Freddy Barth suffered a concussion and a bruised back in his fiery accident. He was knocked out from the accident. Dahlgren suffered a broken thumb in his qualifying accident. Both are out of the race.
EDIT: The Peugeot was disqualified and excluded from the event.
Muller secured his 3rd World Championship by finishing 3rd in the 2nd race. Wiechers will regret to not have given the car to Turkington or D'Aste once more. Couto again destroyed his car, as always, the same procedure as every year. Couto and Muller became the Hamilton-Massa-pair of the weekend with one accident in the qualifying and one accident in race 1. And the safety car driver should be fined because of overtaking a car during safety car conditions. Still two injured drivers, although both are relatively fine, overshadow this weekend a bit. That's my resumee of the Macau weekend.
Looking foreward to next year with three semi-factory Fords, maybe a second or a third Volvo.
That finale left a rather sour taste in my mouth. Little green flag running, lots of incidents - several of them caused by ringers - and a rather predictable outcome at the outright championship.
Shame that the local boys O'Young and Couto failed again to make the best out of their fantastic pace here... But they cannot blame anyone but themselves this time.
Anyway, I'm glad Muller won, he was probably the strongest man this year again, IMHO. Huff really stepped-up this season though. The guy had some bad luck also, and could've got a lot more points without all the odd incidents he got involved in, especially with Tarquini at Zolder and in China. On another note, he seemed to be better than Muller at being slow in Q1... And he probably got a big amount of race 2 points thanks to this. I guess he's not the one to blame though, making the best out of the ruleset is part of the game. Big thumbs down to the FIA for making this kind of absurd sporting regulations anyway.
Anyway, a mention to the F3 GP thriller... Lots of incidents here too, but some fantastic fights up front.
You mean Menu, right?
From what I gathered on the net, Volvo's presence next year is far from being a done deal. And Dahlgren's crash-filled season end probably hasn't improved the situation.
It's a shame, because that car definitely has the potential to challenge the Chevy on outright pace. Volvo probably has a chance to have a crack at the title next year if they decide to have a full program, and hire one or two world class drivers.
Anyway, as much as I hate to see them leaving the BTCC, Ford's come back is a great thing for the WTCC. Arena have proved they can beat RML/Chevy in Britain, although on different and arguabily unbalanced engine regulations.
From what the German commentators said is that it looks pretty good though not confirmed, that Polestar would continue in WTCC with maybe a second C30, that was what the German Eurosport team got as information. However unclear if with full backing of Volvo or not. If Volvo would enter as full manufactor team, they'd choose a different car as the C30 won't be produced after 2013. It is even more strange that the announcement, planned for August and the other expected announcement at the Shanghai race did not happen.
I hope Ford comes back stronger then their (only on paper) works entry in 2005 by Kissling.
I really feel sorry for Huff, it's my favourite driver and racer. Had no time to watch it live so I just checked highlights and man, that was a huge impact of that yellow BMW in Race 2.
All in all I look forward to 2012 season as it will be our last one due to the Earth ending.
Also, poor, poor act to withdraw Brno from their calendar, I feel sorry for myself, because I won't be able to see WTCC live next year.
Indeed :-( Dahlgren was fun to watch this season. Would have loved to see him return for next season. If these Chinese owners of Volvo don't see the potential of the car/team, they are stupid. I have the feeling that the owners are blocking it, while Volvo would love to. Volvo's motorsport director never dinied an interview, even when he was asked for the 1000th time if he knew what Volvo would do for the coming season. If Volvo wasn't interested, I don't think he would (be allowed to) speak so openly to the press.
By the way, there are speculations that there will be a new technical rulebook for 2015, because Lotti said in an interview these cars will be raced for another 3 years. German motorsport journalists already dreaming of WTCC becoming more V8Supercar-ish in terms of power and optics. However, he only said that the cars will be raced for 3 years, not what happens afterwards.
NGTC, don't yet know what to think of it yet. It's too fresh and it destroys the background idea of the Super 2000 of being able to use a Super 2000 car in every european Touringcar series. (Btw. from 2012 on, DTM are no longer touring cars in FIA politics, they are neither GTs, they are regarded as race cars and therefore are on one level with formula cars^^)
I'd say they have proven to be a cheaper and competitive alternative to S2000 in BTCC, it was pretty much refreshing to see new faces with very little budget challenging the old guns, even if it was mostly due to the odd balancing.
After all the S2000 aren't thrown away yet, AFAIK they are still allowed 2 more years in BTCC, even if the balancing won't go on their favor obviously.
And anyway there are very few strong national touring car series left in Europe at the moment, no? We have BTCC. We have STCC, but who knows for how long it will survive with the arrival of TTA. TTA isn't really touring car spec wise, it has widely been described as a "DTM-light spec series". There's that German S2000 championship, whatever it's called, but IIRC it draws something like 7-8 cars grid, probably not worth mentionning. ETCC is now back to a single event, probably not mentionning either, with 10ish S2000, and only 3-4 occasional big guns.
Well... though the German Procar gets slowly gets stronger again, due to a better media presence. Mercedes, Opel, Honda, Audi alongside FIA S2000 cars like the Chevrolet Lancetti and the BMW 320si. This season they had 8 S2000 and 8 S1600 cars. For next season all teams of this season are confirmed plus a few new faces so it should be 12 S2000 cars. The German Super2000 is also much cheaper rulebook then the FIA Super 2000, as they allowed more stuff for private tuners. Still nothing to compare to the pre-S2000-era where they had 40+ grids. But with sponsors currently only looking to support (future-) DTM or F1 (-Drivers) it might not be a surprise.
Give me a full grid of S2000/NGTC cars over 11 Super Tourers any day. Compare BTCC 2000 to 2011 - TV coverage, entrants, battles, cost of running a team and there's only one winner.
deriving that from the introduction of Super 2000 is too easy. As the motorsport landscape changed. After the death of DTM people found the STW (Supertouringcar Cup), which started also to continue old DTM traditions. (Free entry for the first race...). And as they raced on the same days as F1 did, they were build into the coverage of F1, which boomed here after Schumacher's first title. -> Boom. Also the international motorsport landscape was thinned out:
World Sportscar Championship - dead
FIA GT and LeMans - used different GT rules, so only manufactor teams or teams with big sponsors raced both
However, supertourers were a dying species as the field thinned out from over 30 cars to under 20. Last race in 1999. The second league of touringcars, the Touringcar Challenge had a field of over 40 cars, as the car costs were below 50.000€ and the running costs were about 25.000€. This division became, 3 years later the German Super2000 Series, but stayed rather weak with 4-8 Super2000 cars, 8-12 Super1600 cars and a third division of cup-cars which were not supported anylonger (Ford Mondeo Cuo, Alfa Romeo Cup,...). Most of the other teams went to the Nürburgring and did the Endurance series and the 24h race.
In the meanwhile:
FIA and ACO started to cooperate: ACO rules over Prototypes, FIA over GTs
ALMS, LMS started
GT3 was introduced and boomed
If you ask why I point it out? German touringcars lost its characters to DTM or GTs/LMPs. Moreover they lost their media presence, which is a platform to sponsors and to create characters. Unknown people are only interesting when they rape themselves by going to all these casting shows Sorry that I only talk about the German side, but that's the side I know. And to show how fast it can change. Faster and more spectacular cars are always a goal for racers, if they are not bounded to the other series by any other factors. WTCC has a similar situation and as the cars are not unexpensive...
Oh yea, +1 dude. Super Touring was the real deal!!
Hey, I have an idea. Why don't we make a brand new Super Touring champ together? First step: go find me 10 manufacturers able AND willing to afford a 2-3 cars supertouring program. Hell, this should be a child's game, the economy isn't that bad these days, I'm sure they all have millions to waste on marketing crap of that kind!
Once it's done, contact me back. I'd be delighted to give a help with race directing!
Sorry Yann I already have someone for the race directing, perhaps you can do the French catering to help tempt these manufacturers back?
No good having credibility and international viewers if you are down to 3 manufacturers in 2000 who clearly would eventually stop supporting the costs of running 3 cars each to Super Touring regs.
And surely it was the fact that there were international drivers brought international viewers, who were there because manufacturers wanted the best drivers? Therefore with fewer manufacturers bringing less international drivers, of course less people outside the UK are going to watch. But outside of the UK isn't the core market for BTCC sponsors so although it's nice to be shown around the world, it's not that important.
However, he only said that the cars will be raced for 3 years, not what happens afterwards.
That'll teach me not to post 3 seconds after I wake up, when I'm still incoherent.