This weekend, the FIA World Touring Car Cup will be taking to the track for the penultimate time this year. For the first time ever, the reborn world touring car series is heading to Italy, where the newly-upgraded Adria International Raceway prepares to play host.
The championship had been set to make its début at the Veneto-based circuit last season, but Covid-related delays meant that the new revisions to the track were unable to be completed in time. As a result, a double-header in Spain concluded the 2020 campaign, which saw Yann Ehrlacher crowned ‘King of WTCR’ for the first time.
Heading into round seven of this year’s championship, the Frenchman is once again in the hot seat for title glory, leading the way at the top of the standings by 16 points. But, with 60 points remaining up for grabs at each of the two final events, victory for Ehrlacher is far from certain.
Who can still overcome Yann Ehrlacher?
Well, with 120 points still on offer, the top seventeen drivers in the points standings still have a mathematical chance of title glory. Realistically though, the true number of championship contenders is far smaller than that.
At this stage of the season, if they haven’t begun to do so already, teams will be looking to put all their efforts behind one driver – the driver who they deem to be their best shot at the overall drivers’ championship.
For Cyan Racing Lynk & Co, that decision is a simple one to make. An early-season charge by Santiago Urrutia was then followed by a mid-season slump, paving the way for reigning champion Ehrlacher to stamp his authority as the team’s leading driver. They will now be doing everything in their power to ensure he retains his points lead until the final chequered flag is waved.
As things stand, the nearest threat to Ehrlacher is Hyundai’s Jean-Karl Vernay. The Frenchman started the year as the points leader and will undoubtedly be aiming to end it the same way. With a home race win at Circuit Pau-Arnos last time out, Vernay arrested a downturn in form that saw him struggle in Hungary and Czechia. If he is to overhaul that 16-point margin to his compatriot, Vernay will need that resurgence to continue here at Adria.
Six points further back in the standings is where you’ll find Honda’s hope for a long-overdue world touring car title. Esteban Guerrieri began the year in underwhelming form, not even stepping on the podium until round six. However, although the Argentine hasn’t had the best outright results in 2021, he has finished every single race, resulting in a solid base of points for him to build upon in the latter half of the year. As the season reaches its climax, the championship’s feistiest driver has started to do exactly that, with a flurry of hard-fought drives allowing him to claw his way up the order into third.
With 131 points to his name – 29 fewer than Ehrlacher – Frédéric Vervisch lies fourth in the standings. Audi’s long-term servant had largely flown under the radar for most of the year, quietly picking up decent results here and there. There has, however, been a few major highlights for the Belgian, which has seen him sharply rise up the order to become the German marque’s outside chance of title glory. A win in the reverse-grid race at Pau-Arnos ensured that he became the (somewhat unlikely) first double race-winner of the season, following his earlier victory in the main race at Motorland Aragon in July. It would be quite a turn up for the books if Audi were to successfully overcome the likes of TCR titans, Lynk & Co and Hyundai, but Vervisch has the opportunity to do exactly that for them this year.
CUPRA are the fifth and final marque to be considered. In truth, 2021 has been a woeful year for the Spanish brand in the WTCR. Bence Boldizs has failed to kick on in his second year in the championship, while Zengo Motorsport’s new signings Rob Huff and Jordi Gené have also endured disastrous campaigns. It is quite remarkable then, that they even have a driver in the championship conversation at all. That driver is Mikel Azcona. The Spaniard already wrapped up the TCR Europe title last month, and although he has a lot of work to do from seventh place in the current WTCR standings, his 45-point deficit to the series leader is not completely insurmountable.
What’s new at Adria Raceway?
Ever since the circuit was announced as a venue for the FIA World Touring Car Cup back in 2020, there have always been references made to the ongoing renovations at the track. The work has now finally been completed, so what do those renovations look like?
As it turns out, they’re rather comprehensive. Venue facilities have been enhanced to meet much higher international standards. Plus, as a result of the circuit owner’s desire to extend the course length to beyond four kilometres, a lot has had to be repaved and packed into what is a relatively compact area. That makes for a tighter, twistier track, with plenty of switchbacks and a new ‘Maggots and Becketts’-style sequence. In fact, only the final sector of the course remains unchanged from its previous guise.
As a result, a number of the WTCR teams and drivers decided to take part in a test at the Italian circuit, including local driver Gabriele Tarquini. After his first few laps, the touring car veteran immediately noted the strain that the cars and drivers would be under come the weekend:
“It’s a very tricky racing track,” he said. “A bit longer than before with a new part in Turns 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. They are also the most exciting because there is a lot of change of direction with some banking.
“Braking for Turn 1 and Turn 4 will be very challenging because you brake on loading and this will be complicated. I expect there will be some overtaking at these points because it’s very usual to have mistakes on the brakes. Turn 5 and Turn 8 are hard braking [points] also.
“I am looking at Turn 1 and Turn 2 and probably Turn 8 as places for overtaking but maybe with some help from your opponents in the braking points where it’s easy to make a mistake. Turn 1 and Turn 2 is a double braking point, something similar I have never seen. Turn 4 is very loaded on the brakes, very high speed and this is for me the most difficult area and it’s a different approach than a normal racing track.”
The return of Target Competition
Happily for the home fans, Tarquini won’t be the only local driver taking part in the WTCR Race of Italy.
Independent team Target Competition had started the season with a brace of full-time entries for Swedish siblings, Andreas and Jessica Backman. However, disappointing results led to the Backmans deciding to end their WTCR campaigns early, leaving Target without any drivers after the fourth round.
However, when the announcement was made, the team clearly stated their intentions to be back on the WTCR grid before the end of the season. And here, on home turf, they have managed to achieve that goal, albeit with just one Hyundai Elantra instead of two.
The driver chosen to contest the event at Adria is 2017 TCR Italy champion, Nicola Baldan, who placed fourth overall in that same series with Target Competition this year. This won’t be Baldan’s first foray into the WTCR though. Earlier on in the season at the Hungaroring, the 39 year-old appeared as a wildcard with the team in a third Elantra alongside the Backmans, beating Andreas and Jessica in both races with a best finish of eighteenth.
Naturally though, he remains keen to improve upon what was a solid but steady WTCR début:
“I’m so excited to have a new chance to compete in the WTCR,” he said. “In Hungary everything was new for me: the track, the car, the series. Now I have just a little bit more experience but it remains one of the most challenging and beautiful experiences in my racing life.
“Adria is really my home track, very close to my home, the track where I grew up. I had several wins on the old circuit and lots of good memories, but I didn’t race there since 2017. I saw the new layout, but never raced in it. It seems more tricky and we’ll probably have to deal with brake issues. I’m very curious about the completely new part behind the hill, it will be challenging with 20 furious cars bumper to bumper.
“No ballast, my home track, a little bit more experience. [But] I don’t know what to expect due to the high level of the series. I will be very happy if we will catch some points for me and Target Competition. It could be the best way to end my season.”
Weight changes for Audi and Lynk & Co
As ever, one of the most important factors heading into any WTCR race weekend is the allocation of ballast. In any race car, weight plays a huge role in performance, and so ballast hikes or reductions can severely impact the results that drivers can expect to achieve against their rivals.
Allocations of WTCR compensation ballast are based upon calculations taken from the pace of each respective car at previous rounds. Happily, no team is set to gain weight for the round at Adria, though two marques will be benefiting from a reduction.
Cyan Racing have had 10kg of ballast removed from their quartet of Lynk & Co 03 TCRs, now making them 10kg lighter than the respective Hyundai and Honda fleets – a slight margin, but one that could be important as the championship battle plays out.
Audi, meanwhile, are the biggest beneficiary of the latest updates. They too will be receiving a 10kg compensation weight reduction for the WTCR specifically, but that’s not all. The new RS3 LMS model has had its overall homologation Balance of Performance changed too by the WSC governing body which guides all TCR-based racing series around the world.
As a result, the Audi will benefit from a further 10kg weight reduction, as well as a 10mm reduction in its ride height. This could play into the hands of Frédéric Vervisch, who may find that his ‘outside’ shot of title glory is made a little more realistic if the changes to the Audi give it a new lease of life.
Track action gets underway early on Saturday morning, with the first practice session set to start at 09:30 local time (08:30 GMT). Qualifying is later that afternoon at 15:30 (14:30 GMT).