Photo: ADAC Procar, Thate Motorsport,

Procar season starts this weekend

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The 2010 ADAC Procar Series gets underway this weekend, we preview the line-up in Germany’s S2000 championship.

The 2010 ADAC Procar Championship’s opening round takes place at Oschersleben, where the series will return to on two further occasions this year, one of those in support of the FIA World Touring Car Championship.

The championship will be entering into it’s second year as a three tier series, with the series Division 1 feauturing cars built to S2000 specification.

In that class, 2009 Champion Remi Friberg doesn’t return, nor does close rival Charlie Geipel. Third placed driver Roland Hertner is back however, staying with Liqui-Moly Team Engstler – as the team enter four cars this year – three of which are current model E90 BMW 320si’s, the other two for Russian driver Rustem Teregulov, and German Johannes Leidinger.

A fourth car, an older E46 BMW 320i will be driven by newcomer Florian Spengler – which shouldn’t be discounted, Friberg won the title in the E46, even though team mate Hertner had the E90 in 2009.

Yaco Racing also return, but with Charlie Geipel leaving, his Auris will be raced by former Engstler driver Oleg Petrishin. Yaco will also bring out their older Corolla and run a two car all Russian line-up, with Mikhail Stepanov joining the team.

Swiss team Rikli Motorsport have a surprise line-up of cars, as the team will race three different models of Honda race car. Also with an all Swiss driver line-up, Stephan Zbinden will race a 7th Generation Honda Civic, Jörg Schori will continue with the Accord Euro-R whilst team owner Peter Rikli will race an imported current model Honda Civic FD saloon.

Lastly, Thate Motorsport, who had occassional appearances at the beginning of 2009 look set to return with the Mercedes-Benz C200 for Jens Weimannn.

With another 14 cars entered in Division’s 2 & 3 in smaller production based classes, the series will feature a strong 20+ car grid as Liqui-Moly Team Engstler take to the circuit this weekend in defence of it’s drivers and team’s titles from 2009 – will Yaco or Rikli be able to beat the almighty BMW outfit?