Huisman ready for return in WTCC
He has won the 2005 finale in Macau with BMW. In 2006 and 2007 he also drove a BMW at the Macau track, and helped the Munich make secure the title there. He also drove very succesfully in the Dutch (three times champion with BMW) and Swedish Touring Car Championship. The last one he drove in 2006 and finished third in the championship, after scoring four podium finishes. But somehow Duncan Huisman never got the big seat for a full season in the World Touring Car Championship.
This weekend the Dutch driver returns to this very WTCC, but this time not in a works car. He will be driving for the privateer team of Hans-Dieter Wiechers, Wiechers Motorsport. But again it will be a BMW he will be driving in.
Huisman, 36 years old from Rotterdam, is happy to be back in the WTCC. “The contacts date from the 24 hours of Spa. I was asked there if I wanted to drive in a Wiechers Sport car. I’ve been driving for Ekris Autosport (for which he’s driving in the Dutch BMW 316i Cup this year, ed.), so I had to check with them to see if there were any problems”, Huisman said.
“They were very positive about it, because they are very happy to help getting Dutch drivers in the best Touring Car series in the world. And ofcourse Wiechers Sport is known as a good team, that has managed to win several Independents Trophy’s, and they use a BMW to do it with.”
“Ofcourse Wiechers asked for sponsoring, and my team helped there as well. Apart from that this is a great opportunity to show my potential and hopefully it will help the rest of the season, because I’d really love to drive at Macau again. I scored some good results there over the past few years. Every year it was in a BMW, and it would be nice to repeat that this year.”
Huisman travelled to Oschersleben on thursday to meet his team. “That way we can get to know eachother and work our way together towards the races. It isn’t going to be easy in qualifying, because there are several works teams and the differences between the cars are small. But perhaps we can score a good result in the first race and with that get a good starting position for race two.”
“I know I can’t score any points in the Indepents Trophy because of my past results, but I’m willing to do everything for my team. It’s a home race for them. We’ll have to hope for a bit of luck and when that happens I’m sure it is going to be a great weekend.”
It’s going to be nice to race against Tom Coronel as well, as we normally race together in in the Germany VLN Championship (long distance racing). This time it’s going to be against eachother, and that is something I look forward to as well.”
Huisman will be joined in the Wiechers team by fellow Dutchman Olivier Tielemans, who has driven most of the races for Wiechers this year, but had to miss the Pau race due to health problems and the Brands Hatch race due to the team’s financial problems.
“It’s nice to be here! Many thanks to the Wiechers family! They have worked hard for me and organized the drive for me”, Tielemans said. It will be hard here because we didn’t have the money to develop the car. But Ï know the track well and was very fast at a test here in february. I don’t know if it’s an advantage that Duncan is my teammate but he knows the car and we will see! I am aiming for a podium finish in the Independants Trophy.”
