Hungary reigns supreme in 2012 TcT WTCC awards

In a record voter turnout for the WTCC awards, we saw the fans support of Norbert Michelisz seen at the Hungaroring carry over into our end of year awards, with Norbert Michelisz claiming the top position in the vote.

Editor’s Note:
Welcome to the results of the 2012 TouringCarTimes World Touring Car Championship awards.

We’re going to present the results of the WTCC category slightly differently than the others, because it’s been quite different to all of the others.

The results are quite unusual. We had unprecedented interest in the awards last year, with many touring car fans voting for their favourite drivers and teams, much more than usual, but proportionately more came from Hungary this year.

I think anyone who watched the Hungarian WTCC races on TV or as I were there in person would probably understand why the results have turned out as they are. The nation of Hungary seems to have developed a passion for the WTCC like no other country in the world, with 75,000+ fans cramming into the circuit to cheer on their hero Norbert Michelisz last year and then again this year and his team-mate Gábor Wéber.

The atmosphere was unlike any other touring car race in the world. It brought a Formula 1 style atmosphere to what is still a very young Championship, and in years if just a small proportion of the support and enthusiasm that Hungarian fans bring to the WTCC also grew in other countries, it’d be fantastic.

I’d like to thank all the teams and drivers that got involved with the awards as well. Many canvassed for their fans votes as you’d expect, one even sent out a press release asking for votes too (we know who you are, because we’re on your mailing list!), so the popularity contest was really fascinating to watch.

Although the results probably don’t realistically reflect the comparative performance of the drivers we saw in 2012, the fact is we just asked for you to vote for who you wanted to. Adjusting the results in any way would be wrong, so we’ll just display them to you as they are, and add a bit of insight to them.

For the 2013 awards, we’ll have a think about ways in which to run the awards slightly differently, so they’ll still be a fan voted affair but may also be a little bit more related to the performance of the drivers and teams as well.

Best Driver

So with a staggering 47.4% of the vote, Norbert Michelisz was voted as the best driver overall in the 2012 WTCC. Michelisz took his second career win in front of a capacity crowd at the Hungaroring in May, and the excitement from the crowd was quite incredible. All the drivers and teams enjoyed the race just for amazing atmosphere at the circuit just outside Budapest, and his fans voted in droves to award him the best driver result.

In second place, was the WTCC PR king himself Tom Coronel, with 11.9% of the vote. Although the Dutch favourite missed out on a win this season, though came very close in the thrilling end to the second race at the Salzburgring, just picking the wrong side of Rob Huff’s punctured Chevrolet to pass on, some amazing drives from the back of the grid on ‘knackered tyres’ were season’s highlights, and the Dutchman went on to finish in fifth place in the standings, the top placed BMW driver.

In third place was WTCC champion Rob Huff on 9%. The British driver took his first title after an exhilarating fight at Macau, with a crash in the first race which he’ll never forget. A few errors by team-mate Yvan Muller fell in his favour, and the Brit was also pushed hard by Chevrolet team-mate Alain Menu, who was exceptionally fast all year in the other Cruze. Huff won the award last year, despite being second in the Championship, but given the sheer number of votes in support of Norbert Michelisz, they shouldn’t be too downbeat with third considering.

In fourth place was Pepe Oriola. The young Spanish star put in some fantastic results in his second season with the new SEAT engine, and was voted by fans as the best SEAT driver in 2012. The Spaniard clocked 8.8% of the vote.

Hong Kong’s Darryl O’Young was next. Starting the year with Special Tuning Racing, a change of teams after two years with bamboo-engineering, it was a tough start with the car catching fire in the morning warm-up and missing the first races at Monza. Better results came later in the year, but a switch back to bamboo-engineering for the final three rounds turned things around, and O’Young scored over half his season’s points tally in just the final race at Macau alone with two independents’ class victories. O’Young collected a strong 7.7% of the vote.

Teams

In the teams’ category, Zengõ Motorsport snatched over half of the vote. Running two cars in the early part of the year for Michelisz and Wéber, the team finished fifth in the independent teams’ category. Strong results in the latter part of the year turned Michelisz’s independent championship fight around and the Hungarian overhauled Pepe Oriola and Wiechers-Sport’s Stefano D’Aste for his first independents’ title. The team landed the lucrative deal against a number of other teams to run the new Honda Civic for the 2013 season, the same car as the two works drivers Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro will race.

Chevrolet picked up second spot with 14.4% of the vote. The three-time manufacturers’ champions have been an unstoppable force in the last few seasons, with two drivers’ titles for Yvan Muller and one for Rob Huff. All three of their drivers finished in the top three spots in 2011 and 2012, and the team were almost unbeatable, though a few wins managed to sneak by them with Stefano D’Aste taking wins in Austria and Japan, and Norbert Michelisz of course his win on home soil.

In third place was Italian BMW squad ROAL Motorsport. Roberto Ravaglia’s team was back to two drivers in 2012 with Tom Coronel leading the team and joined by young rising Italian star Alberto Cerqui for much of the season. The team took a strong 11.2% of the vote.

The Tuenti Racing Team had a great season, with Pepe Oriola’s championship charge, and new driver Fernando Monje winning the FIA European Touring Car Cup S2000 trophy before joining the team for the flyaway rounds. Tiago Monteiro also picked up points consistently before his departure to Honda. The team scored 7.5% of the vote.

In fifth was British independent squad bamboo-engineering. The team was in contention for the independent drivers’ title for much of the season with former works Chevrolet BTCC driver Alex MacDowall. A rotating driver line-up in the second car saw Pasquale Di Sabatino, Michel Nykjaer, Robb Holland and Darryl O’Young drive the car, with class wins for three of those drivers in the season. Bamboo took 5.4% of the vote.

Indie Driver

I don’t think it’s any surprise at this point to see Norbert Michelisz take the top position in the independent driver vote. Michelisz took 58.3% in this category to mirror his independents’ trophy success.

Pepe Oriola was second place, also mirroring the trophy result, with 10.3%, with Stefano D’Aste taking his first two career wins on his way to third in the independents’, and third in our poll with 6.8% of the vote.

End-of-the-year team-mates Darryl O’Young and Alex MacDowall were fourth and fifth with 5.4% and 3.6% respectively.

Indie Team

And in the independent teams’ category it was Zengõ again on 56.4% of the vote. The Hungarian squad were voted ahead of ROAL Motorsport who grabbed 10.6% and the Spanish SUNRED/Tuenti Racing Team outfit finishing third on 9.2%.

bamboo-engineering were fourth on 9.0% and surprisingly the independent teams’ champions Lukoil Racing Team were fifth, some way back on 2.7%.

Rookie

2012 was the season of the rookie in WTCC, with 18 drivers eligible for the accolade this season. Gábor Wéber took top honours, claiming 45.3% of the vote in his half-season with Zengõ Motorsport.

In second place was Alex MacDowall. The young British driver from Carlisle, who’d previously won the BTCC rookie award in 2010, took an impressive 15% of the vote. MacDowall was in contention for the independents’ drivers title up until the penultimate round at Shanghai, with his best performances coming later in the season as he became more accustomed to the different tracks of the WTCC than the UK.

Tom Chilton took 8.3% of the vote to be classified as the third best rookie. Although Chilton had nine years experience from the BTCC, it was his first time on many of the WTCC circuits, and with an all new team to the Championship with Arena Motorsport. Chilton finished just one spot ahead of newcomer Fernando Monje in the vote who took 8.2%, with his Arena Ford team-mate James Nash fifth with 6.5%.

Best Car

The car that won 21 of 24 races was the Chevrolet Cruze, and in 2011 it was voted as the best car for achieving a similar feat. It was BMW’s turn this time though, even though the car was built for the 2006 WTCC season, it had Norbert Michelisz at the wheel of one of them, and the ever popular Tom Coronel at the wheel of another, to help it achieve a 51.2% share of the vote.

The Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T was closest to the Bavarian saloon, taking 26.7%, with the all new Honda Civic Super 2000 TC taking 8.8% adding something new to the grid for the final three rounds. The upgraded SEAT León WTCC took 8.5% of the vote to finish fourth, whilst the new Ford Focus S2000 TC finished in fifth place on 1.9% of the vote, a little way ahead of the Lada Granta Sport.