Nika Racing has confirmed that it is to enter the 2013 World Touring Car Championship with a Chevrolet Cruze, with the driver to be announced at a later date.
The team, who has run the works Chevrolet team in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship for the last few years, will swap their intentions to the world Championship. The team secured the drivers’ title in 2011 with Rickard Rydell while they were undefeated in the teams’ Championship between 2010 and 2012.
In their sole outing in the 2012 campaign, Rickard Rydell secured a double top ten finish, with a fourth place finish in race one alongside the fastest lap of the race. His sole weekend was enough for him to finish 19th in the Championship, having scored 14 Championship points. His Monza results were good enough for 19th overall in the Championship.
“This is a significant day in the history of NIKA Racing,” explains Nicklas Karlsson, Nika Racing Team Principal.
“We’ve been working towards a WTCC campaign for a number of years – mostly behind the scenes – and today’s announcement makes the dream come true. Following two highly successful seasons with Chevrolet in the STCC, we now feel ready to make this leap.
“We are fully aware that this is going to be an exceptionally tough challenge and we head into this season with humble mind, but our target is definitely to establish ourselves at this level in the longer term.”
”Having a team such as NIKA Racing on the WTCC grid is massively positive for Swedish motorsport,” added Stefan Lindberg, Sporting Coordinator for the team.
“Two STCC titles in two years proved that there is enough strength-in-depth within the team to manage this transition in the professional way required. And I believe that we’ll be able to spring one or two surprises this season…”