Marcello Lotti on the future of TCR

Marcello Lotti has recently developed the TCR concept, based on customer racing and affordable prices, but also on a wide circle of regional and national series which will be complementary to the International Series. TouringCarTimes met up with the Italian promoter in Valencia, and discussed the birth of the concept as well as its future:

“In 2008 the global crisis changed the way motor sport was conceived in many aspects,” said Marcello Lotti to TouringCarTimes. “One of these was of couse the lack of funding, which I experienced directly in the past, but also the fact that national championships started fading and disappeared, save for a few exceptions. I spent 2014 studying more closely the status of motor sport outside of the World Touring Car Championship, in which I had been involved for more than ten years, and I started looking for an idea to create something different.”

Lotti made several trips around the world to take a closer look at the different national series, and found out that there was a type of car which was used in several championships:

“What happened next was that I realized that in each national championship there were SEATs competing. Russia, United Arab Emirates, Dominican Republic, Italy, Spain, all featured some of those cars. I reflected that the reason was that SEAT Sport had used a philosophy which featured high value for money concerning the cars, which were affordable and not too complicated to run, but also good looking and with very good track performances. At that point, it was a logical step to take the SEAT one-make series rulebook, take inspiration from there and go to the other manufacturers, explaining what they would have been able to do by following the footsteps of the Spanish cars. That’s how TCR started.”

There has been a lot of talk about the new series being conceived to leave the big car companies out in order to allow privateers to race, but Lotti says there is more than meets the eye:

“Saying that manufacturers are not important in TCR is not correct. They are not participants, but they are a fundamental part of the project. They have to use their expertise and their basic cars, make them suitable for the TCR Series and then build them for customers to buy them. It’s not the importance, it’s the role that has changed from entrant to, let’s say, a provider of materials and services for the teams. This way everyone is happy: the manufacturer sells cars, the customers are happy because TCR is not expensive and they can run the cars, making profit out of their investments.”

The TCR Series is a long-term project, and the international inclination of it will be the guiding force to develop several regional series through the second-hand market, even in countries which could not afford to have a national touring car championship at the moment: “I think that this rulebook will last for five-seven years, with the same kind of cars. In that sense it is important to think of the commercial path these cars will follow. What we see on track in the TCR International Series will be sold to second-hand markets.

That is why it is important to create a chain of national and regional championships. Again, everyone is happy, because teams can sell their old cars and buy new machinery, whereas nations with less resources – I am thinking about India, for instance-, can then afford the cars and therefore create more championships. If those who follow this concept with me will adopt it correctly, I think that the TCR will be a long-lasting force in the future of motor sport.”

Lotti also touched on the reasons which drove the creation of the TCR International Series’ calendar: “The calendar has been driven by the requests we have to create championships, like in Spain, where we raced with the Campeonato de España de Resistencia, whose organiser will create the Spanish declination of our concept. Of course being with Formula One for three events (Sepang, Shanghai and Singapore) is a major plus, but we also wanted to invite the local promoters to sample the concept. I am a friend of Bernie (Ecclestone)’s, and we had already discussed coupling touring cars with F1. It never happened before, but when the TCR idea came in, I told him ‘now it’s time to do it’, and we did. Macau will be the icing on the cake.”

Speaking of new manufacturers, the Italian says there will be more announcements to come, while praising the amount of different brands already present in the series:

“If I have to be honest, there is not a single manufacturer who said ‘no’. We’ve had countless requests. Some want to see how the concept develops, but with Subaru coming in, as well as Ford likely to come back in Monza, we could have up to six different brands by the end of the year, which is quite an achievement for a new born championship. I have a few meetings in the near future with several manufacturers, so we might have more exciting news very shortly.”

When asked a specific question about the FIAT Group, Lotti expressed his hope that the Italian manufacturer will be attracted by the concept and rejoin the touring car world it officially left in 2007 following the end of the Alfa Romeo programme in the WTCC:

“We all know that Fiat scaled down their motorsport efforts significantly. However, I am Italian, and I have witnessed the golden days of Alfa Romeo. I think the Giulietta Quadrifoglio would make a great TCR car, and hopefully they will be attracted by this new system and new way of thinking about motorsport. Like I said, though, this is just my personal opinion. At the moment the manufacturers we have confirmed are the ones everyone knows about.”

The Italian was quick to add that there is a firm selection progress, and not everyone can build a single car and enter the championship: “We do not want to have brands coming in at all costs, they have to show they are capable of building at least 20 cars and prove they can sell them to obtain homologation, otherwise it would have been easy to have twenty different models, but that wouldn’t have been what we want for TCR. National and Regional championships are a very important part of the system, so if cars cannot be available in a reasonably wide scale we are not interested.”

The TCR Series will be back on track this weekend at Portimao, Portugal, for the fourth event of the year.