MARCELLO LOTTI DECLARES “TCR UK WILL BE A SUCCESS!”

Marcello Lotti, the CEO of WSC Ltd, met TCR UK teams at Luton Hoo this week to discuss and finalise several aspects of the championship ahead of the opening round at Silverstone over the Easter weekend. Lotti informed the well-attended meeting of a number of developments within TCR and declared “TCR UK will be a success in exactly the same way as we are seeing in series such as TCR Germany.”

It was announced that a number of prizes will be awarded at the end of the season. Both the winning driver and the winning team will receive free entries into the 2019 TCR UK championship, with a separate DSG Trophy being contested by the Volkswagen Group cars that are fitted with DSG transmission (the Audi RS 3 LMS, Cupra TCR and Volkswagen Golf GTI). The winner of the DSG Trophy will receive a free upgrade to sequential transmission – a prize worth around €20,000 at today’s prices.

It was also revealed that a number of enquires have been received from teams based on the continent, with between four and six cars from European teams likely to be on the grid.

Among the topics discussed by the teams were concerns about costs and a reduction in testing. It was decided that several planned sessions would be cancelled in order to reduce costs. Lotti then informed the teams that, because of the reduction in the number of test sessions, they would receive start money to further ease pressure on their budgets.

Another decision taken at the meeting was to postpone the Media Day planned for March 6th. Lotti suggested the postponement because the event clashes with Press Day at the Geneva Motor Show and so a number of car brands would be unable to attend the UK launch. A number of teams then expressed a wish that the Media Day be postponed as they were still finalising cars, drivers or sponsors and so would welcome the extra time this would allow. The event at Silverstone on March 6th will still go ahead, but it will now be a test day for TCR UK and its support series.

Marcello Lotti commented: “The UK, Italy and Germany are the three countries with the strongest Touring Car DNA and so I am confident that TCR UK will become the latest TCR success story. I enjoyed meeting the teams and discussing with them how they would like to proceed with certain aspects of the championship; the debate over testing was a great example of how we can work together with the teams to reduce their budgets.”