The silly season for WTCC 2013, 2014 and on…

The WTCC has closed down for a short off season before it kicks off again in wherever at the beginning of 2013.

Yes, even the calendar is that fluid at the moment. Barcelona looked set to take over as the opening round of the 2013 season, but now it appears that’s out. It’s now more likely the season will open again at Monza, with Spain set to drop off the calendar.

In terms of what’s happening with teams and drivers, it’s very difficult to patch together what’s going on.

At the moment, bamboo-engineering would need to run upwards of eight cars to run all the drivers that have been linked with them. It was a good season for Alex MacDowall this year as he moved up from the British Touring Car Championship, he was in contention for the independents’ title up until the penultimate round, and he hopes to return again next year. Late season team-mate Darryl O’Young is also trying to put together another sponsorship package and stay at bamboo, where he ended the season after starting with Special Tuning Racing.

Both newly crowned champion Rob Huff and his RML team-mate Alain Menu have also been linked with bamboo-engineering, as has Russia’s Aleksei Dudukalo. The linking factor here is LUKOIL. LUKOIL have paid for Gabriele Tarquini to be in a SEAT for the last two years alongside Aleksei Dudukalo, and there’s a hope that the Russian oil company will continue in the same vein in 2013, as it would give the Russian brand strong exposure in the Championship on a race-winning Chevrolet Cruze with a Championship-winning capable driver.

Bamboo are effectively viewed as the budget option of running a Chevrolet Cruze. RML have also been linked with LUKOIL, as the Wellingborough-based team strive to maintain a presence in the Championship in 2013, before stepping back up to manufacturer status in 2014…more on that later.

RML have said they would like to continue with at least two cars, ideally with two of their current drivers. Any of them would do, which is likely to turn it into a budget acquiring issue. Of course Rob Huff will now bring the No.1 plate with him, but Yvan Muller tends to be pretty good at bringing in some of his own sponsors, though also demands a higher fee.

Alain Menu has also shown he is a strong a driver in the WTCC as he has ever been this season, and would also be a good option for RML to continue with as well. Menu has driven for RML since 2005 in the WTCC, whilst Huff’s association with the team dates back to his first BTCC season in 2004.

Wiechers-Sport are likely to continue, perhaps expanding to a two car outfit depending on what Zengõ Motorsport’s plans are for their second car. Zengõ are still trying to put together the budget for the 2013 season and to defend their independent drivers’ title for Norbert Michelisz. The likelihood is this will be back to a one-car programme for next season, carrying on with the BMW 320 TC, as the possibility of becoming Honda’s B-Team appears to have fizzled out.

ROAL Motorsport will also try and return next season. Tom Coronel wants to remain with the team but is working on the sponsorship package. After missing out on race victories in 2012, the team are likely to be in a much stronger position next year, with RML losing its manufacturer support, and Honda having to develop and run two new cars.

Proteam Racing were in trouble at the beginning of 2012, and are likely to be again. Isaac Tutumlu abruptedly left the team after Marrakech, and the second car was then destroyed in its next practice session, which was several rounds later at Sonoma by Felice Tedeschi. That leaves the team with just one 320 TC for 2013.

Lada Sport are set to be on the grid with the Granta Sport which raced at Hungary and Portugal. They’re expected to have backing from LUKOIL, but it’s understood that this still isn’t finalised yet. The Russian oil giant may well support other teams as well. James Thompson is in a three-year deal with the Russian car manufacturer, and LUKOIL support will likely place Aleksei Dudukalo at the team as the Russian has the most experience in the Championship after two years with SEAT, first with SUNRED and then SEAT Sport this season.

Honda will run a maximum of four cars next year. The two works cars will be driven by Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro as Honda Racing Team JAS, and two additional cars will be run by an independent team yet to be announced. Many current teams approached Honda about next season, as did British Touring Car Championship winners Team Dynamics, but it’s now most likely that B-team will come from someone completely new to the WTCC, with Le Mans-based OAK Racing the most likely candidate.

SEAT Sport will not run a works team in 2013, that much is certain. The manufacturer can’t realistically promote the out-of-production Mk.II SEAT León any longer, and though it’s believed that a Mk.III León was being prepared, with new regulations likely to outlaw the existing Super 2000 specification cars in as little as time as one year, SEAT will have to wait until the new regulations come in.

In the meantime, the plan is to continue to develop the SEAT León WTCC next season. Often criticized as being the oldest car in the Championship, it’s still only slightly older than BMW’s 320 E90. The car was a race winner and pole winning car in 2012 and could well be again in the right hands.

Those right hands are most likely to be Münnich Motorsport. The German team which won the final FIA GT1 World Championship with a pair of Mercedes-Benz SLSs are all set to purchase the two cars used by the Lukoil Racing Team this season, and also acquire one other for drivers Marc Basseng, Markus Winkelhock and René Münnich in 2013.

The British-based Special Tuning Racing team already have four SEAT Leóns and are likely to race them where they can in 2013. Tom Boardman, who had a strong run in the latter part of the season after having to wait six rounds to get the new SEAT Sport 1.6 turbo engine, will drive one of the cars whilst the team work on completing their driver line-up.

SUNRED Engineering also have a garage full of SEATs to race, with Pepe Oriola, Fernando Monje and Fredy Barth all set to be back next season. The team have three cars which have the new engine fitted, and it’s likely that SUNRED’s self-developed engine will be outlawed in 2013, which will force them up either upgrade or park the fourth car used by four different drivers over the course of the season.

Lastly there’s Ford – or Arena Motorsport. The British team endured a tough 2012 season and at the moment it seems unlikely that Ford will be backing a works programme for next season, with the team continuing with their development programme. Caught out at the beginning of the year with a rule interpretation error, the team has a whole host of upgrades planned for the car when it’s finally returned from its five-month world tour. The team hopes to run three cars next year, using its test car as a race car, and some big names have been linked with the team to help drive their development forward in 2013.

Looking ahead even further, the talk is then of manufacturers for the 2014 and 2015 seasons. The keystone here is when will the Championship introduce new regulations? The engine regulations won’t change, but the FIA Touring Car Commission will soon address new aerodynamic rules and changes to the existing Super 2000 cars, which haven’t changed significantly since their introduction for the 2002 European Touring Car Championship.

Once those rules are in, Citroën are expected to come in, giving Sébastien Loeb an all new battleground to compete in after the Frenchman won his ninth World Rally Championship title this season. The car of choice is likely to be the C4 or the DS4. Loeb has already showed his hand at circuit-based racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup races at Pau, the X-Games round of the Global Rallycross championship, and in previous years with Peugeot in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Loeb has previously tested the RML-built Chevrolet Cruze WTCC car, and will compete for selected rounds in next year’s WRC, which may open the door for him to compete in some rounds of the WTCC as well in preparation for 2014.

The latest manufacturer to be linked with the WTCC is Renault. Renault is already omnipresent in motorsport, but primarily outside of Formula 1 they run whole championships or provide engines in spec-agreements such as in GP2. WTCC has a strong market in France thanks to Yvan Muller’s success in the Championship since he joined in 2006, and being able to battle against Citroën on even footing is a very captivating prospect, as both would be coming in at the same time with in theory no upper hand, though as the Renault project is likely to be run by RML, and with a strong possibility that one of those drivers will be Yvan Muller, it’s certainly debatable as to whether that can be considered ‘equal’.

2013 is going to be another tough year for the WTCC, RML really need to find the budget to bring a challenge to Honda, whilst the other independent teams (though RML will most certainly be exempted from independent status somehow) pick off a few wins as well. The prospect of 2014 certainly looks exciting enough to hang around for, and if Chevrolet dominance wasn’t your thing, there should be a lot less of that in 2013 by default.