José Manuel Sapag and Luca Filippi will return to the FIA World Touring Car Cup for this weekend’s season finale at MotorLand Aragón, racing their Hyundai i30 N and Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR cars respectively.
The return of the Argentine and Italian takes the grid up to 22 cars for the final event of the current WTCR season, on its second visit to the Spanish circuit.
Sapag has made a number of appearances in European touring car competition in the latter stages of 2020, taking part in the final three TCR Europe events with Target Competition and also entering as a wildcard in the WTCR races in Hungary.
At the Hungaroring, the Argentine recorded a best finish of 15th in the second race, and he will be keen to improve on that performance this weekend.
Sapag does have some previous experience of the Aragón circuit, having raced there in Spanish CER in 2018 when he was victorious at the circuit.
“My objective this weekend is to be in the top 15 in all the races,” said 25-year-old Sapag. “Hungaroring was especially hard because it was my first weekend in WTCR and we had a wet track in practice and qualifying.
“In the races it was something completely different and I had to adapt on the go, which was pretty hard.
“Now I have a little experience so I think I am more prepared for this challenge.
“MotorLand Aragón is a really fun track with some fast corners and slow corners, uphill, downhill so a little bit of everything.
“It has a lot of corners and that makes it very challenging, especially for qualifying because there are a lot of corners you have to do correctly and a mistake can cost you a lot of positions.
“But I really like the track, it’s really fun to drive and for sure it will be fun this weekend.”
Filippi has entered selected events in 2020, although he is not eligible for points after missing the original full season entry deadline.
The Italian has been in the points four times out of the eight races he has contested to-date, although the Team Mulsanne driver missed the last event at the Spanish circuit.
“I’m super-motivated to go back racing for the final weekend of WTCR,” said 35-year-old Filippi. “We saw Jean-Karl and the whole Mulsanne team did an amazing job at WTCR Race of Spain and the car looks really competitive, really fast, so we have a good base set-up to start.
“I’m going to do the best for myself and the team to finish on a high and potentially go back to winter in a good mood.
“Racing in Aragón is going to be really challenging. It was supposed to be one of the few weekends where nobody had specific experience with a WTCR car but, unfortunately for me, they are coming back for a second weekend so everybody will be on a more experience level.
“It will be challenging to get up to speed as fast as possible in the free practices and be ready for qualifying.”