New rules makes BMW favorites says Menu

Chevrolet-man Alain Menu thinks BMW will be the strongest runners for the FIA World Touring Car Championship 2009 title.
“I expect BMW to be the strongest car. There have been a few changes in the rules and I think, on paper, it looks like BMW will come out on top,” said Menu at the Autosport International Show.

“But we will see, I still believe it’s going to be very tight, but my gut feeling is that the BMW will be the car to beat.”

After SEAT’s domination of the WTCC 2008, FIA have adjusted the rules for the diesel engine to make them more equal to the petrol powered cars of BMW and Chevrolet.

“The FIA do work hard to equalise things as much as possible, they’ve tried to slow the diesel down a little bit, but nobody quite knows how much,” said Menu’s team mate Rob Huff.

Chevrolet will debut the new Cruze-model for the 2009-season. The team has begun testing with the car, but Menu is uncertain where they will be compared to the other cars in the premiere at Curitiba, Brazil, in March.

“The biggest problem we’ve got is that we don’t know where we stand with the new car at the moment, and we’re not going to know until we get to the first race meeting in Brazil in March,” said Huff.

“We’re just focusing as much as possible on making the Cruze as quick and reliable as possible. We’ve seen that you don’t necessarily need the fastest car out there to win, you just need to be consistent throughout the year.”