Until the puncture on lap 9

The World Touring Car Championship is about to kickstart once again in Monza this weekend. Two races scheduled for Sunday, the 24th of March. A big loss for the series is of course Alain Menu leaving for Porsche Supercup this season after Chevrolet pulled out their manufacturer support from the WTCC. Losing a factory supported seat in the series might have been one of the reasons for that but I bet Alain was as little tired of getting punted off the track by his own teammate. In light of the change of regulations coming 2014 I think we can hope to see Menu back next year.

So 2013 is similar to the situation in Formula 1 at the moment, a stand-still evolutionary year before the big change. More aero and power with less weight has been promised for WTCC 2014 and they'll also scrap the performance balancing system so maybe we'll see the series losing weight penalties once and for all which would be cute indeed. So this year was not supposed to be big in terms of news but it turns out to be quite the opposite. Honda is expected to be strong with their new Civic which Tiago Monteiro put on the podium in Macau while it was still in development phase - it was clear how the car couldn't ride curbs and lacked balance in grip levels in Suzuka, a few races before the season finale, so imagining what they've probably done during the winter makes for a scary image - in a good way though, I'm sure they'll be quick right out of the box and well, having Tarquini on board to drive the car alongside Monteiro is surely a strong package. Having mentioned that, Norbert Michelisz is going to drive a sister car to them with Zengo Motorsport so I'm sure Honda will be getting the attention and all the marketing benefits they seek from World Touring Cars. And in the end, that's what this series is all about and perhaps it's the only reasonable explanation to what Lada are doing over the past years. In and out of the series, no one really understands what's going on with them. Having James Thompson in the car will give them a chance though and Thomspon has given good comments on the new Lada Granta, claiming it's nimble and changing direction well with a good drag due to it's small size, giving a good potential for top speed. It looks good as well, I was amazed by the agressive aero pack they have on the Granta, making it a very nice looking race car in the pack, the livery turned out to be a huge disappointment though. So seeing Ladas in the pointy end (well, at least one of them - still not expecting too many stunning results drom Dudukalo) is maybe not as impossible as it was last time we saw the Russian fighters in the category. They should however decide if they want to be on the grid or not.

Making decisions whether to be on the 2014 grid are seemingly also a bunch of other manufacturers - talk of 9 time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb joinig the series with Citroen is the big talk, understandably with the unbeatable Frenchman having done track racing before and being known for the reputation of a race driver on gravel, snow and tarmac, not a sideways hooligan. So Loeb knows how to go fast and find grip on a road. It would be huge to see him on the grid. For people who are hesitating that he can be competitive and quickly up to speed, don't forget two things - first, Loeb came into rallying by applying his tarmac knowledge and skills to other surfaces. So he was a black-stuff racer before his row of world titles. The other interesting fact is, Yvan "the touring car champ" Muller is a ten time ice racing champion as well - it's why he doesn't mind if the car is loose and sliding a bit.


What can we expect from the racing in WTCC this year? The ancient SEAT Leon, which still remains one of the most beautiful cars on the grid is without a doubt still a contender despite having no further development for a long time now, apart frome the Oreca 1.6l petrol engine. Rob Huff will be trying to do his title defending from there then. Münnich Motorsport could be a force to reckon with, the drivers are well experienced and have the tools to argue the point but I guess their chances are not fantastic either. The rear-wheel drive camp of BMWs will be spoiling the day for some of the guys for sure, but realistically there are no title contenders there. RML with their two remaining Chevys could do damage though, I think Muller is someone you can never write off and Tom Chilton is not exactly a rookie either, probably not as experienced in putting a championship together though. So Muller vs Tarquini? Looks a lot like it but don't forget there's a lot of drivers who can spring a surprise.

So that's the introduction done with. But where is the series going? Is a cute little ten lap race really the best way to argue the car market for top manufacturers? In 1987 World Touring Car Championship started in Monza as it will this weekend (the race then was on 22nd of March so close enough). Australians Allan Moffat and John Harvey won the race by completing 86 laps in their Holden Commodore SS. The six BMW M3s which finished in the top six positions were disqualifed for being 80kg underweight through the use of carbon fiber body panels. Two drivers and 86 laps, so one driver and 43 laps. Tight TV airtime of the 21st century, ok so let's say 40 laps and a mandatory pit stop. I would pay to watch that.

The problem with World Touring Cars is it's not exactly the toughest day at the office. It's a bit of a show cruise as the field has time to spread themselves wide apart but there's no strategy or a longer perspective to compress it back together. This creates a kind of a sunday drive format in the local go-kart joint with your best friends as there are less and less serious drivers coming in to the series simply because it's not enough of a challenge. It has two sides to it though - we would like to see a longer handful of laps and real racing but we already love the sprint race format pushing cars close to each other having very little time to make their moves, a concrete characteristic of touring car racing. But ultimately, are we about to see a slow death of aesthetics in a top championship. Something the FIA would one day suddenly decide to remove their name from perhaps. I'm not sure of the curses on the series but I'm sure a revision of the format along with new cars and manufacturers would stop the scheme of mediocre drivers in mediocre teams screwing on massive camber degrees until their tires burst on lap 9 before the end of the race. If you take a rough look at the WTCC, it looks a lot like it, with extras.

Pinnacle of motorsport

 

 What better to reflect on than the big bang start of the 2013 Formula 1 season in Melbourne... For the big bang start of our blog I have a feeling, it's just perfect. I started composing the article after enjoying the first two free practice sessions at Albert Park. Albert Park... it's a great track isn't it? Although once again at the start of the year, I imagine how exciting would it be to have the season opener traditionally set in Australia, but in Adelaide. A quick search on youtube takes me to an onboard video of Ayrton Senna on a flying lap in Adelaide, 1993. So undescribably good! 20 years have passed at which point I think, would it be appropriate to swap Melbourne's annual traffic headache back to the streets of Adelaide? I don't know, there's nothing wrong with Albert Park though, the circuit is magnificent... but still I can't keep myself from dreaming. A biannual event between the two like Barcelona / Valencia would be nice.

Alright so Lewis is sitting low down in the cockpit of the Mercedes distinguished by his yellow helmet and his teammate is wearing another yellow helmet... that's way better isn't it? Although one of them is supposed to be a "darker yellow", I still wouldn't want to be a TV commentator right now. Well we're again at the talking point of which teams are going to perform right from the start, who has a chance and who will make a complete cloth of themselves and how the Ferrari F138 is 200 times better than the last car, according to the words of Fernando Alonso. This discussion is all unsurprisingly common to the start of the year and I'm just thinking, aren't we getting tired of that? A 22 car grid where the last man is six seconds off the pace. It's hardly the pinnacle of motorsport, don't you think? The first components of the false balance are of course the teams that just can't make it and probably never will. So maybe they should really stop trying to play with the big boys and pick on someone their own size, outside of Formula 1, that is. I'm not picking personally on any of the teams, as far as I've caught out of media over the years, Marussia's and Caterham's garages seem to be filled with wonderful people but that's not the case, you still don't climb in to the ring with Ali just cause you think you can box.

The other part of the non-parity in F1 is the insanely high level of technical development which everyone pays for according to their own scale. Thanks to budget restrictions, we're not in the period anymore where the big teams could do an engine change between FP2 and FP3 and then another quick one before qualifying but still, the level and the numbers - it's just mad. It costs well over a 1000€ per lap to run a Formula 1 car but the money that goes into it before they even hit the track is immence. It's a race against Adrian Newey for that matter but I was hoping we'll one day really see if Vettel is faster than Hamilton or would Alonso and Kimi eclipse them both. We'll never know apart from our strong hunches and that also isn't the pinnacle of motorsport in my eyes.

The track was green at the start of the first session despite all the support races already taking place earlier so the indication of the competion was less than nothing simply because no one wanted to leave pitlane for half an hour into the session. And talking about support races - the V8 Supercars championship is something F1 could learn a lot from. The "vee-eights" season kicked off in Adelaide already two weeks ago and we'll get to that in another article but to make the point here - they've introduced new regulations for this year which brought two new manufacturers into the category after a 20-year uninterrupted battle between Ford and Holden. They only managed this thanks to the revised structure of the new cars by setting strict control parts - suspension, brakes etc, even the footwells for the pedals are the same on all the cars. All of course complimentary to the improvements in safety, reducing costs etc. The only differences come from the engines and aero packages which are also restricted and tweaked into a close window - the aerodynamic downforce for all of the four cars is within 2 kg of each other, which is then pushed forward by engines equalised to within 1% in peak performance, despite the different manufacturers. So in the end, it's all up to the teams and the drivers to figure it out and take the prize. For my personal eye candy, the pinnacle of motorsport in it's concept - not saying it actually is. Great series though. For why the field of 28 cars isn't still running all within a second in V8 Supercars, I'll try and give an answer later in another article.

So back to Formula 1, I'm expecting a tight battle throughout the weekend and on down to the wire until another whacky ride in Brazil. And I have a scary feeling the battle is for second place in the standings. As with all sort of writing that you have to do, this article as well, sits open on my computer and waits for the right phrasing for days. It's now qualifying (not the article, the race). What a mess, one delay after another, the second qualy session is pushed forward, ultimately to Sunday morning due to extreme weather conditions. The Australians have decided to paint over the white lines with some black paint. That doesn't apparently make them less slippery but definately harder to spot. Both Massa and rookie Esteban Gutierrez lose their cool over the black lines and find themselves visiting the wall at turn 12. Sunday morning sees Mclaren doing everything wrong trying to compensate for their lack of pace, Nico Rosberg is the surprise of the day on a wet track but as soon as it starts to dry, another Red Bull front row lockout is inevitable, Lewis makes an effort to get it to third on the grid, then the Ferraris, Rosberg and the two Lotuses etc. I'm thinking this race will be properly, properly... boring.

And then Kimi wins coming from P7, Vettel destroys his tires, Alonso and Massa make all the lost ground at the start, as usual... Webber suffers from a malfunctioning KERS and electronic faults in his RB9 thus again failing to be on the podium in his home grand prix. What else... oh yes, and Adrian Sutil in his Force India leads the race twice and runs in front of Vettel, Massa and Alonso. And by that, not holding them up but instead pulling away! Suddenly I feel so well entertained by the season opener, I'd like to delete everything I wrote before and write only words of praise over some four pages. I wish every qualifying session was on a drying track with wet patches and slippy white lines though. And maybe have water sprinklers go off in the middle of Q3? A lot of exitement came through is what I'm saying. But is it racing or is the exitement there simply because half of the field couldn't keep their tires together? Kimi did and he said the race was easy. Should it be easy though? Or should it be as hard as it was for Jenson Button in his dead slow Mclaren? Or should it be equally challenging for everyone so we could see Kimi do it the hard way.? I'm thinking I'm probably starting to ask too much questions and showing too much pessimism.

Of course, the psychopathic attention to detail and the Einsteins at the drawing board is a part of what Formula 1 is all about and you can't take that away, you shouldn't really. And most people at this point will say well... why don't you watch one make race series and touring cars then - it's all brotherly and equal there. Don't worry, I do watch touring cars. But I love Formula 1 and I know a lot of people who do too. And it worries me, six seconds over a field of 22 is a lot in F1 terms. Imagine if Adrian Newey would be unable to design a car that is three tenths faster than Sauber? He's shown he can design something that is 20 seconds faster than Formula 1 (look up the dangerously fast Red Bull X2011) but can anyone stop him from doing that to the car Vettel drives on the track? I'm not sure with the current form of it. So basically, come another financially difficult time and well see some of the teams leaving because they can't win by putting together a strong enough punch from their teamwork, the skill of their drivers and their strategy? In racing, winning is money as we know. And to win, you gotta have money. So how is this ever going to work?