Photo: Super TC 2000 Media

The Super TC 2000 touches down in Santa Fe for double-header street race

The Argentinian Super TC 2000 championship arrives in Santa Fe for a special weekend, which consists of a double-header round featuring a night race on Saturday, as well as the traditional Sunday race.

The track has had some minor changes for this season, including a new apex at the “Cervecería” (‘the beer bar’) turn, which has been transformed from a flat-left 180° turn into a hairpin, which leads to a rebuilt chicane.

The pit lane and main straight has also been moved forward to where the last sector until 2016.

The action started on Thursday evening, as for the third consecutive year, seven Super TC 2000 cars, those of Leonel Pernía of Renault, Alessandro Salerno of Escudería FE, Esteban Guerrieri of Citroen Total Racing, Bernardo Llaver of YPF Chevrolet, Javier Merlo of Fiat Petronas, and Matías Milla of Toyota Gazoo Racing Argentina and the Peugeot 408, driven by TC 2000 junior driver Agustín Lima Capitao, held a road show through the underwater 2.5 kilometre tunnel which connects Santa Fe and Paraná, the respective capital cities of the Santa Fe and Entre Ríos provinces.

After the traffic was closed, the cars the drove through the tunnel at over 280 km/h.

In terms of the championship, Mariano Werner is Team Peugeot Total Argentina’s leading contender, and arrives on top of the standings with 107 points.

Renault Sport arrives to Santa Fe with one less car after Germán Sirvent has severed his link to the team following budget issues. Meanwhile, Facundo Ardusso is the marque’s highest performer of 2017. Ardusso goes to Round 8 of the season in second place in the standings, just two points behind Werner. He has already won at the track back in 2015, then driving for Fiat Petronas.

Reigning champion Agustín Canapino from YPF Chevrolet comes back to the track where he earned a double win last year which proved key. The 27-year-old is currently third in the standings on 97.5 points.

Toyota Gazoo Racing Argentina’s star Matías Rossi is fourth overall on 92 points, and hopes to be a contender for the win.

The other highlight ahead of this weekend is the revised race format for 2017. From this year, each race has its own qualifying session. Until 2016, the Race 1 results set the Race 2 starting grid.

Timetable

Saturday September 2nd
Practice 1 – 10:00
Practice 2 – 12:45
Qualifying – 15:50
Race 1 – 20:05

Sunday September 3rd
Warm-Up: 8:20
Qualifying: 9:35
Race 2: 12:15

All times ART (CET + 3)