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The Cruzes Ready To Discover All The Secrets Of Budapest
The twisty Hungaroring hosts a WTCC event for the first time ever
2011-05-27
ZURICH / WELLINBOROUGH, 27th May 2011 – The fourth stop of the 2011 season is bringing the WTCC to an unexpected location, , as the Hungaroring is hosting the WTCC round initially scheduled for Marrakech. This is the first time that the world’s touring car racing elite will visit ’s magnificent capital and race in its twisty 4.3-km Grand Prix track, one of the first modern motorsports facilities to be built in Central Europe.
While racing on a new track always poses some challenges, the lack of previous experience and data is nowadays compensated by electronic means, be they computer calculations or ... driving simulators. Still, this first Hungarian event will definitely have a taste of discovery for the WTCC community and local fans alike.
Following its excellent start to the season (five wins out of six events), the Chevrolet team is heading to the shores of the Danube with great confidence, trusting that the Cruzes will be competitive on a track renowned for its slow corners and narrow sections, which make overtaking difficult. The objective for the reigning World Champions is to keep the lead on both championships’ standings built so far.
- QUOTES
Rob Huff: “I am happy to go to a new circuit, and quite optimistic as well, as we tend to do well on new circuits. I have been trying to know more about the Hungaroring, where I have never been before, training at the play-station and watching on-board TV footage on Youtube, but of course, all this is never quite the same as reality. I have also been doing some mapping work at Snetterton earlier this week, and feel completely ready. I am happy with our results so far and the objective is to keep the strong performance going and try to extend our leadership in both championships.”
Yvan Muller: “I have never raced at the Hungaroring, but a new track and a new scenery are always something very nice to have. I think we’ll all be on an equal footing, as will be new for the vast majority of WTCC teams and drivers. I really don’t know much about the track and what they say about being a narrow track where overtaking is difficult may be true for F.1 but not necessarily for touring cars, so we will see. I will be arriving earlier and will devote Wednesday to explore the circuit, by bike and on foot. Biking has kept me quite busy recently, as I participated in a VVT race last weekend, beating my time of last year by 15 minutes! This coming weekend, I will be racing again, in a 180-km race that goes around the Léman lake, so I will be quite fit for the race!”
Alain Menu: “Among the Chevy drivers, I am the only one who has raced in in the past, in the FIA-GT in 2001. But I must say that was a long time ago and our race only lasted a few laps, because of technical problems, so I don’t remember much of the track and it will be almost new to me as well. I have though a nice memory of the place, the town and the atmosphere and I look forward to be in again. My objective will be simple: to avoid trouble, take zero risks and score as many points as possible.”
Ron Hartvelt: “After the long straights and fast corners of , it will be interesting to see how we perform on a completely different track, as is a twisty and a relatively slow circuit. Theoretically, it is also a circuit not too hard on tires, and we should be pretty competitive there. At the moment, all long-term weather forecasts are predicting some rain, so this could be an additional factor to take into consideration. Going to a circuit where we have never been so far is less of a problem nowadays, as you can get access to a lot of data from other formulae and make computer simulations. These will give us the very basic set-ups and gear ratios where to start working from, and we will start doing this during the extra testing session we will have on Friday. Clearly, as RML is involved also in the Le Mans Series, which raced in Budapest last August, our colleagues from the LMP2 program have given us some hints about, for instance, cornering speeds, but it’s really the computers doing all the initial calculations. For the rest, we have been testing a little bit at MIRA and Snetterton lately, just to validate some of the work done these last months, but we are not bringing any major up-dates to the cars.”
Eric Nève: “Everybody is happy to go to a new circuit and to a beautiful town like , so we can expect this to be a very pleasant event. From a sports point of view, we have enjoyed a very successful start to the season but we are staying completely focused on our objectives and dealing with those on a race-by-race basis, as we always do, knowing also that the competition is working hard to challenge us as soon as possible.”
BUDAPEST RACE SCHEDULE (Local time = CET)
Friday, 3rd June 2011
14:00-14:30 Testing
Saturday, 4th June 2011
09:00-09:30 Free Practice 1
11:30-12:00 Free Practice 2
15:00-15:20 Qualifying 1
15:25-15:35 Qualifying 2
Sunday, 5th June 2011
09:00-09:15 Warm up
12:20-12:45 Race 1 (12 laps = 52,584 kms) (Rolling start)
13:35-14:00 Race 2 (12 laps = 52,584 kms) (Standing start)
BUDAPEST WTCC ON TV
In Europe, qualifying, warm up and the races are be broadcasted live on Eurosport International.
DRIVERS POINTS STANDINGS AFTER RACE 6 OF 24
1. R Huff (Chevrolet), 120 points; 2. Y Muller (Chevrolet), 84 ; 3. A Menu (Chevrolet), 79; 4. T Monteiro (SEAT), 58; 5. G Tarquini (SEAT), 52; ... 9. D O’Young (Chevrolet), 27; 10. C Bueno (Chevrolet), 25 ; etc
MANUFACTURERS POINTS STANDINGS AFTER RACE 6 OF 24
1. Chevrolet, 242 points; 2. SEAT, 150; 3. BMW, 132; 4. Volvo, 40.
CHEVROLET RACING AROUND THE GLOBE
In the US, Jimmie Johnson is currently second in the overall standings of the NASCAR Sprint series, with other Chevy drivers Dale Earnhardt jr and Kevin Harvick lying in fourth and fifth position, respectively. More rmation can be found on www.nascar.com.
In the UK, next round of the BTCC will take place at on 4-5 June. Jason Plato, who won Race 3 at Thruxton with the RML-prepared Chevrolet Cruze, is currently 6th in the overall standings, while alex McDowall is 8th and Paul O’Neill 9th. More can be found on www.btcc.net.
In Argentina, Chevrolet Elaion drivers Christian Ledesma and Agustín Canapino are 16th and 17th, respectively, in the standings of the TC2000, ahead of the next round in on 4-5 June. More on www.tc2000.com.ar
In Scandinavia, Ryckard Rydell took a second and a fourth in the third round of the STCC in . The Chevrolet Motorsport driver lies third in the standings. Next race is on 17-18 June in the streets of Göteborg. More can be found on www.stcc.se.
