NEWS ARCHIVE

Rob HUFF – pole position: “It is great to finally get a pole position. The team deserved it as they did a great job. I was confident in qualifying and got a good lap with no mistakes for pole. I will be looking for Chevrolet’s first win in Brno since 2006 and I have given myself the best opportunity to do that. Tarquini will be there alongside me as usual but hopefully I can lead into T1 and control the race from there.”

Britain’s Rob Huff (2:10.860) scored his first pole position since Macau last year making no mistakes on his final lap to finish 0.338s ahead of reigning champion Gabriele Tarquini (2:11.198) at Brno. Colin Turkington will start as best of the independents in third overall for Race 1 in Brno, while Norbert Michelisz (2:11.436) topped the rookies in sixth overall.

Independent racer Colin Turkington topped the timesheets in second practice at Brno’s Automotodrom with a fastest lap of 2:11.028. Current championship leader Yvan Muller (2:11.489) led for most of the session but with 5-minutes to go, the Ulsterman recorded the fastest time in all three sectors to go quickest by 0.461s.

The FIA World Touring Car Championship took to Brno’s Automotodrom for the first time this weekend with Alain Menu (2:11.500) leading the way for Chevrolet in the first free practice. Menu led for the majority of the 30-minute session ending the morning 0.2s ahead of reigning world champion Gabriele Tarquini (2:11.708) and teammate Rob Huff (2:11.866).

Everything is ready at Brno’s Automotodrom for the 13th and 14th rounds of the FIA WTCC that will take place on Sunday. After 12 of the 22 rounds, Chevrolet’s Yvan Muller has built a leading margin of 23 points ahead of the reigning World Champion Gabriele Tarquini, while BMW’s Andy Priaulx lies third, a further 28 points behind.

WTCC regular Michel Nykjær dominated the third and fourth rounds of the FIA European Touring Car Cup that were held last Sunday at the Austrian Salzburgring. The Danish racer, twice a winner of the ETC Cup in 2007 and 2008, won both races at the wheel of the very same SEAT León TDI he drives in the WTCC, beating the Honda Accord cars of pole sitter James Thompson and Tomas Engström.

The 13th and 14th rounds of the FIA WTCC will take place this week in the Czech Republic, at Brno’s Masaryk Circuit. This is a traditional meeting for the championship, as Brno hosted the European Touring Car Championship from 2002 to 2004, and then the World Touring Car Championship from 2006.

The calendars for the 2011 season will be submitted to the FIA World Motor Sport Council on September 10th. Among all the other FIA championships, the WTCC has prepared a draft that includes twelve events. “Most of them are traditional venues for our championship, altough Suzuka will replace Okayama for the Race of Japan,” promoter Marcello Lotti said.

The championship’s winning cars: BMW 320si, SEAT León TDI and Chevrolet Cruze will stay on the maximum 40kg handicap weights at Brno, for the second consecutive event. The compensation weight was determined by the lap times set in Belgium, Portugal and UK. According to this calculation, the SEAT and the Chevrolet equally share the “honour” of being the fastest cars, only two tenths faster than the BMW.