Gabriele Tarquini may run new 1.6 turbo at Monza
Gabriele Tarquini is expected to run the new 1.6 litre turbocharged engine this weekend at Monza for the Italian’s home race, after a private test yesterday with the new Lehmann developed engine.
The fast Grand Prix circuit is unlikely to favour the TDI powerplant as much as the last round at Zolder in Belgium, where Tarquini fought off Rob Huff and Alain Menu to take the first non-Chevrolet win of the season. The Italian will therefore be the first to race SUNRED’s new engine in anger this weekend.
It’ll still be tough to compete against the Chevrolets, whom many believe still have more performance available than they’ve shown in the first two rounds, and who first ran their 1.6 litre Global Racing Engine engine over eight months ago before the 2010 season was even finished.
If SUNRED do run the unit for Tarquini, this will be the first time the 2009 champion has raced a non-diesel powered car in the WTCC since Brands Hatch in September 2007.
SUNRED Engineering are skipping the general test at Monza today after their private test, leaving Chevrolet, ROAL, Proteam, Zengo Motorsport, Bamboo Engineering and Polestar Racing to test at the famous Italian circuit, where Chevrolet have been fastest this morning from Tom Coronel’s BMW 320 TC.
The Volvo Polestar Racing team are still running with their normally aspirated 2.0 litre engine this weekend, whilst their new 1.6 litre turbo is still in development, as is unlikely to debut before Brno next month.
