It looks like WTCC is planing to move over to Class One regulation in 2019, if this is the case then maybe it's time to grab the TCR license S3. http://www.touringcartimes.com/2016/10/20/class-one-could-be-introduced-to-the-wtcc-within-two-years/ The current TC1 cars in WTCC are allready moving too far away from productions cars. And the Class One cars can't even be called Touringcars att all. If WTCC go over to Class One regulation they should call the series WSCC World Silhouette Car Championship. These are pure silhouette cars as in DTM not touringcars. Hopefully these plans do not become reality, just look what happened to STCC when they switched to silhouette cars. Touringcar fans turned their backs, and race events had less than half of the crowd attendance. So time to get the the TCR license S3, and hey STCC are moving over to TCR next year so there is a good project to start with.
Totally agree... I was really scratching my head after reading an article, that Hans Werner Aufrecht (ex DTM-Boss) is planing a coorperation with WTCC and move to Class one regulation based on his prior plans for DTM. That would mean the end of the often claimed Phrase by Eurosport "real cars, real racing..."
Marcello Lotti saw this coming... The WTCC is dying, having been in decline for a few years now. I actually like the TC1 cars but manufacturer uptake of the new regulations has been poor. Citroen was allowed an unfair head start in designing a car to fit these regulations (which they called for apparently) and no other manufacturer has been able to catch them since. WTCC grids usually feature a paltry 17 or 18 cars which is pretty uninspiring. DTM is a great series in its own right but no longer a touring car series in the purist's sense. The WTCC should not look to emulate it. The WTCC should look to the highly successful BTCC and the TCR regulations and get back to basics. The essence of touring car racing is taking a road car, stripping out the non-essential parts and tuning it for the track. Once you move toward silhouette cars it's no longer a true touring car championship. Keep touring car racing low cost and accessible.
WTCC in itself is an out of date concept for me, I really don't see much point in it to be honest. I actually really like the TC1 cars, but there's no excuse for them being more expensive than GT3s and offering much less spectacle. I enjoy them in Raceroom, but in real life I don't see the point in transporting the circus all around the world, to more and more soulless tracks (no more Macau?!) for such short races. Citroen found there's no ROI for their intended Asian audience, so it's almost exclusively a privateer series now with a European audience but with fewer and fewer European events. Can't see Class One saving them, and personally the cars don't interest me at all, but I can see it being their only chance at getting a couple of works teams back in. BMW have been complaining that they can't use their DTM investment on a wider audience for a while, and if they can get one of the Super GT manufacturers to join them it could be what is behind it. TCR rules are clearly the best option for genuine touring car racing, although I'm mainly interested in the formula because of the long distance events they're involved in (N24, Dubai etc).
Many good points @Rodger Davies; difficult to disagree with any of that. Moving away from the Super 2000 cars has proven to be a mistake in my opinion. The TCR concept came into being because I believe Lotti saw the need for a simpler, cheaper, standardised touring car format that borrows heavily from the successes of the GT3 class. As you said, TC1 is a prohibitively expensive format and, unlike a GT3 car, cannot be entered into different championships/competitions. A TCR car has this flexibility. The WTCC would function better as a European series. That's where the audience is, where the driver-base is, and offers many more interesting tracks to race on. Chasing global markets for the benefit of manufacturers and sponsors works for F1 but sadly for the WTCC, nobody cares about this particular series outside Europe.
Well, here's a non european who gladly would give away our F1 Grand Prix to have a WTCC event instead. I know though I may be the only one around here.
ITC is coming back!Well,opposite to you guys,I hope WTCC makes Class 1 work.If only they can recapture that 90s magic,they have my buck.Of course,they will have to avoid escalating costs (and Bernie sticking his nose in...) which killed the original series.If everything works we may be able to see 5+ top manus battling it out.And imagine Australians joining in.It would become a Touring Car World Cup with races at Nords,Suzuka,Bathurst and more...Fingers crossed.
With manufacturers leaving the racing, the end of local manufacture and various rule changes I think we are in for an odd few years here racing wise while things play out.
Regardless the state of WTCC, I think TCR will be a major racing series in the near future. Many manufacturers are building cars for this class while many leagues or countries are hosting races with these cars. They are cheap to buy while good to watch. They are easy to license too, as a lot of cars are straight from the manufacturer without being tied to a series like DTM or F1. I think I'll be surprised if S3 isn't moving towards TCR direction now as I think eventually, TCR will be the next GT3 where every game has it.