2011 FIA European Touring Car Cup preview

The Salzburgring hosts the seventh FIA European Touring Car Cup this weekend, the special one-off touring car event targeted at the European championships which run to FIA Super 2000 regulations.

The Salzburgring in Austria has twice hosted the ETC Cup before. First in 2008 and then again in 2010, when it hosted the second of the three events that made up the Cup when the Cup was expanded to three events for last year only.

The FIA European Touring Car Cup is open to three categories of car. The fastest class is the Super 2000 (S2000) cars, which are normally-aspirated or turbo-diesel 2.0 litre cars built to the regulations used in the former European Touring Car Championship and subsequently the FIA World Touring Car Championship from 2002-2010 (as well as many other national series).

The other two classes are for Super Production cars and Super 1600 (S1600, 1.6 litre). The ETC Cup does not allow cars that are built for the new engine specifications used in the WTCC this year (S2000 cars with 1.6 litre turbocharged engines), nor are the British Touring Car Championship’s NGTC type cars or NGTC-engined cars eligible.

In the S2000 class, teams that regularly compete in the World Touring Car Championship, Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, the former-Danish Touring Car series as well as the German ADAC Procar series will be competing in this year’s event.

SUNRED Engineering will be fielding a lone SEAT León TDI for 17-year-old Spaniard Pepe Oriola. Oriola has already been racing for the team in this year’s WTCC, and competed with the TDI engine in the first three rounds of the year where he took the lead of the Jay-Ten Trophy for cars running to the older regulations. Despite switching to the team’s new turbo engine four meetings ago, he’s still officially second in that class.

The SEAT TDI won every round of the ETC Cup it competed in last year in the hands of the Danish driver Michel Nykjaer, though Nykjaer joined the event too late to be able take overall honours – which went to James Thompson in the Hartmann Honda Racing Accord Euro-R.

Thompson’s Volvo contract precludes the British driver from returning to defend his consecutive titles, but Hartmann will be back with two cars and a likely challenger to Oriola with two-times British Touring Car Champion and 2000-2002 European Super Touring Cup/European Touring Car Champion Fabrizio Giovanardi.

The team’s Honda Accord Euro-Rs are powered by an engine developed by Neil Brown Engines, who also produce the engines for BTCC front-running squad Team Dynamics. Giovanardi’s team-mate for the event will be the Austrian Wolfgang Treml, who also drove for the team last year.

The other driver in with the strongest chance of winning this year’s event is Michel Nykjaer. The WTCC driver has won three out of the four times he’s raced at the Salzburgring before, and has twice won the ETC Cup in 2007 and 2008. Although he will have the benefit of circuit knowledge, what the Dane will have to learn quickly is his new ride. Despite having raced a SEAT León TDI for all of 2010 and for the first few rounds of this year’s WTCC, a parts issue has prevented Nykjaer from racing with the car he knows best at Salzburg, so instead he’s going to race with the next best thing, the car that won last year’s World Championship.

So Nykjaer will be driving a Chevrolet Cruze LT run by the Swedish Nika Racing team (Chevrolet Motorsport Sweden) in the car is that that is used by Rickard Rydell in this year’s STCC and was driven to three race wins by Rob Huff in the 2010 WTCC.

Nykjaer, Giovanardi and Oriola are easily the favourites for the trophy, but with just two races, one with a reversed grid, there’s still the potential for a ‘surprise’ winner.

Tomas Engström could well be one of those surprises. The Swede has been running very competitively in this year’s STCC in the Gulf liveried Honda Accord run by his team Engström Motorsport, and the team even skipped the last round at Falkenberg to prepare for this event.

WTCC regular Mehdi Bennani is also in with a shout. The Moroccan will be racing with the Italian outfit Proteam Racing with which he competes with in the WTCC, but this time in a normally aspirated BMW 320si as opposed to his usual 1.6 litre turbocharged BMW, though he’s already familiar with that specification car having raced one in 2010.

Multiple Turkish Touring Car champion Ibrahim Okyay will also be taking part in his bright blue BMW 320si, as will a number of competitors from the German ADAC Procar series such as Jens Weimann, Peter Rikli and Christian Fischer.

The whole Super 1600 field is made up of cars from the ADAC Procar series Division 2 field, and are all 1.6 litre Ford Fiestas.

The format of the event sees a qualifying session on the Saturday to determine the grid for race one, with the top three cars also scoring points towards the cup (1st place gets three points, 2nd place two points, 3rd one point).

The first race is a 12 lap event with the points distributed according to the old FIA points format (1st – 8th: 10pts, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1). The second race will see the top eight from race one reversed, with the car that finished eighth starting on pole and the race winner down in eighth for another 12 laps with the same points applied.

The winner is the driver with the most points or in the case of a tie, the one with the highest placed finish.

Both races will be broadcast on Eurosport.

Weekend Schedule

Saturday 23rd July
9:10 CET – Testing (1hr)
12:05 CET – Free Practice (30m)
15:00 CET – Qualifying (30m)

Sunday 24th July
11:20 CET – Race 1 (12 Laps)
14:35 CET – Race 2 (12 Laps)

Entry List – Super 2000

No – Driver – Nat – Team – Car
2 – Michel Nykjaer – DEN – Chevrolet Motorsport Sweden – Chevrolet Cruze LT
4 – Fabrizio Giovanardi – ITA – Hartmann Honda Racing – Honda Accord Euro-R
5 – Wolfgang Treml – AUT – Hartmann Honda Racing – Honda Accord Euro-R
6 – Pepe Oriola – SPN – SUNRED Engineering – SEAT León TDI
8 – Peter Rikli – SWI – Rikli Motorsport – Honda Civic FD
9 – Christian Fischer – SWI – Rikli Motorsport – Honda Accord Euro-R
11 – Mehdi Bennani – MOR – Proteam Racing – BMW 320si E90
13 – Ibrahim Okyay – TUR – Borusan Otomotiv – BMW 320si E90
14 – Jens Weimann – GER – Thate Motorsport – BMW 320si E90
15 – Andreas Kast – GER – KK Motorsport – Audi A4
17 – Tomas Engström – SWE – Engström Motorsport – Honda Accord Euro-R

Entry List – Super Production

No – Driver – Nat – Team – Car
22 – Fabio Fabiani – ITA – Proteam Racing – BMW 320i E46
23 – Aleksandar Tosic – SRB – ASK Vitro Racing – Honda Civic Type-R
24 – Niek Oude Luttikhuis – NED – Pro East Racing – Mitsubishi Carisma

Entry List – Super 1600

No – Driver – Nat – Team – Car
32 – Ulrike Krafft – GER – ATM Speed Ladies Team – Ford Fiesta 1.6
33 – Klaus Bingler – GER – ATM Racing – Ford Fiesta ST
34 – Igor Skuz – UKR – ATM Racing – Ford Fiesta 1.6
35 – Erwin Lukas – GER – GENA Autosport – Ford Fiesta ST
37 – Thomas Mühlenz – GER – Roscher Racing – Ford Fiesta 1.6 LPG