Photo: WTCC Media

WTCC reveals 2012 championship calendar

The FIA World Touring Car Championship has released the calendar for the 2012 season at a meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council today. The season remains 12 rounds long and is broken into half European, half flyaway rounds.

The 2012 championship will kick off at the high-speed Monza circuit in March, before continuing on to Valencia and Donington Park much earlier than this year, now in April.

The fourth round of the championship will be at an undecided circuit in Germany, previously this round has always taken place at Oschersleben in the former East Germany near Magdeburg, but financial issues may mean the WTCC will find a new German track to race.

The Hungaroring, which enticed a 75,000 crowd this year returns in May, with Marrakech also back on the calendar after financial troubles forced a late cancellation for this year, when it was coincidenally replaced with the round in Hungary.

The championship then returns to Porto for the final round of the European season in June, before heading off to Brazil to race at Curitiba, followed by the championship’s US debut at Sonoma in September, and then finishing as this year at Suzuka, Shanghai and Macau.

All rounds are subject to confirmation of the circuit’s ASNs.

The round at Zolder, Belgium (itself a fill-in for the cancelled round at Buenos Aires) has been dropped, as has the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic.

2012 FIA World Touring Car Championship Calendar

March 11 – Monza, Italy
April 1 – Valencia, Spain
April 15 – Donington Park, UK
April 29 – TBC, Germany
May 6 – Hungaroring, Hungary
May 20 – Marrakech, Morocco
June 10 – Porto, Portugal
July 22 – Curitiba, Brazil
September 23 – Sears Point, USA
October 21 – Suzuka, Japan
November 4 – Shanghai, China
November 18 – Macau, China