No second Lada for season start, 15 cars on the grid in Morocco
15 cars will take to the track for the first round of the 2017 World Touring Car Championship in Morocco this weekend, as new team RC Motorsport continue work on fielding a driver in their second Lada Vesta from the next round at Monza.
The championship will field its lowest grid to-date with just 15 cars in North Africa, but with the 16th due from the next race meeting in Italy at the end of the month.
Under the WTCC sporting regulations, an event “can be cancelled” if fewer than 16 cars are entered. This is often misunderstood to be a minimum requirement for a World Championship entry, when in fact it’s more to do with commercial clauses with the circuits.
“In fairness, I don’t think we’ll get the second Lada in Marrakech, I think it will be a bit short,” said WTCC promoter Francois Ribeiro to TouringCarTimes last month.
“It’s not impossible that we’ll have some race-by-race entries above the full-season ones. We’re still working on it,” he added.
As a result, Honda will be the most represented manufacturer on the grid this weekend with five cars. Three will be run by JAS Motorsport as the factory Honda entry, and two by Hungarian private team Zengõ Motorsport.
There will be four Citroën C-Elysée WTCCs on the grid, all run in a privateer capacity. Three by Sébastien Loeb Racing, and one by Münnich Motorsport.
Polestar Cyan Racing will field the three factory Volvo S60 TC1s, while there are also two independent Chevrolet RML Cruzes, and the lone RC Lada Vesta for newcomer Yann Ehrlacher.
