Photo: WTCC Media

Marrakech sees first compensation weights applied

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The third round of the 2012 FIA World Touring Car Championship will see compensation weights come into effect, with the Chevrolet Cruze still the reference model and will be carrying the most weight.

The 2011 Championship winning Chevrolet has been forced to carry an additional 40kg over its new increased base weight for the first two rounds of the season, but despite this the team has still won the first four races of the Championship, with Yvan Muller and Alain Menu setting the fastest laps at Valencia and Rickard Rydell and Rob Huff the fastest laps at Monza in the Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T.

With race and qualifying laps taken into account, the Chevrolet Cruze will still run at the maximum possible weight of 1,200kg at Marrakech with 40kg of compensation ballast onboard, whilst SEAT and BMW will be a lot closer in terms of weight for the Moroccan street race.

The new SEAT León WTCC, which Gabriele Tarquini took to pole position at Monza and was close to repeating the feat in qualifying at Valencia will now carry 30kg of compensation weight, making it the joint heaviest car on the grid along with the BMW 320 TC. The BMW only gets 20kg of ballast but already starts 10kg heavier than the SEAT on account of being rear-wheel drive.

The separately homologated SUNRED León, with the Spanish independent team’s own engine will run at its base weight plus 20kg late entry ballast as it wasn’t entered for Monza, before its weight will be calculated anew at the following round in the Slovak Republic.

The lightest cars at Marrakech will be the two Ford Focus S2000 TCs of Arena Motorsport, although they’ll still carry 30kg of penalty ballast for the final time for running with non-homologated suspension components before those parts are changed, will lose 20kg of ballast on pace which allows the car to run at 1,160kg, making it the lightest car on the grid by 10kg.

Car Weights for Marrakech

Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T – 1,200kg (1,160 +40kg success ballast)
SEAT León WTCC – 1,180kg (1,150 + 30kg success ballast)
BMW 320 TC – 1,180kg (1,160 + 20kg success ballast)
SR León 1.6T – 1,170kg (1,150 + 20kg penalty ballast)
Ford Focus S2000 TC – 1,160kg (1,150 + 30kg penalty ballast -20kg success ballast)