2014 WTCC Race of Morocco - Marrakech

[adamcas]

race 1.........well

race 2 much better but still a lot of work to be done from Chevy, Honda and lada,

race organisation and professionalism WHAT A SHAMBLES

Been looking forward to the start of the new era of the WTCC but must say it fell flat on its face, Citroen a second to a second and half quicker then anyone else and they have already started with team orders

As for the rest you have to feel sorry for them with Citroen having had a year to prepare for this season also having done 2 full championship worth of testing compared to minimal testing for Honda and Chevy with lada not even testing before Marrakech. It is suppose to be a FIA WORLD Championship and they have no restrictions on how much testing you can do before the season??

Where do they go from here? Tom coronel highly unlikely he will be at Paul ricard, Yvan Muller suggesting he might not have the car ready ( yeah right Yvan your not kidding anyone)

But hey it is suppose to be the pinnacle of touring cars

My guess is it will much the of the same Citroen 1,2,3 and everyone else left to continue to develop there car hoping that by the end of the season they might get close to Citroen when its all done and dusted, but here is to hoping its not, yes I have just ranted and raved about the series but been a massive touring car fan I will still be watching all be it the highlights as I will be at Donington park next week for the BTCC,

[rustyfan]

What surprises me if how WTCC always seems to end up in a one-make show. When was the last time we had at least two different manufacturers really fighting each other on a regular basis? And I'm not talking about someone starting from pole in race 2 because of the weird qualifying format and somehow managing to hold off the dominant car for the win just because there wasn't enough laps for the faster car to catch up and pass in time.

[thetool]

Alfa Romeo v BMW in the first season in 2005 & then BMW v SEAT in 2006/7 was competitive. Not since then though.

[keviiinn]

I agree that the Coronel/Bennani incident was a 50/50 situation. Coronel could have given Bennani more room, and Bennani should have backed off a tiny bit after nudging Coronel in the left rear.

I am quite surprised actually how dominant Citroen was, I expected them to do well, but not 2 seconds better.

I'm not sure why Honda is struggling so much, they have factory backing but yet are slower than the RML Chevys.

I'm also disappointed in Lada. I thought for sure with Rob Huff that they'd be more competitive. I'm glad for Kozlovskiy in race 2 though, that's a great result even though nearly half of the TC1 field was out of the race.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Tom Chilton really impressed me. sure he had some bad luck last year, but I never thought he was that good of a driver.

I'm sure they're not even thinking of this, but any chance ROAL have any BMW 320TCs laying around that they could use for Tom Coronel in TC2 while they wait for the Cruze to be repaired at RML?

[Craner Curves]

Originally Posted by keviiinn

I'm not sure why Honda is struggling so much, they have factory backing but yet are slower than the RML Chevys.

JAS Sport have never produced a genuinely good car. Yes the Accord Euro R had its wins at low drag tracks, but it was never consistent enough.

[somebodysb2]

I think it's down to the Mugen engine. They are clearly underpowered. Lest we forget, the 2008 Imola Accord was powered by a JAS built motor (but when they still had engine development in-house). By 2008 Macau, the cars were fully transitioned to Mugen engines.

I also don't think their budget is as big as some are led to believe.

[JorritVD]

Wow, just read that a new RML Cruze without engine costs around € 430.000,-
Holy cow, that's some serious money for a 'street car'. I found that a BMW 320 TC costs 220.000 euro. But I don't know if that is with or without a engine. A lot of older S2000 cars are for sale between 20k and 70k. You can make a very cool championship of those cars.

[tenzo rs]

Tom was the guest of Mehdi after the race.

Nice to see they are still friends after all

[thetool]

Originally Posted by JorritVD

Wow, just read that a new RML Cruze without engine costs around € 430.000,-
Holy cow, that's some serious money for a 'street car'. I found that a BMW 320 TC costs 220.000 euro. But I don't know if that is with or without a engine. A lot of older S2000 cars are for sale between 20k and 70k. You can make a very cool championship of those cars.

The problem isn't the cost of the car, it's how expensive they are to run.

[Metzo]

double post

[Metzo]

Originally Posted by JorritVD

Wow, just read that a new RML Cruze without engine costs around € 430.000,-
Holy cow, that's some serious money for a 'street car'. I found that a BMW 320 TC costs 220.000 euro.

last year a brand new civic costed 410.000€

Originally Posted by JorritVD

A lot of older S2000 cars are for sale between 20k and 70k.

most of those cars are 5 years old or older and they barely have spareparts

[AxelF]

It seems to be a good idea, to run BMW 320TC...because you will be inside Top 10 at least in race 2!!!!!!!!
Just like Franz Engstler did.
He will have a good year - a lot of prize money and always on podium and on tv :-)

I am a bit disappointed of the cars...these are silhouette cars, just like DTM or other series. You could see on Coronels car, that there is no real body shell made out of tin/steel.
So there is no real racing anymore, because the cars will be damaged very soon.

The coronel/bennani crash is 50/50. Coronel should have known, that he had to give Mehdi at least 2m space for his car....its in morroco and Mehdi will not give any space for others there :-)

But i have to say, that Mehdi is not a bad racer....his pace was very good, better than Monteiro in race 2.
I hope it has not dependend to his underweight.

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by Craner Curves

JAS Sport have never produced a genuinely good car. Yes the Accord Euro R had its wins at low drag tracks, but it was never consistent enough.

you remember a few years ago Team Dynamics was in contention to run the WTCC program, wonder if Honda regret their decision not to go with them

at that point (back in 2011 ?) they already had plenty of expertise and success with their S2000 Civic and Neal Brown would have produced a very powerful 1.6 Turbo for sure

come to think of it , except MG all front running BTCC teams are powered by Neal Brown engines

[Rubio]

Originally Posted by AxelF

I am a bit disappointed of the cars...these are silhouette cars, just like DTM or other series. You could see on Coronels car, that there is no real body shell made out of tin/steel.
So there is no real racing anymore, because the cars will be damaged very soon.
.

TC1 cars are not silhouette cars, they still based on the production cars, just a bit less than the previous generation. Don't compare it with DTM.

Race 2 showed that there is still real racing in WTCC. I've noticed the cars still got closer in the slipstream despite extra large rear wing and more aero. Anyway, Marrakech is not a reference, 'cause it was hard to pass here even with the previous generation of cars. Wider circuits will give us a better answer. Oh why didn't the championship start in Monza...

[Metzo]

race 2 was similar to the previous races in the past in marrakech with the old cars. we should wait 2-3 more rounds and types of tracks to judge if tc1 provides better or worse racing.

[AxelF]

Originally Posted by Rubio

TC1 cars are not silhouette cars, they still based on the production cars, just a bit less than the previous generation. Don't compare it with DTM.

Race 2 showed that there is still real racing in WTCC. I've noticed the cars still got closer in the slipstream despite extra large rear wing and more aero. Anyway, Marrakech is not a reference, 'cause it was hard to pass here even with the previous generation of cars. Wider circuits will give us a better answer. Oh why didn't the championship start in Monza...

At least the Cruze has no real luggage compartment...
So maybe only the passenger area might be from the real car.

I am WTCC fan, so i don't wanted to write WTCC down...but of course i love the fact of touring cars, that are like street cars (from body shell).
I am the biggest fan of BMW M3 E30 from DTM 88-92...that was perfect racing...

[steve nielsen]

Coronel will miss next weeks race in France, RML doesn't have enough spares yet to repair his car for that race.

[PorscheFanNo1]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say its 100% Coronels fault, based on the simple fact that its written in the rules that you always have to leave your competitor racing space. Coronel ran him to the wall and didnt leave him any space. Just cause you're ahead doesnt give you the right to behave however you want.

On a different note, I actually like the looks of the cars, especially the Honda's, and eventho there were only 10 cars still racing in race 2 it was still entertaining to watch them go around. The cars somehow looks more spectaular and are nicer to watch then the normal S2000 cars that always looks slow and clumbsy. I'm hoping WTCC and these new regs can pick up momentum the next 2-3 years, eventough the costs right now for those machines are not really in their favour.

[Bramzel]

I'm very curious how they'll do on the wide, high-speed corners of Paul Ricard where their aero will make more difference.

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by Bramzel

I'm very curious how they'll do on the wide, high-speed corners of Paul Ricard where their aero will make more difference.

easy answer , Citreon will be 2-3 seconds faster instead of just 1

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by PorscheFanNo1

I I'm hoping WTCC and these new regs can pick up momentum the next 2-3 years, eventough the costs right now for those machines are not really in their favour.

problem is there is no market for this cars to dump to, BTCC has their own rules, STCC has theier Solution F, ADAC Procar has their own rules now , asian chamionship have their own ones , they are way to expensive for club racing and other inferior classes


so wo exactly will buy this things outside of WTCC???

[Bramzel]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

problem is there is no market for this cars to dump to, BTCC has their own rules, STCC has theier Solution F, ADAC Procar has their own rules now , asian chamionship have their own ones , they are way to expensive for club racing and other inferior classes


so wo exactly will buy this things outside of WTCC???

The same goes for the BTCC, yet that is working. You can always run these older cars in local championships, like VLN, Britcar or the Supercar Challenge.

[Speed-King]

IMHO there are two ways in which the new regs could work out:

a) 90s BTCC-style manufacturer competition - not very likely, but if they could get 3 more manufacturers on board it would be a superb series.
b) a multiclass format. They have this right now with the TC2-cars, but those cars are of course on borrowed time, so maybe they should move towards creating a new rules secondary class for years to come. There have been some rumblings about a customer oriented 2-liter-turbo formula, so this could be the new TC2 - though it would seem a bit lopsided to have the bigger-engined cars in the secondary class.

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by Bramzel

The same goes for the BTCC, yet that is working. You can always run these older cars in local championships, like VLN, Britcar or the Supercar Challenge.

BTCC is different cos you can reuse old parts on new car like Morgan did with his Mercedes doubt this can happen in WTCC

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by Bramzel

The same goes for the BTCC, yet that is working. You can always run these older cars in local championships, like VLN, Britcar or the Supercar Challenge.

No one really does that, though. Between the three series there are two ex-WTCC BMWs (one with a 3.2 liter engine at that) in Supercar Challenge and that's it, IIRC. Also, I am pretty sure you wouldn't get a NGTC-car into VLN with the tech rules being what they are.