FIA TCN-2 plans unlikely to have any direct impact on TCR, says TCR boss

The FIA’s plans to introduce TCR-based cars as the new second tier national touring class from next season is unlikely to have any impact on the TCR International and national series plans, says series’ promoter Marcello Lotti.

The FIA announced at last week’s World Motor Sport Council meeting that the TCR blueprint will be adopted for the TCN-2 national class, with effect from next season, with further safety changes to the cars required to be homologated for 2017 onwards.

The changes will allow cars developed for the various new TCR series to be raced in the FIA European Touring Car Cup from next season, with the TCN-2 class replacing the Single-Make Trophy class which has been for SEAT León Eurocup cars for this season, and was previously for the earlier Supercopa (León Mk.II) model.

The FIA’s plans haven’t directly involved the TCR organisation, with the FIA’s plans worked out in cooperation with the manufacturers which are producing cars for TCR, which now include Subaru, Volkswagen, Honda, SEAT, Ford and Opel with two other major manufacturers expecting to announce customer programmes for next year also.

“I don’t really understand everything as I’ve not read an official paper linked to this, but the perception that they want to make something close to TCR, to be able to run in some FIA championships like the ETCC,” said TCR promoter Marcello Lotti to TouringCarTimes. “Because national is national, the nations can decide themselves what they want to do.

“This is good for the manufacturers that build the TCR car as they can build more and have them racing and have more business for them…as they don’t change the technical specification too much,” he added. “If you change the technical specification I don’t know if someone’s ready to build those other cars, so we have to see what’s going on.”

The FIA is mandating a racing fuel tank in place of the production fuel tank used by some TCR cars, such as the SEAT León Eurocup car, and also improvements to the lateral protection for the driver.

The ETCC promoter confirmed that manufacturers recognise this safety requirement, and that Volkswagen for example will already be building their Golf GTIs with the TCN-2 requirements in mind.

Lotti added however that the current specification cars are already safe for circuit racing.

“We follow the safety prescription from the Appendix J from the FIA. I know a lot of manufacturers anyway they have the (racing) tanks, but others have decided to keep with the homologation of the road one.
“I don’t think there is any concern with safety in terms of racing, as if you think what can happen on the highway with a normal road car, these tanks are also safe else it’d never be homologated.

“I can understand at least in rallying when the rescue vehicles can arrive really late, but on the track it’s much easier to have the rescue service nearby, so I don’t think it’s mandatory.”