Starting from the 2014 season the 15-minute Sunday morning warm-up session is to be removed from the World Touring Car Championship timetable, as it has been deemed to be of limited use to the teams.
The warm-up session has featured as part of the WTCC’s timetabled activities on race weekends since the series began in its current form in 2005.
However for next season there will be a reduced need for the teams to be up and ready early on a Sunday morning – as the warm-up session, which often took place at 0800 in the morning, will be removed from the schedule.
“In the morning you have quite different conditions than in the afternoon anyway,” said Tom Coronel to Motorsport-Total.com. “Actually you only need the warm-up only when you want to change something. But if everything is OK then there is no need to have to go out on Sunday mornings again.”
Despite its relatively innocuous purpose, there have on occasion been several significant incidents in the morning warm-up. Tom Boardman suffered a significant crash in the Marrakech warm-up this season, impacting the wall at 100 kmh due to a brake failure.