WSC and FIA target 35 entries for inaugural TCR World Ranking Final

TCR rights holder WSC Ltd and the FIA eye a minimum of 30-35 entries for the inaugural TCR World Ranking Final at Vallelunga on November 21-23 this year.

“Our target is to exceed 35 cars,” FIA Circuit Sport Deputy Director Stuart Murray said to TouringCarTimes.

“If you could guaranteed right now 35 cars I’d be more than happy and that would be enough for us. But we have an ambitious promoter who’s targeting even more than that and we have the space in the format and in the calendar for up to 60 cars, which would be a dream, it would be a challenge but it would be a nice problem to have.

“But I think realistically if we could get into the forties I think we would all be very pleased with that. That would give us enough cars to make it a good fun and a good spectacle.”

The recently revealed format will include pit stops for guest drivers ahead of the main race, something WSC boss Marcello Lotti will increase the interest and grid size further.

“I know now that there are two drivers from Mexico who want to come and our estimation is between 30 and 35 cars,” WSC Ltd president Marcello Lotti told TouringCarTimes.

“It’s very interesting for the manufacturers and teams to send their professional driver for the endurance so, if we count on those, we could even reach 40-45.”

The fact that the TCR World Ranking Final is a FIA-sanctioned event is something Murray believes will add further interest.

“The TCR World Ranking Final is something that’s not necessarily focused at the teams but rather the drivers, focused more on the national and the regional champions that it brings along,” said Murray.

“It’ll be open to those who are obviously classified on the TCR world ranking and what we can potentially have is here is the Brazilian champion, the Argentine champion, the top three or four from TCR South America against the best drivers from Australia, Japan and really kind of bringing together the ecosystem that races around the world in TCR cars and it gives them the opportunity to fight for an FIA title.

“Because maybe they don’t have the budget or maybe they’re not as competitive enough to come and do a full season of the FIA TCR World Tour but, for one event every year two years that can give them something to aspire towards.”

The TCR World Ranking Final was announced in 2023 and got postponed twice.

But Murray believes that alternating with other major FIA events, such as the FIA Motorsport Games, will make the event sustainable.

“We sat down with WSC and we had to do a bit of a kind of check on the market because at a certain point we don’t want the market to get too saturated and originally the goal was to try and get this competition started last year,” Murray explained.

“But then we looked at it and we realised that obviously we already have the FIA Motorsport Games which was an FIA title with a TCR competition and if we were running last year the Motorsport Games and the TCR World Ranking final it would be so much in such a short piece of time.

“So now we’ve positioned it in a way that we’ll always have this kind of one-off event every year but one year it’d be the motorsport games then it’ll be the world ranking final which is obviously dedicated just to touring cars and they can rotate between the two of them,” said Murray.

“It means that no one is having to try and find the budget to do two events or in the same year, they can focus on one big event per year which is much more achievable for those that are investing in customer racing.”