WTCR boss would love to see BTCC drivers and Johan Kristoffersson as wild cards

The WTCR promoter Francois Ribeiro has said he’s open to re-evaluating the championship’s wild card system in the future, to allow top level drivers from other categories to compete in the championship next year.

The 2018 World Touring Car Cup has a fixed 25-car grid, but also allows two local wild cards for drivers from the local area at each event.

This was skipped for Morocco, but in Hungary, young stars and TCR Europe regulars Daniel Nagy and Attila Tassi both joined the grid, while the dial was turned up at the Nordschleife as Team WRT ran an Audi RS 3 LMS for DTM champion René Rast, and KCMG ran a car for ‘German-speaking Swiss’ Kris Richard.

In the Netherlands, Bernhard van Oranje and Michael Verhagen were run by Dutch squad Bas Koeten Racing, while Czech and Slovakian touring car drivers Petr Fulín and Andrej Studenič have been entered for the upcoming round at the Slovakiaring.

“We probably need to figure out what kind of driver profile we’re going after,” said Ribeiro.

“I would love to see more BTCC champions, or Australian drivers, why not? Today, we said we’d only award wild cards to local drivers, and therefore to get British or Australian drivers on the grid if we don’t race in those countries it’ll be difficult.

“What I’d love to see is a mix of championship drivers or heroes coming on our grid, but also from other categories.

“Why not a bike champion? Why not a rallycross champion? I’d love to get (Johan) Kristoffersson at Vila Real in a Volkswagen doing the joker lap. For me he’d have been completely legitimate entry and he would have been a great story.

“Drivers going from one category to another is always a good story. Now when you see (Fernando) Alonso going to Le Mans from Formula 1 everyone goes wild, and we should be doing it here, as touring cars is a very accessible category for all drivers from different disciplines.”