Well of course it’s better to watch races live. And the phrase “life is racing, everything else is just waiting” is good for those fans who are totally obsessed with motorsports. But, in truth, even the most celebrated pilots live life to the full beyond racing tracks, have families, friends, hobbies and enjoy all possibilities provided by their well-paid and much-loved job.
I’m not talking about Russian sportsmen now as they don’t usually live off racing but race for the money they earn somewhere else instead. But there are lucky ones here as well.
Take, for instance, Tom Coronel. He is almost a motorsports veteran, a white-haired man whose career in world touring lasts for a long time already and who never gives in over trifles. Before the first round of the new WTCC season he gave the following totally honest answer to the question “are you looking for adrenaline and victory”: “No, all I need is money and booze!” Who wanted to say something about “waiting for racing”?
Well, he actually got what he wanted, except for the booze. In the very first lap of the second race, which had reverse starting order, making all the fastest and nimbler pilots become last on the grid, Tom Coronel was smashed by the local star Mehdi Bennani, hit the concrete barriers of the city track twice also taking out the harmless Yvan Muller on his way.
Actually, “sex” has begun after a practice accident when Tarquini and Morbidelli could not share the track. News was bad for Gabriele Tarquini, whose Honda Civic's shell was damaged beyond repairs. The team is now working on building the new bodyshell trying to be in time before the next WTCC round next week-end. Citroën, which is back to the WTCC this year, dominated in qualifying giving away only third position to Tom Chilton behind the wheel of Chevrolet Cruze. After that the first race of the week-end went rather smooth without any incidents. Audience and fans even started to complain about the degradation of world touring like it is happening to Formula 1. But then everything has changed. The second race proved that WTCC was still going strong. Just 14 laps on the track with numerous highlights enough to discuss for several hours. You just had to see that fantastic struggle of Bennani and Chilton! Two pilots were constantly overtaking each other in the course of the last lap and crossed the finish line with the gap of... 0.026 seconds! The Englishman won. Anyway, Bennani was later disqualified from the race for being underweight.
But Citroën and Lada were definitely the major heroes of this racing week-end.
It took Citroën a lot of time to re-enter the World Touring Car Championship. The factory team announced about its return two years ago but it all seemed rather vague at that time. However, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) gave it a serious thought and was doing its best to encourage their compatriots.
Citroën started building new cars and FIA got down to working out new technical regulations. And bingo! All stars aligned — the new regulations fitted the new Citroën C-Elisée race cars just perfectly. Meanwhile, other teams ended up in smoke when they got acquainted with the new technical regulations closer to the end of the 2013 season. Well, nobody promised it would be honest. The new participant needed some encouragement and FIA provided it.
And now, when watching the competitions, hearts start bleeding every time when the new C-Elisée cars make a nice and easy breakaway from their competitors when entering the high-speed straight sections. Being the most up-to-date among others, Chevrolet Cruze cars manage to offer at least some resistance to Citroën. All the rest have a lot of work to do in order to bring their cars to necessary shape.
Take Lada for instance... Best result was demonstrated by the red team during the practice sessions held on Friday when their new pilot Rob Huff from Great Britain managed to score sixth. For a variety of external reasons the team could not achieve similar results, though the young Russian pilot Mikhail Kozlovsky managed to move up into fifth position in the overall standings during the second race of the week-end. But unfortunately, that happened not because of great characteristics of the car or skills of the pilot but due to the chosen tactics of careful and attentive driving. A lot of pilots retired, dropped out or were disqualified helping our team take a good position and score valuable points.
I don’t want to say the situation is that bad. Mikhail has definitely done a great job and was fighting to the last ditch after Thompson and Huff had to retire. But there is a great deal of work ahead and LADA Sport LUKOIL Team Principal Victor Shapovalov is not even expecting any stable high results as the cars are still crude, pilots have to practice more, and there are still a lot of things to be done...
However, the new red Lada Sport TC1 cars are really sexy. Meaning they definitely have some sex appeal with their new wider chassis, new body kits, wider arches and spoilers. And that also looks aggressive and stylish. Honda got totally lost against them. Chevrolet and BMW don’t stand out of the crowd either, so for me personally, from my Russian point of view, the entire race got divided into mean grey Citroën cars and red aggressive Lada cars. I wish we could give them more power and stability, strength and durability together with luck, and that would have been just great. But meanwhile Lada is getting repaired, built, tested, and ready for the new rounds and especially for the one which will be held on June 7–8 when the WTCC comes to the Moscow Raceway.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the season has begun and it will bring you a lot of racing and... sex.
