I still have to say that Muller has incredible luck, seen it in both Race 1 and Race 2, he is like the only one who wasn't hit in Race 1 from behind and even that divebomb from Huff in Race 2 got him some advantage as he cut the first chicane in 100km/h+ speed as usual... Facking lucker ffs!
When you think of the countless amount of jaw dropping saves the guy has pulled over the years... And when you think he's a 10 times ice-racing champion in the Andros trophy(he stopped bothering when the organisers had enough of him dominating, and decided to make a special ballast rule for "past champions"...)... I'd say it's a bit more than luck
I don't see why the FIA should penalise Chevy for being the only works entry...
OK, I assume you're refeering to the FWD vs RWD balancing... But that thing is a massive can of worms isn't it? Just like having turbo and non turbo cars racing against each other like we've had in BTCC last year. You'll always have people complaining about it from one side or the other.
Furthermore who knows where BMW would be right now if they had a full works entry...?
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To the people complaining about Chevy dominating, what did you expect really? With Volvo pulling out, no new work entries(except for SEAT coming up with new engines for their customer teams, and Ford entering the series with a semi-work team), how could you expect Chevy to be caught up by anyone during the winter?
I think you should rather be happy to have a good steady 24+ car field with half-decent independants making up the numbers, because no earlier than a few weeks ago, things were looking a lot more gloomy.
Don't be let down by the Chevy 1-2-3 in race 2, this was also because 1) Two of the SEATs died before the start, meaning two positions gained for them before the start, and 2) it's very easy to pass at Monza. The 2012 race 2 reversed grid rule might be very gimmicky, probably as much as the 2011 ones, but at least they'll make a hard life for Chevy on the most "conventional" tracks! I think we're set for a few race 2 shock results later this season
I loved the racing yesterday personally. But hey, that's Monza for ya! Good old fashioned slipstreaming action, they should held half of the race there IMO Thumbs up to Neve for letting his drivers race against each other too!
Christian Menzel, the new second commentator for Eurosport Germany, and Freddy Barth, who, after failing to get sponsors for a 2012 campaign, was the third commentator, actually supported the idea of rebuilding the old Hockenheimring :P
Salzburgring might be another place this year where such racing might be favored.
It should've never been scrapped in the first place!
Yea, Salzburgring is a pretty awesome track from the past! It actually managed to make the racing of the skinny ETCC 2011 field half-spectacular, so it should be fantastic to watch the WTCC there!
Well yeah, I didn't mean it like Muller is some total noob, I get that he has a talent but you have to admit he's everytime the lucky one. No hard feelings, though. Just something I've been on for couple of previous races together with this event in Monza. I don't mind the Chevy dominance, WTCC still provides some door-to-door racing and is an alternative to F1 for me. I'll be visiting one or two rounds myself so I actually like this series. Gotta be hard to beat Chevys, but I think with two dead Seats it was simply too easy for them in Race2. Also there's gonna be some weight handicap I'm sure.
What would I expect? Better balancing, more handicap? I can't be the only one who is fed up with their advantage, it's like a separate class, Chevy GT1, others GT2. No matter if they have full factory support or not, this is ridiculous. Something should be done.
I'm cheering for the Zengő team of course, but they're fighting for the private Yokohama champ, so Chevys don't really bother much in this case. It still sucks to see them dominating so much. I'm just thinking forward, for the upcoming few years. Remember the Schumi era? Do not want another one.
Yep, but isn't that a matter of perception? You build your own luck at the end of the day. Clearly having a solid, top-end, FWD car like the Chevy means you can push your own luck more than with other cars first of all. Then, I really belive that Muller is not only a fast driver, but he has also a damn good situation awareness which means he won't get himself into dangerous spots more than necessary. And at the end he has that awesome car control which allows him to recover quickly and without damage more often than others if things get hairy.
So IMO, he may looks lucky from the outside, but in fact it's several factors put together that means he's arguably less vulnerable to racing incidents.
Just to use the Monza incident as an example: I don't think anyone would've saved it in a BMW, if put in Muller's situation. Put somone in an ever-so-fragile Seat, and the car could've just had significant damage from the initial contact. Put Mr. backmarker in a Chevy, the car survives fine, but the guy either bins it or lose more time than Muller while saving it.
My point is, it's the save-master Muller plus the bullet-proof Chevy that gave the combo this lucky-looking out of jail card. Put one of those two out of the equation, and the outcome might have been very different.
But the FIA is looking for manufacturers at the end of the day. Do you really think any manufacturers would bother if, no matter how good of a car they build, the FIA would dumb it down so much that any slow and/or badly outdated package can match it?
The manufacturers would then ask you "Well, why bother at all with new cars then?", or even "Well, why bother with that championship if we can't even showcase our technology?"
Penalising the best package is not only morally questionable, it is also a possible bad strategy if you look at the overall picture - if you care about works entry, which is what the WTCC is aiming for...
No offense, but if Zengo is interrested in an action-packed championship made for independants, they should consider joining the BTCC.
Don't mix up GT racing and WTCC. GT racing, especially GT3, does have nearly no manufactor involvement. It is a pure platform to sell race cars. Except the one or the other race, where GT3 cars are entered by manufactor teams (for example Bathurst 12h or the ILMC Zuhai 6h) it is purely customer sport, therefore balancing plays a huge role. WTCC however is a platform for manufactors to show the world what the road cars would be capable to do when tuned up to the maximum so the same mechanisms like in F1 or WEC are happening. With Lada and Honda, two more manufactors announced to enter during the season for a part-time schedule and full manufactor programs for 2013. With Seat returning to be a true manufactor (last year's 1.6l turbo was a Sunred machine, this year's is a Seat) and some speculations that they seek a manufactor program for 2013 as well, we would have 4, if Ford joins as well 5 manufactor programs.
BTW Töki, you were asking for a sort of "GT2 class", well, you (kind of) have it, it's the Yokohama Trophy. OK, the top dogs(Tarquini, Monteiro, Coronel and Chilton, even though I personally don't rate the latter so highly) are cut off which is a bit odd and arguably gimmicky. OK, you still have 2 private Chevys, but let's be honest, MacDowall and Di Sabbatino aren't exactly world class drivers so this will compensate the car advantage. Even with O'Young Bamboo was nowhere close the Yokohama title in 2011 - don't know why their season went so horribly wrong, I was pretty much disappointed since Darryl was my pick last year
But anyway, the Yokohama tite chase was thrilling last year, the racing between indies has already been pretty good at Monza this year, so we're set for some pretty good mid-pack action while the works Chevys are cruising(no pun intended) up front. I predict a close season-long fight between Michelitz, MacDowall, D'Aste and maybe Engstler, should be exciting
Coronel was not allowed to start in the Independents' Trophy when he was racing the Seat although he was not getting manufactor support back then it was the reason that he won it too many times earlier.
Btw: I just looked at the BMW Motorsport website. Actually the race kit for a BMW 320 TC costs 220k € without taxes. The M3 GT4 car costs 123,5k€, the Z4 GT3 car costs 315k€. This actually might be an explanation why the grids in the European Touring Car scene are thinning out while GT3 is booming.
By the way, Michelisz's car is now at home and they could finally find out what caused the problem. Watch this video. Since it's in hungarian, I'll describe what happened. The pigeon didn't damage the the front suspension at all. (I didn't even believe it, made no sense anyway.) The intercooler was covered with feather, which prevented the air getting through, hence the loss of power. At the same time, the right rear shock broke. Quite interesting, happened at the same time. The telemetry data at the end of the video talks for itself. I love these videos, you can find more on their site, in hungarian though.
There is really no option to watch one of those vids without paying shit taxes? I missed WTCC Inside and I can't even watch it omg. No idea why they put this system since 2012. Really no idea...
First V-WTCC season back in 2008 had better system, this is gonna be more of a hotlap fest, also people who can afford travelling across the Europe will get twice as much points as someone from home. Simbin will most likely release it on their old recycled engine but I can live with that, I have some kilometers there and I passed thru the qualifying rounds for Brands Hatch event in first season of V-WTCC. Had no money to go there and even if I had I'd be deffo beaten by other LFSers such as Nils, Viktor Szabo etc... Really curious if they are planning to recreate like 6-7 new tracks, one new model which is not in the game now (Civic) and release it all totally for free. I highly doubt that. Imo it's gonna be like 3-4 tracks of 2012 which already are in Race07 calendar with same shit old cars without updates.
Thumbs up to Neve for letting his drivers race against each other too!
Really curious if they are planning to recreate like 6-7 new tracks, one new model which is not in the game now (Civic) and release it all totally for free. I highly doubt that. Imo it's gonna be like 3-4 tracks of 2012 which already are in Race07 calendar with same shit old cars without updates. 
