is clearly to try and win the drivers’ championship,” said Néve to the WTCC site.

Testing for the 2008 season has already begun, but the team will also start development for 2009 when the next generation of Chevrolet WTCC-racer will be introduced.

“We have been very successful with the current car and it’s important that we carry over the competitive aspects into the new car,” Chief project Engineer Mark Way said.

“The first stage is to create a design brief and then to study the new car and where it differs from the current car; where we think is it better and areas that need attention.

“As we are continuing to develop the current car we have had to increase our engineering capacity, this will be one of our busiest years with high expectations for this season and preparing for next season.

“Only when we have done all our homework correctly can we start building the new car, then starts the testing period where we will verify everything is working as it should.

“But that’s still many months of hard work away! After all, the new car will have to be at least as good as the current one.”