Nika Racing again postpones WTCC return

Nika Racing has announced that it will not compete in the Morocco round of the World Touring Car Championship, citing commercial and logistics as the catalyst.

Yukinori Taniguchi, Chevrolet Cruze 1.6 T, Nika Racing

Rickard Rydell, Honda Civic WTCC, Nika International

Yukinori Taniguchi, Honda Civic WTCC, NIKA Racing

Nestor Girolami, Honda Civic WTCC, Nika International

The privateer Swedish squad lodged a full season entry for John Bryant-Meisner, but has missed the first three rounds of the season.

The team’s initial plan was to return with the Honda Civic WTCC that they raced at selected rounds in 2015 with Rickard Rydell and Nestor Girolami.

But at the last moment, the team sold the car to Zengo Motorsport, who themselves are yet to compete as they await an engine which should be available at Nurburgring.

Nika Racing then rekindled their relationship with RML and Chevrolet, purchasing Hugo Valente’s Chevrolet Cruze for the 2016 season.

It had been run by Campos Racing for the past two seasons, but so far the team has deferred its return with that car for three consecutive race meetings.

“Marrakech is not the ideal track to make the WTCC debut for John, especially when he is completely new to the car and the WTCC series,” said the team in a statement.

“Therefore, the team will use the remaining weeks until Nurburgring to let John get used to the car and be more familiar with all the different technical parts and learn all about the vital communication with our engineers and our race crew.

The team signed off with: “Hopefully, this will be our last message of this kind. The team really longing to return to the race track and will not wait a day more than necessary.”