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Thursday, 21 September 2006 |
Reigning FIA World Touring Car Champion, Andy Priaulx, will have a hard fight in Turkey this weekend if he is to protect his nine-point advantage whilst carrying maximum success ballast*.
The 32-year-old has already proved he can do it, coming away from the last round in Brno with his highest points score despite carrying 60kg, but Priaulx thinks the extra 20kg his Czech Republic success earned him will tip the balance.
“The 80-kilo ballast makes my car feel like driving a single-seater
with the front wing broken,” said Priaulx, who has so far won four
races this season for BMW. “I’m not sure that I’ll be able to keep my
championship lead after the Istanbul races. Unless I have a really good
qualifying, it will be very difficult to reach the top eight.”
Conversely, second-place James Thompson lost the championship lead in
Brno after an abysmal weekend saw him leave the circuit with no points
and will now carry less ballast in Istanbul. He is hoping the advantage
will help him come back at countryman, Priaulx.
“I had a successful weekend in Istanbul last year and I really enjoyed
the atmosphere there, so I’m looking forward to going back,” said the
SEAT driver, who comes from Harrogate. “A bit like Brno, it’s not a
flat circuit at all so technically it shouldn’t be as good for us as
somewhere like Valencia, but a lot of people said Monza wouldn’t be
good for us and look what happened there.”
Newmarket’s Rob Huff is looking to extend his run of success after scoring his maiden WTCC win at Brno for Chevrolet.
“It’s a great feeling, although I don’t think it has fully sunk in
yet,” said the 26-year-old. “I did the Britcar 24 Hours last weekend,
and people I had never seen before came up to congratulate me.
“As for Istanbul, I think we can go there feeling pretty comfortable.
It’s a fast, flowing circuit like Brno with similar characteristics and
the ballast weight still plays to our advantage, so I don’t see why we
can’t score some points again. It won’t be easy, but it isn’t
impossible.”
Istanbul hosts the fifteenth and sixteenth races of the twenty that
make up the WTCC. Both races will be shown live on Eurosport on
September 24th: Race 1 at 14h45 and Race 2 at 15h45 CET.
FIA WTCC Drivers’ Championship (top 6):
| Pos. |
Driver |
Team |
Points |
| 1 |
Andy Priaulx |
BMW |
58 |
| 2 |
James Thompson |
SEAT |
49 |
| 3 |
Augusto Farfus Jr |
Alfa Romeo |
46 |
| 4 |
Jörg Müller |
BMW |
45 |
| 5 |
Yvan Muller |
SEAT |
45 |
| 6 |
Dirk Müller |
SEAT |
44 |
FIA WTCC Manufacturers’ Championship:
| Pos. |
Team |
Points |
| 1 |
BMW |
170 |
| 2 |
SEAT |
169 |
| 3 |
Alfa Romeo |
117 |
| 4 |
Chevrolet |
87 |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 December 2006 )
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