The 2011 World Touring Car Championship season was the eighth season of the
FIA
FIA is the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (English: International Automobile Federation), the world's governing body for all forms of motor sport where four or more wheels are used.
Fia or FIA may also refer to: People
* Fia Backst ...
World Touring Car Championship
The FIA World Touring Car Championship was an international touring car championship promoted by Eurosport Events and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It has had several different incarnations, including a sin ...
, and the seventh since its 2005 return. The championship, which was open to
Super 2000
Super 2000 is an FIA powertrain specification used in the World Rally Championship, the British Touring Car Championship, the World Touring Car Championship, and other touring car championships. The engines were originally 2 L naturally aspirate ...
cars and
Diesel 2000
Diesel 2000 is an FIA circuit racing classification for modified production based touring cars using turbodiesel engines.
Like its counterpart, Super 2000, the category is open to large-scale series production touring cars modified by a kit. Car ...
cars,
began with the
Race of Brazil at
Curitiba
Curitiba () is the capital and largest city in the state of Paraná (state), Paraná in Brazil. The city's population was 1,948,626 , making it the List of cities in Brazil by population, eighth most populous city in Brazil and the largest in ...
on 20 March and ended with the
Guia Race of Macau
The WTCR Race of Macau, previously Guia Race of Macau and WTCC Guia Race of Macau, is an international touring car race, and currently a round of the World Touring Car Cup. It is held on the temporary 6.2 km Guia Circuit on the streets of Ma ...
at the
Guia Circuit
The Guia Circuit, or Circuito da Guia, is a street circuit located at the southeast region of the Macau Peninsula in Macau. It is the venue of the Macau Grand Prix and Guia Race of Macau. The circuit consists of long straights and tight corners ...
on 20 November, after twelve events and twenty-four races.
The series underwent major changes with new circuits
Suzuka and
Tianma
Tianma ( ', "heavenly horse") was a winged flying horse in Chinese folklore. It was sometimes depicted with chimerical features such as dragon scales and was at times attributed the ability to sweat blood, possibly inspired by the parasite ''Par ...
coming into the championship, new drivers such as
Pepe Oriola
Josep "Pepe" Oriola Vila (born 9 July 1994) is a Spanish racing driver. He became the youngest driver to race in the World Touring Car Championship when he competed in the 2011 season. Oriola is not only the youngest driver to start a WTCC race ...
to
SUNRED Engineering
Sunred (short for ''Sun Race Engineering Development S.L.'') is a Spanish-based auto racing team and constructor. They are best known for competing in the World Touring Car Championship.
Racing History
While in the past Sunred had participated in ...
and
Robert Dahlgren
Robert Dahlgren (born 1 December 1979 in Skellefteå) is a Swedish auto racing driver who currently competes for the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship. He previously competed in Australia and New Zealand for a single season in the V8 Superca ...
with
Polestar Racing
Cyan Racing is the official motorsport partner to Geely Group Motorsport, formerly the Volvo factory auto racing team, and runs the FIA WTCR programme for Lynk & Co, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The team’s current drivers are Thed Björk, Yv ...
for the whole season. The series lost the
FIA Formula Two Championship
The FIA Formula 2 Championship is a second-tier single-seater championship organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Held on road racing, racing circuits, the championship was introduced in 2017, following the rebrandi ...
as a support championship, but it was replaced by
Auto GP
Auto GP, sometimes referred to as the Auto GP World Series and formerly known as both Euro Formula 3000 and the Euroseries 3000, was a European formula racing series.
The series' roots can be traced back to 1999 and the Italian Formula 3000 serie ...
. It was also supported by a brand new series,
European Production Series which supported the six rounds at
Zolder
The Circuit Zolder, also known as Circuit Terlamen, is an undulating motorsport race track in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium.
History
Built in 1963, Zolder hosted the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix on 10 separate occasions in the 1970s and 1980s, a ...
,
Monza
Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...
,
Brno
Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...
,
Donington,
Oschersleben
Oschersleben () is a town in the Börde district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The population in 1905 was 13,271, in 2020 about 19,000.
History
On November 23, 994 Oschersleben was first mentioned in a document by the Emperor Otto III. In 1235 ...
and
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...
.
Teams and drivers
A provisional list of teams and drivers was revealed on 23 February, and the official entry list was published on 4 March.
Team and driver changes
Chevrolet
Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...
retained their three full-time drivers from
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
,
Yvan Muller
Yvan Muller (born 16 August 1969 in Altkirch, Haut-Rhin) is a French auto racing driver most noted for success in touring car racing. He is a four-time World Touring Car Champion, winning the title in 2008 with SEAT, in 2010 and 2011 with Chevro ...
,
Robert Huff
Robert Peter "Rob" Huff (born 25 December 1979) is a British professional racing driver. He currently competes in the World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) driving for Zengő Motorsport. He was the 2012 World Touring Car Championship champion and the ...
and
Alain Menu
Alain Menu (born 9 August 1963) is a Swiss racing driver who is currently working for Team BMR as a driving coach. He was one of the most successful touring car drivers of the 1990s, winning the prestigious British Touring Car Championship twice ...
.
Cacá Bueno
Carlos Eduardo Santos Galvão Bueno Filho, better known as Cacá Bueno (born 24 January 1976) is a Brazilian professional racing driver. He competes full-time in the Stock Car Pro Series, driving the No. 0 Chevrolet Cruze for Crown Racing. He i ...
also joined the team in a fourth car at his home meeting in Curitiba. The team utilized the newly introduced engine. Again, two further Chevrolets were entered by
bamboo-engineering
Craft-Bamboo Racing is an auto racing team. It was founded in 2014 after the merger of Craft Racing from Hong Kong and Bamboo Engineering from the United Kingdom.
Craft Racing was established by Frank Yu in 2009 and was a front running team in ...
, who retained their
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
drivers,
Darryl O'Young
Darryl Hayden O'Young () is a Canadian-born Hong Kong racing driver.
Career Early career
O'Young began racing in 1988 at the age of eight. Trained by his father he honed his driving skills in karting winning numerous championships. The highlight ...
and
Yukinori Taniguchi
is a Japanese businessperson and auto racing driver. He founded Yuke's, a video game developer company, in Sakai, Osaka in 1993.
Early career
As a child, Taniguchi became an enthusiastic arcade gamer, spending much time on early arcade games such ...
. Bamboo campaigned Lacettis at the first round in Curitiba, but contested the rest of the season with Cruzes.
SUNRED Engineering
Sunred (short for ''Sun Race Engineering Development S.L.'') is a Spanish-based auto racing team and constructor. They are best known for competing in the World Touring Car Championship.
Racing History
While in the past Sunred had participated in ...
again ran six cars through three different team guises.
Gabriele Tarquini
Gabriele Tarquini (born 2 March 1962) is an Italian racing driver. He participated in 78 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on May 3, 1987. He scored a single championship point, and holds the record for the most failed attempts to qualify. He ...
remained with the team and was joined by former
SEAT León Eurocup
The SEAT León Eurocup was a one-make racing, one-make touring car racing series which uses SEAT Leóns, run by SEAT Sport.
Background
The championship began in 2008, making its debut at Circuit de Valencia, as a support series for the World To ...
racer
Aleksei Dudukalo
Aleksey Nikolayevich Dudukalo ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Дудука́ло, p=ɐlʲɪˈksej nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ dʊdʊˈkalə; born 6 October 1976, in Moscow) is a Russian auto racing driver. He raced in the World Touring ...
, who brought
Lukoil
The PJSC Lukoil Oil Company ( stylized as LUKOIL or ЛУКОЙЛ in Cyrillic script) is a Russian multinational energy corporation headquartered in Moscow, specializing in the business of extraction, production, transport, and sale of petrol ...
sponsorship into the team. Another three-car outfit was headed by
Tiago Monteiro
Tiago Vagaroso da Costa Monteiro (; born 24 July 1976) is a Portuguese professional racing driver currently competing in the World Touring Car Cup, driving a Honda Civic TCR for Engstler Motorsport. He competed in Formula One between 2005 an ...
, who was joined by
Michel Nykjær
Michel Nykjær (born 17 September 1979) is a Danish auto racing driver. Nykjær is a two-time European Touring Car Cup winner.
Career
Early years
Between 1989 and 1993 he spent his early racing years in karting. After a break, he returned to mo ...
, and another graduate from the SEAT León Eurocup,
Pepe Oriola
Josep "Pepe" Oriola Vila (born 9 July 1994) is a Spanish racing driver. He became the youngest driver to race in the World Touring Car Championship when he competed in the 2011 season. Oriola is not only the youngest driver to start a WTCC race ...
.
Fredy Barth
Frédéric Nicolas "Fredy" Barth (born 5 December 1979 in Lucerne) is an auto racing driver from Switzerland. He currently drives in the World Touring Car Championship.
Racing career
Early years
Barth started out in karting before stepping up to ...
completed the SEAT sextet, with his SEAT Swiss Racing by SUNRED team. The SEATs began the season using a two-litre turbo diesel engine and from Hungary introduced a similar engine to that used in the Chevrolets. However, the cars were branded as SR Leon with no
SEAT
A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense.
Types of seat
The following are examples of different kinds of seat:
* Armchair (furniture), ...
support at all. Leaving the team is
Jordi Gené
Jordi Gené Guerrero (born 5 December 1970) is a racing driver who competed in the World Touring Car Championship between 2005 and 2010. His younger brother, Marc is also a ex-racing driver and is currently a Brand Ambassador for the Scuderia Ferr ...
, who parted with the team before the end of the 2010 season.
Norbert Michelisz
Norbert Michelisz (born 8 August 1984) is a Hungarian auto racing driver and the 2019 winner of the World Touring Car Cup.
Career
Early career
Michelisz was the 2006 Hungarian Suzuki Swift Cup champion, and in 2007 he won the Hungarian Ren ...
remained in the championship with the
Zengő Dension Team, but switched to a BMW 320 TC, having campaigned a SEAT in 2010, winning a race at Macau. He began his campaign at the second round of the season at Zolder. Three other teams campaigned a single 320 TC during the season;
ROAL Motorsport
ROAL Motorsport (previously known as Ravaglia Motorsport) is an Italian auto racing team, which operated the BMW Team Italy-Spain team in the World Touring Car Championship, and currently competes as BMW Team Italia in the Italian GT Championship ...
returned to the series, with
Tom Coronel
Tom Romeo Coronel (born 5 April 1972) is a Dutch professional racing driver. Tom's twin brother Tim is also a racer, just like their father Tom Coronel Sr. His most important results are winning the Marlboro Masters of Formula 3 race in 1997, th ...
switching from a SUNRED SEAT,
Wiechers-Sport
Wiechers-Sport is a German auto racing team which is based in Nienburg. The team was first established in 1999, competing in German touring cars. The team currently competes in the World Touring Car Championship.
World Touring Car Championship
B ...
ran Urs Sonderegger – another driver from the SEAT León Eurocup – at the European races held during the season, and DeTeam KK Motorsport ran
Marchy Lee
Marchy Lee Ying-Kin (Traditional Chinese: 李英健) is a racing driver from Hong Kong. Born in 1976 in Hong Kong, Marchy started his racing career at just 9 years old and has become one of the top racecar drivers in Hong Kong.
He is the first ...
, who steps up from the Asian Porsche Carrera Cup.
The factory
BMW Team RBM
Racing Bart Mampaey (formerly Juma Racing) is a racing team based in Mechelen, Belgium that runs the BMW Team RBM operation in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. Previously the team had been racing in the European Touring Car Championship and World ...
did not return in 2011, and drivers
Augusto Farfus
Augusto Farfus Jr. (born 3 September 1983) is a Brazilian professional racing driver, and BMW Motorsport works driver. He lives in Monaco.
Early years
Born in Curitiba, Farfus first tasted racing in minibike races and won the local championshi ...
and
Andy Priaulx
Andrew Graham Priaulx, MBE ( born 8 August 1974) is a British professional racing driver from Guernsey. In 2019 he raced for Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and Cyan Racing Lynk & Co in the FIA World Touring ...
moved into sportscar racing, entering the
Intercontinental Le Mans Cup
The Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (shortened ILMC) was an endurance sports car racing tournament organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) started in 2010. . Independent BMWs were however campaigned by the
Proteam Racing
Proteam Motorsport is an Italian auto racing team based in Arezzo that was set up by former driver Valmiro Presenzini in 1997. They are best known for their efforts in the FIA World Touring Car Championship. Their time in the WTCC has seen them be ...
and
Liqui Moly Team Engstler outfits. Proteam ran three BMWs; two 320 TCs for
Mehdi Bennani
Mehdi Bennani ( ar, مهدي بناني, born 25 August 1983) is a Moroccan racing driver who currently competes in the TCR Europe with Sébastien Loeb Racing. He was TCR Europe Champion in 2020 with the Belgian team Comtoyou Racing.
He became ...
, who moves from Wiechers-Sport and former single-seater racer
Javier Villa
Javier Villa García (born 5 October 1987) is a Spanish racing driver living in Arriondas, Asturias, Spain. He drove in the GP2 Series from 2006 towards 2009. In 2010 he switched to touring cars, driving at the Spanish Mini Challenge and later th ...
, as well as a naturally aspirated 320si for
Fabio Fabiani
Fabio Fabiani (born 13 October 1974 in Ravenna) is an Italian auto racing driver.
Moto Bike Career
He started in Italian Sport Production Championship in 1994 moving to Italian 125cc in 1995. After Military Service in 1996 he raced in the Itali ...
. Bennani and Villa replaced Independents' champion
Sergio Hernández and
Stefano D'Aste. Team Engstler ran two cars once again, with
Franz Engstler
Franz Engstler (born 25 July 1961) is a German auto racing driver.
Racing career
Born in Kempten im Allgäu, Engstler started racing in the European Hillclimbing Championship and the German Long Distance Cup, which he won. From 1988 he competed ...
being joined by
Kristian Poulsen
Kristian Poulsen (born 18 November 1975) is a Danish auto racing driver, who currently competes in touring car racing.
Career
He made his debut in the FIA World Touring Car Championship in 2008 with a part season. For 2009 he will compete a ful ...
, who drove for his own team in 2010 after driving for Engstler in
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
. Poulsen replaced
Andrei Romanov.
Polestar Racing
Cyan Racing is the official motorsport partner to Geely Group Motorsport, formerly the Volvo factory auto racing team, and runs the FIA WTCR programme for Lynk & Co, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The team’s current drivers are Thed Björk, Yv ...
campaigned a Volvo full-time in 2011, having contested five meetings over the past four seasons.
Swedish Touring Car Championship
Swedish Touring Car Championship (STCC) was a touring car racing series based in Sweden, but also with rounds in Norway. They began operating in 1996, heavily influenced by the British Touring Car Championship and the success of BTCC racing on Sw ...
runner-up
Robert Dahlgren
Robert Dahlgren (born 1 December 1979 in Skellefteå) is a Swedish auto racing driver who currently competes for the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship. He previously competed in Australia and New Zealand for a single season in the V8 Superca ...
again campaigned the car as he had done in each of Polestar's events to date. The team also introduced a similar engine in the mid-season.
Calendar
The provisional calendar for the 2011 season was approved by the
FIA World Motor Sport Council
The World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) is a major organ within the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's governance structure. Its primary role is amending current regulations and drafting new regulations for all of international motor spor ...
on 8 September 2010 with further amendments on 3 November 2010,
7 December 2010
and 8 March 2011.
Calendar changes
* The
Race of Brazil was going to move from
Curitiba
Curitiba () is the capital and largest city in the state of Paraná (state), Paraná in Brazil. The city's population was 1,948,626 , making it the List of cities in Brazil by population, eighth most populous city in Brazil and the largest in ...
to
Interlagos
Interlagos is a neighborhood located in the district of Socorro in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Its name comes from the fact that the region is located between two large reservoirs, Guarapiranga and Billings, built in the early 20th century ...
. The move was reverted due to logistical issues connected to renovation at Interlagos in regards to safety in the Subida dos Boxes area, which has been the site of touring car fatalities.
* The
Race of China will be held for the first time. It was originally scheduled to be held at the
Guangdong International Circuit
Guangdong International Circuit is a motor sport facility located at Da Wang, Sihui, in Zhaoqing city in China, approx 45 mins by car from Guangzhou. Designed by a female Chinese designer Qiming Yao, it is the second permanent motor sport facilit ...
,
but was later relocated to the
Tianma Circuit.
* The
Race of Portugal returned to
Porto
Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...
as in recent odd years.
* The
Race of Japan moved from
Okayama
is the capital city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan. The city was founded on June 1, 1889. , the city has an estimated population of 720,841 and a population density of 910 persons per km2. The total area is .
The city is ...
to
Suzuka.
* The
Race of UK moved from
Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently host ...
to
Donington Park
Donington Park is a motorsport circuit located near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England. The circuit business is now owned by Jonathan Palmer's MotorSport Vision organisation, and the surrounding Donington Park Estate, still owned b ...
.
* The
Race of Argentina was originally scheduled to be held in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, but was dropped from the calendar and replaced with the
Race of Belgium when the circuit failed its homologation and it was found that there would not be enough time to complete the work necessary to upgrade the circuit to the required standard.
* The
Race of Morocco was dropped from the calendar, and replaced by the new
Race of Hungary.
Results and standings
Races
Standings
Drivers' Championship
† — Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed over 90% of the race distance.
Drivers Championship points were awarded on a 25–18–15–12–10–8–6–4–2–1 basis for the first ten places in each race.
[
]
Manufacturers' Championship
Manufacturers Championship points were awarded on a 25–18–15–12–10–8–6–4–2–1 basis for the first ten places in each race.[ However, only the results obtained by the best two cars classified per manufacturer in each race were counted.][ All the other cars of that same manufacturer were invisible as far as scoring points is concerned.][
]
Yokohama Drivers' Trophy
Yokohama Teams' Trophy
Jay-Ten Trophy
Notes
References
External links
Official website of the World Touring Car Championship
{{WTCC seasons