WTCC

Series newsletter 2008-04-25

SEAT DRIVERS TOP BALLAST LIST As a consequence of their domination in the first two events of the season, SEAT drivers will carry the heaviest success ballasts in their home race meeting at Valencia. Rickard Rydell, who climbed to the top of the ...

Edited: Apr 26, 2008, 2:46 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

SEAT DRIVERS TOP BALLAST LIST

As a consequence of their domination in the first two events of the season, SEAT drivers will carry the heaviest success ballasts in their home race meeting at Valencia.

Rickard Rydell, who climbed to the top of the Drivers' Championship after obtaining two second places in Mexico, will have 56 extra kilos on board his Leon TDI car; 16 and 17 kilos more than his team-mates Jordi Gene who won the first race in Puebla and Gabriele Tarquini who is currently second in the classification with a gap of 2 points. SEAT Sport's two other drivers, Yvan Muller (third in the championship) and Tiago Monteiro (Puebla's Race 2 winner) will be given a 32 kg ballast, while Tom Coronel with 20 extra kilos completes a SEAT sextet on top of the list.

Following their disappointing weekend in Mexico, where only Andy Priaulx managed to score a point, the BMW drivers have lost weight: Priaulx from 33 to 14, Jorg Muller from 26 to 11 and Felix Porteiro from 14 to 9.

A total of sixteen drivers will have success ballasts in Valencia, including the race-by-race entries Perez-Aicart, Lvov and Smetsky who will receive 30 entra kilos according to article 79 c) of the Sporting Regulations.

Success ballast - Spain

56 kg       R. Rydell

40 kg       J. Gene

39 kg       G. Tarquini

32 kg       Y. Muller, T. Monteiro

30 kg       J. M. Perez-Aicart, A. Lvov, A. Smetsky

20 kg       T. Coronel

14 kg       A. Priaulx

11 kg       J. Muller

9 kg         F. Porteiro

6 kg         N. Larini

3 kg         A. Farfus, A. Menu
21 kg         O. Tielemans

SEAT CHAMPION TO RACE IN VALENCIA

The 2007 SEAT Leon Supercopa champion Jose Manuel Perez-Aicart will make his FIA World Touring Car Championship debut in the next race meeting at Valencia's Circuit Ricardo Tormo on May 18th.

The 26-year old Spaniard will drive a petrol-powered SEAT Leon run by SUNRED Engineering and entered by SEAT Sport. Perez-Aicart is the fourth young driver who has been given the chance to race in the WTCC as a reward for the brilliant results achieved in SEAT's own trophy, after Marc Carol (in 2005), Florian Gruber (in 2006) and Oscar Nogues (twice in 2006 and 2007).

The young Spaniard had his first drive in the Leon WTCC last week, during the official test days in Valencia. "It was the best gift I've ever had. I had the chance to complete 45 laps and discovered that the car is fantastic. Everything has been perfect in the test and I hope to have as much fun in the races as I can," he said.

GOLDEN MOTORS JOIN IN SPAIN

Golden Motors Honda Dealer Team from St.Petersburg, Russia will take part in the WTCC Spanish event at Valencia with two Honda Accord Euro R cars built by JAS Motorsport and run by the Estonian team Artman Racing. Alexander Lvov and Andrey Smetsky, who were classified first and second in the 2007 Russian Touring Car Championship, will be at the wheel of the two Japanese machines. They had already participated in last year's WTCC round at Anderstorp.

Golden Motors have planned to take part in four other WTCC events.

TESTING TIME FOR MELVIN CHOO

Singapore driver Melvin Choo completed his first test in the Thunder Asia BMW 320si car that he will drive in this year's Asian Touring Car Series and the two last rounds of the FIA WTCC at Okayama and Macau.

During a three-day testing on Sepang's Grand Prix circuit's north course, Choo clocked some encouraging times, including a fastest lap of 1:08.898 that smashed the previous record for Super 2000 cars set by WTCC regular Franz Engstler.

Choo will take part in a few other test sessions before the start of the Asian series, at Sepang on May 18th. "We hope that we will be competitive by the time we make our first WTCC appearance, in October at Okayama," team manager Raja Zaini said.

-credit: fiawtcc.com

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Spanish GP: Practice 1 times

Next article Central Europe: Standings after stage 6 - Car

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Five key takeaways from F1's big African Grand Prix reveal in Rwanda

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 23 min

Five key takeaways from F1's big African Grand Prix reveal in Rwanda

Niels Koolen makes switch to Abel Motorsports ahead of 2027 Indy NXT campaign

Indy NXT

IndL Indy NXT 1 h

Niels Koolen makes switch to Abel Motorsports ahead of 2027 Indy NXT campaign

GT World Challenge Portimao: All you need to know about season finale featuring Max Verstappen

GT World Challenge Europe Endurance

WCEE GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 2 h

GT World Challenge Portimao: All you need to know about season finale featuring Max Verstappen

13 Autosport retains unchanged lineup for 2027 IMSA campaign, eyes global expansion

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 2 h

13 Autosport retains unchanged lineup for 2027 IMSA campaign, eyes global expansion

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts