Thed Bjork and Volvo are in town.

The Chinese internet police are doing their best to stop me writing my blog again so I am having to use the internet connection on my mobile phone. It is not cheap for me but at least you can see what the WTCC teams are doing in China.

Thed Bjork,s Volvo at the airport, Shanghai.

Yokohama are the tyre supplier and one of the main sponsors for the WTCC but for some unknown reason they have not been allocated a garage and have not been allowed to erect a tent in the paddock, behind the WTCC team garages. It is almost a 200 metre walk for the tyre men from RML to come and fit their tyres. The CTCC race is also being held and the tyre supplier for them is Kumho tyres. They have been given a garage next to all of the CTCC teams. The Chinese obviously give first priority to their local championships. We also have the Maserati Trofeo race and their tyre supplier is Pirelli and they are set up right next to the Maserati tent structure.A very poor arrangement must be surely be changed for next year.  Each WTCC tyre and rim weighs approximately 16kg. And each tyre trolley can carry 8 tyres. So each tyre man, from each team, is having to push 128kg of tyres, plus the weight of the tyre trolley, almost 150-200 metres to the tyre fitting tent. It is a lot of hard work for these guys and I feel very sorry for them.

A view across the Shanghai circuit 30/10/2013

Honda assemble a tyre trolley.

I am trying to get to China.

The bad weather has delayed my plane to China and I am sat at the airport....waiting and waiting and waiting.
More bad news has reached us concerning the containers that were stuck in South Africa. They definitely were not going to make it to Shanghai but now, they might not even be available for us in Macau. I will know more when I finally get to China and speak to the men who are responsible for the freight.
We shall see how many teams end up with carpet on the garage floor in Macau.
AND LETS HOPE THAT IT DOES NOT RAIN.

WTCC in South Africa ?

Missing containers !!

Some teams decided to send some of their equipment by sea freight, from Argentina to China. Things like garage flooring, spare wheel rims and anything else that was maybe not 100% essential for the races in USA and Japan. This also helped the teams save money by not having to send everything by air freight as they moved from Argentina, to the USA and then onto Japan.
Unfortunately, it seems that the shipping company decided to take the containers off the ship in Durban, South Africa and now there are problems with customs clearance and delivery times. It looks like we will not see these few containers until the last race in Macau.

Not many rims damaged in Suzuka.

The WTCC teams are very good at making the most of a bad situation and we are all trying to make sure that even if some things are missing, we will still be able to race effectively. The biggest problem will be the teams who do not have enough wheel rims. Luckily, Sonoma and Suzuka are tracks where we do not damage alot of wheel rims. But Shanghai may give us dry and wet weather which means that the Yokohama tyre boys could be very busy as the teams struggle to decide on wet tyres or slicks. Talking off Yokohama, their tyre fitting equipment is in one of the missing containers but plans are in place to find replacement equipment in China. There are a couple of teams who were looking to run an extra car in Shanghai and they will be the teams who really might be compromised. Spare body panels and car parts that were in these containers should not be needed as long as accident damage is kept to a minimum in Shanghai.
The last minute decision to hold a race in Argentina may still cause problems for the teams. Let,s hope it doesn,t.

I know that the tyre testing for the 18inch wheels is complete, sizes and compounds have been decided but some teams are still in the process of designing and building their new cars. The new year is going to be very busy for all the teams who will be in the WTCC next year as the race cars are taken to the test tracks, and then back to the factories. Plans to convert the world championship winning Chevrolet's to an 18inch wheel mean that approximately 20% of this car can be used. It is almost as time consuming as designing a whole new car. Another consideration, which could be very expensive, is the size of the tyre warmer blankets. The width is okay but the diameter of the old blankets could be up to 100mm too small so the engineers are not going to be happy to have a possible "cold spot" on the tyre. With a new set of tyre blankets and a control box costing 3000 euros, this will cost the teams money.
I was looking at the options for new WTCC cars and I have to draw your attention to this design for a possible entry from Subaru. I think this looks very good but it would be even better if it was reality.

Shanghai will be a good chance for me to see some old Truckie friends from Polestar Volvo. I haven't seen them since Macau in 2011. I hope that they have a better race weekend and no crashes.

Polestar Volvo team members in Macau 2011

This year, Macau celebrates its Diamond jubilee. It celebrates 60 years of racing, crashes, and high speed entertainment and the list of old touring car drivers who will be racing in the Scirocco R China Masters Challenge is fantastic. The paddock is surely to packed with autograph hunters as some of these guys get back inside a race car.
http://www.macau.grandprix.gov.mo/gp/60/racer/index.php?lang=en&content=103&race=16





And I will finish with this little bit of information. Monza have finally finished all of the road works near the circuit after 6 years. The traffic situation was terrible when this was being done.
So this definitely means WTCC won't be going there next year. : (