Pre-season newsletter 2007-02-16

NEW LOOK FOR THE WTCC WEBSITE

From yesterday, the FIA WTCC official website www.fiawtcc.com sports a new and colourful look in line with the championship's revised brand identity and logo. The website, which is also available in four other versions French, German, Italian and Spanish will continue to offer media and fan news, information, pictures, live results and videos and much more.

Its contents have been implemented with the addition of the "Expert Eyes" column that will host interviews with different drivers.

SEAT SPORT UNVEIL FOUR CAR-TEAM

On Tuesday in Madrid SEAT Sport presented to the media their four-car team that will take part in the 2007 FIA World Touring Car Championship with the aim to win both the Drivers' and the Manufacturers' titles.

To achieve this ambitious goal the team SEAT Sport that classified second in the 2006 Manufacturers' Championship have confirmed three of their last year's drivers: Yvan Muller (37-year old from France), Gabriele Tarquini (45-year old from Italy) and Jordi Gené (36-year old from Spain) who won one race apiece in 2006 to rank 4th, 5th and 10th in the Drivers' Championship respectively.

They are now joined in the team by Michel Jourdain, the 32-year old Mexican driver who faces his first season in Touring Cars after many years of racing in USA top series such as IRL, Champ Car and Nascar.

THOMPSON CONFIDENT FOR THE NEW SEASON

After his first test since he re-joined the N.technology Alfa Romeo team, which happened last week at the Italian racetrack of Vallelunga, James Thompson is confident for the new season.

"It is great to be back with the team and it was great to get back into the 156. It is an excellent car and it felt great on-track," said Thompson, who drove for the Italian outfit as a guest in 2003 and 2004 and full-time in 2005.

"After a competitive season last year the team are all raring to go, they are determined to fight for the championship and that is exactly what I want to do. I am really looking forward to getting back into competitive action."

N.technology's Team Principal, Mauro Sipsz, believes Thompson will play a key role this season: "He has proven his pace time and time again and he gets on really well with the guys in the team. It was immediately clear from the test that he is going to hit the ground running this season thanks to his past experience with the team."

BMW TEAMS TESTED IN VALLELUNGA

Three BMW teams completed a three-day test in Vallelunga on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The weather was sunny, with a dry track on the first two days, but was spoiled by rain on the third one.

BMW Team Germany with Jörg Müller and Augusto Farfus and BMW Team Italy-Spain with Alessandro Zanardi and Félix Porteiro both completed the first test with their 2007 BMW 320si cars. Farfus was reported to be fastest by a couple of tenths. Italian independent Proteam Motorsport joined the test: Sergio Hernández drove on day one and was then replaced by Luca Rangoni.

TWO DAYS IN VALENCIA FOR SEAT SPORT

Two more days of testing for SEAT Sport drivers have been completed in Valencia, on Wednesday and Thursday. The Spanish team focused their work on the car's set-up and the start.

Jordi Gené, Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini collected a great deal of information that will be very useful when the team come back to the Ricardo Tormo circuit at the end of May for the championship's third race meeting, SEAT's home race In the meanwhile Michel Jourdain continued his personal set-up to get used to the difference between the front-wheel-drive WTCC SEAT León and the car he drove last year in the NASCAR series.

-credit: wtcc