Volvo confirms Brands and Okayama races

The official Volvo team Polestar Racing is going to take part in the FIA World Touring Car Championship races at Brands Hatch and Okayama.
“We are very happy Volvo Cars has made the decision to let us do Brands Hatch again and Okayama,” said team boss Christian Dahl.

Volvo is going to field one car for Robert Dahlgren, who is currently leading the Swedish and Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, in the two WTCC races.

“We have done one WTCC event per season the last two seasons to evaluate our car against the best. These two meetings will allow an even better evaluation,” said Dahl.

The two races WTCC races is a part of Volvo’s continued evaluation to enter the WTCC full time.

“We will remain focused on the improved FIA S2000 regulations used in WTCC. That is why we have given Polestar a green light to further evaluate competitiveness and challenged them to establish a financial and technical plan for WTCC for 2011, including a full FIA homologation of the current C30 car,” said Volvo Motorsport Commercial Director Alexander Murdzevski Schedvin.

Volvo state that they are more in favor the coming upgraded S2000 regulations, rather than the various national regulations that are being planned.

“We see WTCC now addressing its major obstacle for growth with the new engine regulations. At the same time we see several national championships starting to stray from the FIA S2000 regulations by several own counterproductive decisions and dispensations from a manufacturer perspective,” said Murdzevski Schedvin.

As the Volvo C30 is nationally homologated, it is not going to be eligible to score points in the WTCC races in the UK and Japan.