WTCC reveals revised plan for Nordschleife event in 2015

The one-race format which had been proposed for the FIA World Touring Car Championship’s first time at the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit has been revised, with the formal set-up for the event to be confirmed by the WMSC on October 30th.

WTCC Motorsport Manager Francois Ribeiro confirmed to AUTOSPORT that the proposed single race format will be switched back to a pair of three lap races, which will be run back-to-back but with no repair time, and with a revised qualifying format, not surprisingly dropping the Q3 single lap shootout for this event.

“When we talked about the one-hour race, we knew it would be a risk with 25 cars, say, that the field could become very spread out,” said Ribeiro.

“It would therefore be hard to produce something exciting. The first person who said this to me was [Citroen driver and reigning WTCC champion] Yvan Muller, bizarrely, as he has never raced there.

“He said, ‘Are you sure that the grid will stay compact if we race there for one hour?’ I thought maybe he was right.

“We will therefore keep the two-race format, and have two lots of three laps.”

The second race grid will either be decided from a top ten reverse from race one (pre-2011 format) or from Q2.

The TV production will utilise Eurosport Events’ FIA European Rally Championship crew, including the use of onboards, a helicopter and a relay aircraft, in addition to the Nürburgring 24 Hours team.