Photo: TCR Asia

WTCR boss can’t guarantee manufacturers won’t be involved in the series

By

The promoter of the WTCR, Francois Ribeiro, says it’ll be impossible to prevent manufacturers from supporting teams in the new FIA cup next year, but the technical format of TCR will allow fully independent teams to compete on the same level in any case.

The WTCC’s switch to TCR regulations has seen the series rule out full manufacturer programmes such as those seen from Volvo and Honda this year, but with a level of factory support already noticeably present in the TCR International Series, especially clear with the Hyundai Customer Racing entry during the last two rounds of 2017, Ribeiro has confirmed there’s nothing to stop something similar happening in WTCR in 2018.

“It’s very difficult to prevent manufacturers from supporting a private team,” said Ribeiro to TouringCarTimes. “If the manufacturer wants to have a privileged relationship with a team by providing a car, a driver, or an engineer, it’s something very difficult to prevent. It was obviously already the case in TCR International, even though it was never meant to be a manufacturer championship.

“So, I expect some manufacturers to have a technical cooperation or relationship with some teams, but the nature of the regulations means if a team such as ALL-INKL wants to keep running in WTCR and with a professional driver like the one they have this year (Rob Huff), they can still be champions at the end of next year.”

The main way equality between the cars is managed within TCR is both by a price cap of the cars, which for 2017 was 130,000 EUR, preventing cars from being overengineered and not cost-effective to sell, and the often-controversial Balance of Performance measures, which seek to equalise the different cars and configurations from the various manufacturers on the grid.

“It’ll be completely down to WSC’s (TCR promoter) technical delegates and the FIA’s technical delegate to deliver something very consistent and transparent,” added Ribeiro.

“Running a BoP is very difficult. Usually, when you run a BoP, you will always have one part of the grid very angry, and one part very silent. The FIA understood that BoP on TCR was not an easy matter, and I hope that the FIA will bring all its resources and experience to help the process and deliver something which is of a very good level to guarantee the technical fairness.”