Photo: Björn Tarrach

Lada ready for race in Valencia

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On tuesday and wednesday there were official tests of the World Touring Car Championship at Oschersleben. The Russian Bears Motorsport team made their first public appearance at the track in Germany. TouringCarTimes asked team owner Viktor Shapalov about the details of his new effort with the Russian manufacturer in the WTCC.

In the weeks prior to the official tests at Oschersleben, the Russian team tested the car twice at Zandvoort in the Netherlands. However, the team was very happy to get the opportunity to test at Oschersleben as well. “We need every kilometre. We only tested twice at Zandvoort. We have to work on the setup because the ballance isn’t quite good at the moment but things are looking well”, Shapalov said.

The team is entered as a semi-works effort, but Russian Bears had to develop the car on their own. “We only get help from Lada for the homologation and two street cars. We only have one car ready at the moment. But things are looking good that we have two cars in valencia.”

The Russian Bears team entered two BMW’s last year in selected rounds, but now changed to the Lada 110. “Lada asked me if we could race their cars, which M-tec had started to develop”, Shapalov explains. “There was also a big presentation of Lada in WTCC at Moscow in 2006. But we didn’t got their (M-tec’s) prototypes. We had to build two new cars on our own. Ofcourse Lada helps us but the support is not very big.”

“We have a three year plan with Lada. The first year is only for testing the car. In the second year we would like to get some good results. Lada is also developping a new street car and it could be happen that we run the new model in WTCC if they want us to.”

In case the Lada’s turn out to be very uncompetitive, the team has a back-up plan ready. “We still own the three BMW 320i e46’s, which we already raced at Zandvoort and Valencia last year. They are ready to race and we can race with them whenever we want.”

In Valencia the Lada will make it’s first appearance in a WTCC race. During the test in Oschersleben the car showed promising times. Despite that, the team is reserved in their goals for the race. “Valencia will be a big test for us. The car is brand new and first we have to understand the car. But the car has potential and the engine is very strong. In the end of the season we would like to fight with the BMW’s in the Independents Trophy.”