Chevrolet Denmark packing for WTCC debut

The first Perfection Racing truck left Denmark Wednesday, heading for Oschersleben between Magdeburg and Berlin. The goal is the World Touring Car Championship debut for the Danish Chevrolet team, currently featuring at the top of the points table in the DTC.

Normally the team consists of two trucks with trailers filled with cars, parts and VIP guest facilities.

But at the WTCC debut, the team is receiving support from Chevrolet Motorsport and Ray Mallock. So the Danish team only needs one trailer, as the team will not need the VIP facilities and only sports one Chevrolet race car.

“We will not need our VIP department,“ team boss Kent Bo Steffensen explains. “And the car will be placed in a real garage, so we will not need our tent either for our repair shop. We will only bring Michel Nykjær´s car, meaning that everything can be in one trailer. But it is tightly packed – we are really bringing a lot of spare parts, so we can nearly build an entire new car.

Several spare parts are brought in doublets, as the WTCC is known to be a hard race series. Especially body parts are brought in large quantities, as the shop in Denmark will be very far away.

Friday all 12 team members will be present. Apart from the team, 70 VIP guests will follow Nykjær´s efforts in the world championship. As the team is not bringing the VIP gear, they will dine at the factory team Ray Mallock Ltd.

The factory team has also supplied knowledge of setup, tires and track data. In the DTC the team is racing Dunlop tires, and the WTCC is run on Yokohama rubber. But given the fact, that the Danish Chevrolet Lacetti is a former factory car, all data will be available.

”We do know the Yokohama tires, and we have raced on them twice already. So we know reasonably much about their behaviour. Furthermore we have pulled a lot of data from Ray Mallock on the setup.

So we expect to be close to the front. We are getting a lot of support from Ray Mallock; we really have a good partner in that company. They are really pulling out all the stops. They would love to have us near the front.”

”There is not really a huge difference between servicing a DTC or a WTCC car. The major challenge in the preparation is the distance. We need to have everything with us; we can’t just go back for a spare part.”

TouringCarTimes.com will follow the team from Denmark to Oschersleben and back. The team boss Kent Bo Steffensen will leave for the track Thursday morning, bringing TouringCarTimes.com and the rest of the team to the WTCC debut.