Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Grégoire Demoustier will receive a grid penalty for the first World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) race in Moscow, as a result of an engine change since the previous round in Germany.
Frenchman Demoustier had a bad downshift in the races on the Nürburgring Nordschleife last time out, damaging the engine on his Chevrolet Cruze. As a result, the team’s engineers have been forced to change the engine, which will see Demoustier sent to the back of the grid for the first race.
Having not previously raced on the Nordschleife, Demoustier is looking forward to returning to a more traditional circuit on which he has previous experience.
“After two tough but incredibly exciting races at the Nurburgring, I am now at a circuit where I previously raced during GT,” said the 24-year-old. “I can’t wait to get out there and really challenge the other independents, the team has worked hard with the car and I am improving with every race.”
So far this season, Demosutier has scored a best result of tenth position, taken on two occasions in Argentina and Hungary respectively. Team CEO Richard Coleman hopes that Demoustier’s experience will allow the British outfit to make further progress in the independent’s classification.
“Moscow Raceway is a very technical circuit and somewhere we found a challenge in 2013,” said Coleman. “Greg continues to gather experience and I hope that he will be able to fight some good battles and take some more Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy Points, although this will be tough as Greg had a bad downshift at the last event so we have had to change the engine for this event and will incur a grid penalty.”