First visit to Argentina for the WTCC this weekend

The FIA World Touring Car Championship heads to Argentina this weekend after a few years of aborted attempts to race at the South American country, racing at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit.

The race has replaced Curitiba in Brazil on the calendar for this season, which had hosted races on the WTCC calendar since 2006, and will be a fresh challenge for the drivers with all but one never having raced on the circuit before.

The driver who has is Argentinian José María López, a three-time national champion in the Super TC 2000 Championship, Argentina’s chief national touring car series, who has taken over the Wiechers-Sport BMW 320 TC of Fredy Barth this weekend and will race with the number 72.

López was competing at the track just three weeks’ ago with his Equipo Petronas Fiat team in Super TC 2000, but will need to quickly adapt from the 2.7 litre V8 front-wheel drive Fiat to the 1.6 litre turbocharged flat-four rear-wheel drive BMW.

RML’s Yvan Muller heads to Termas with an almost insurmountable 122 point lead over Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjaer, and will be looking to at least maintain the gap this weekend whilst the others get involved in the more competitive fight for second place.

After another strong weekend last month at Porto for Nykjaer, the Dane finds himself 22 points ahead of the identical Chevrolet Cruze of bamboo-engineering’s James Nash in the standings, who is just three points ahead of the Münnich Motorsport SEAT of reigning champion Rob Huff, who is also just one point ahead of 2009 champion Gabriele Tarquini’s Honda.

The fight for the Yokohama Trophy for drivers is also intense, with Nykjaer now just four points ahead of James Nash and Nash’s bamboo team-mate Alex MacDowall still in striking distance, albeit 30 points down after a tough weekend in Portugal.

Another key change this weekend will be the new compensation ballast calculations taking into account the performances of the cars at Salzburg, Moscow and Porto. The BMW 320 TC is allowed to shed 20kg of ballast with its average lap times now 0.7 second per lap slower than those of the Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T, whilst both the Honda Civic and SEAT León both lose 10kg to join the BMW on the base weight of 1,150kg.

That leaves the Chevrolet Cruze at the maximum end of the scale with +40kg, on 1,190kg, with the Lada Granta Sport on the other end with -20kg down at 1,130kg.

Compared to the last race at Porto, the grid will be two cars shorter, with Russian driver Nikolay Karamyshev’s deal with the Spanish Campos Racing team coming to an end, and with British driver Tom Boardman’s Special Tuning Racing team instead opting to miss the round to repair their SEAT León back at base after damage sustained in the first race at the Circuito do Boavista.

Race Of Argentina Entry List

No – Driver – Nat – Team – Car
1 – Rob Huff – GBR – Münnich Motorsport – SEAT León WTCC
3 – Gabriele Tarquini – ITA – Castrol Honda Racing Team JAS – Honda Civic
5 – Norbert Michelisz – HUN – Zengõ Motorsport – Honda Civic Super 2000 TC
6 – Franz Engstler* – GER – Liqui Moly Team Engstler – BMW 320 TC
7 – Charles Ng* – HKG – Liqui Moly Team Engstler – BMW 320 TC
8 – Mikhail Kozlovskiy – RUS – LADA Sport Lukoil – Lada Granta Sport
9 – Alex MacDowall* – GBR – bamboo-engineering – Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
10 – James Thompson – GBR – LADA Sport Lukoil – Lada Granta Sport
12 – Yvan Muller – FRA – RML – Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
14 – James Nash* – GBR – bamboo-engineering – Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
15 – Tom Coronel – NED – ROAL Motorsport – BMW 320 TC
17 – Michel Nykjaer* – DEN – Nika Racing – Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
18 – Tiago Monteiro – POR – Castrol Honda Racing Team JAS – Honda Civic
19 – Fernando Monje* – SPN – Campos Racing – SEAT León WTCC
20 – Hugo Valente* – SPN – Campos Racing – SEAT León WTCC
23 – Tom Chilton – GBR – RML – Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
25 – Mehdi Bennani* – MOR – Proteam Racing – BMW 320 TC
26 – Stefano D’Aste* – ITA – PB Racing – BMW 320 TC
37 – René Münnich* – GER – Münnich Motorsport – SEAT León WTCC
38 – Marc Basseng – GER – Münnich Motorsport – SEAT León WTCC
55 – Darryl O’Young* – HKG – ROAL Motorsport – BMW 320 TC
72 – José María López* – ARG – Wiechers-Sport – BMW 320 TC
74 – Pepe Oriola – SPN – Tuenti Racing Team – Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T

* Drivers eligible for the Yokohama Trophy

Race Of Argentina Compensation Ballast

Car Model – Ballast – Final Weight
Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T – +40kg – 1,190kg
BMW 320 TC – +0kg – 1,150kg
SEAT León WTCC – +0kg – 1,150kg
Honda Civic Super 2000 TC – +0kg – 1,150kg
Lada Granta Sport – -20kg – 1,130kg

Race Of Argentina Timetable

Friday 2nd August
13:30 – Testing

Saturday 3rd August
09:30 – Free Practice 1
12:00 – Free Practice 2
15:45 – Qualifying

Sunday 4th August
09:00 – Warm Up
14:20 – Race 1 (11 Laps)
16:20 – Race 2 (11 Laps)