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WTCC gets ready for kick off

- The 2013 FIA World Touring Car Championship will get underway tomorrow on the Monza racetrack.
- The twenty-four competitors will hit the track for the first confrontation of the season at 9.00 for the first 30-minute practice session. - A second practice will follow at 11.45.
- Qualifying will start at 15.00, with live TV coverage on Eurosport 2.

WTCC LAUNCH AT THE FIAT INDUSTRIAL VILLAGE
The 2013 FIA World Touring Car Championship was officially launched last Wednesday at Turin's Fiat Industrial Village.
All drivers attended to meet the press representatives and fans. They posed for pictures alongside the racing cars, were available for interviews and signed autographs.

WTCC General Manager Marcello Lotti commented: "Our priority for 2013, that is a transition year before the evolution of the technical regulations in 2014, was to secure a field up to the level of an FIA World Championship in terms of both quantity and quality. And good enough to maintain a media product that is attractive for the Manufacturers. We have achieved that goal, with an entry list of 24 competitors for the full season and the opening event at Monza. I believe we should consider ourselves satisfied and I wish to thank our partners and teams for showing a strong affection to the championship by doing huge efforts to finalize their racing programmes in spite of the financial crisis."

IVECO TO PROVIDE WTCC LEADING TRUCK
On Wednesday during a press conference at Turin's Fiat Industrial Village, Iveco and New Holland Agriculture announced they have joined forces with the FIA to act as official suppliers for the FIA Action for Road Safety campaign.

Iveco and New Holland Agriculture are the first manufacturers of commercial vehicles and agricultural machineries to support the FIA's global campaign that promotes awareness and education of a safer driving behaviour in order to save lives on the roads.
The two brands of Fiat Industrial will begin their supplier activity with a presence at the events of the FIA WTCC, where a specially equipped Iveco Stralis Hi-Way, winner of the 2013 Truck of the Year award, will become the first Leading Truck on a racing circuit.
Mauro Veglia, Head of Commercial Services and Customer Care, EMEA Fiat Industrial explained: "Demonstrating an increasing attention to safety, Iveco and New Holland Agriculture have chosen to support the FIA Action for Road Safety campaign. We are proud to be the first manufacturers of commercial vehicles and agricultural equipment to support this important campaign."

Naoise King, FIA Action for Road Safety Manager said: "The campaign's ambitious goal is saving five million lives on the roads of the world. And to reach this goal we need support. We are delighted to welcome Iveco and New Holland Agriculture as official suppliers and we thank the promoter and drivers of the WTCC for their continuous support."

WTCC General Manager Marcello Lotti commented: "We are delighted and very proud that Iveco and New Holland Agriculture and the FIA have decided to promote their alliance through the WTCC platform."

FOR HAVEN'S SAKE
Eurosport commentator and touring car expert Martin Haven's column.

Monza preview - A new dawn

The 2013 FIA World Touring Car Championship kicks off with its now traditional first event, at the gorgeous Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Italy's cathedral of speed. Easter chill - and the possibility of snow - aside, the high-speed circuit in the historic Royal Park should serve to give us our first indicators as to who the Championship front-runners might be.

There can't be many who doubt that three-times World Champion Yvan Muller will be the expected pace-setter. With the same car that has won the past three World Championship titles (a change to the 1.6 turbo engines two years ago hardly broke Chevrolet's stride) and the same team of engineers backing him up, the Frenchman surely has the most complete package at his disposal.

Chevrolet may have departed as a Manufacturer but the car is unlikely to have got much slower over the winter and you can bet that Yvan's fire burns as bright as ever.

Reigning World Champion Rob Huff, meanwhile, has a number of new challenges. He did his deal for 2013 while Yvan was still wondering whether he might be driving at all, joining another World Champion team. Not a touring car champion team, however but the FIA GT1 World Champions, ALL-IINKL.COM Münnich Motorsport, Rob lining up alongside team owner René Münnich and GT1 World Champion Marc Basseng - who is also the team manager!

The deal marks Huffy's return to his roots, as he won the British SEAT Cupra title a decade ago, launching his touring car career. With support from SEAT Sport, and the team's undoubted engineering and racing pedigree, they will soon get on top of this new discipline but he already knows that the León is not quite a match for the Cruze.

The third World Champion in the field and doubtless the home favourite - for pole at the very least - is Gabriele Tarquini. His SEAT overalls have been consigned to the attic (which must have quite the wide-ranging collection of racesuits in it by now) as he suits up for Honda for the first time.

Sorry. Did I say first time? First time in the WTCC, of course, as he already has five seasons under his belt driving Hondas in the Super Touring era, in German, British and European Championships, posting no less than 15 race wins for the Japanese Manufacturer, more than his total score for SEAT and half his Alfa Romeo tally, though those 30 wins were spread across eight seasons, in Super Touring 155 and ETCC/WTCC 156. He has yet to win a championship for Honda, though. Think he's motivated? Me too!

With a heavily-revised Civic, in response to Tiago Monteiro's input during the three final race weekends of last season, the JAS-run squad is aiming to challenge for the title in their first season. No five-year-plan for these guys, their ambition is clear - the want to mix it at the very front from Day 1.

Throw in privately-run BMW, Chevy and SEAT cars, new teams and drivers, a host of winter seat changes and the return of LADA as a full factory effort (with engines courtesy of ORECA, who also produce SEAT's impressive 1.6 turbo power unit) plus the imponderables of weather and tyre wear at the ultra-high-speed Monza circuit and we have a mouth-watering weekend in the offing.

Who's going to win, you say? Well, I'd have thought that was clear! Muller, obviously. Or Huff. Tarquini, perhaps, or Monteiro... or a bamboo Chevy... a BMW... maybe a SEAT... I suppose - as ever - there's only one way to find out.
See you on Eurosport for the start of Race 1...

WTCC FACEBOOK FANS ON THE INCREASE
The number of fans who follow the WTCC on Facebook is significantly increasing, as the championship's official page has recently reached the 50,000 mark.

This equates to a 213% increase compared to last year, when the facebook page attracted 16,000 fans. During 2012, the WTCC facebook page recorded 105,580 likes, 10,649 shares and 4,319 comments. The number of views between 1 January 2012 and 31 January 2013 have exceeded 16 million.

According to the statistics distributed by Zone Rouge, 91% of the fans are male, and those aged between 18 and 24 represent the largest segment (29.4%) followed by those aged between 24 and 32 (28.6%).

ETCC - KRENEK MOTORSPORT DRIVERS TOP TEST
Today's two one-hour test sessions ahead of the weekend's pair of FIA European Touring Car Cup races saw the honours shared by Krenek Motorsport team-mates.

Petr Fulín's BMW 320si was fastest in the first session with a best lap time of 2:02.492 while Michal Matějovský in another BMW (2:03.784) set the quickest time in the second.

Competitors in the ten-race 2013 ETCC series are split into three classes: Super 2000, Super 1600 and the Single-Make Trophy.While the fastest times in both sessions were set by drivers of S2000 cars, one of the SMT SEAT León cars was second quickest in Session 1, driven by Andreas Pfister (2:04.325). It was then the turn of Aurélien Comte (2:04.883) to head the Single-Make Trophy runners in Session 2, finishing the session seventh overall behind five BMW cars and Peter Rikli's Honda Civic.
In Super 1600, the Ford Fiesta of reigning champion Kevin Krammes (2:19.561) was quickest in Session 1, with Aleksander Ivanchenko (2:21.884) topping the class timesheet in Session 2 in a similar car.

In all, 15 cars are entered in S2000 this weekend, with 9 S1600s and 11 SEAT León Supercópa cars in the Single-Make Trophy. Qualifying starts at 16.00 CET on Saturday, while Race 1 is at 12.45 on Sunday and Race 2 starts at 13.50.

THREE LADIES FIGHT FOR FIA EUROPEAN TROPHY
Three competitors have entered in the new FIA Ladies' European Trophy that will be awarded within the 2013 FIA European Touring Car Cup.

Ulrike Krafft, 29 from Germany is the veteran of the trio, facing her third ETCC season. She is at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta 16V run by the Ravenol Team SAN and competing in the Super 1600 class, in which Ulrike was classified second in 2011 and third last year.

Also taking part in the S1600 with a Ford Fiesta ST is M-Sport's Ksenya Niks. Married with two children and a lawyer in the Kharkov regional bar, Niks began her racing career only last year, when she classified 6th in the Ukrainian Touring Car Championship.
The third entrant, Andrina Gugger from Switzerland, will turn 22 in one month but she has already built a solid experience from karting (since she was 11) to the German GT Championship. Gugger drives a Rikli Motorsport Honda Civic in the Super 2000 class.
The FIA Ladies' European Trophy, supported by the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission, aims for creating a valid platform for giving female drivers the opportunity to compete at an international level for an FIA title.

Ulrike Krafft: "I'm looking forward to the Ladies' Cup very much because last year I was on my own as a woman in the ETCC and this year there are three, maybe four of us - we will see. It's important to support women as we tend to start competing later than men and it's great that the FIA is supporting women in all forms of motorsport. I was second fastest of the S1600s in testing at Monza and so I'm hoping for a good result this weekend."

Andrina Gugger: "I have to say that I welcome the FIA initiative to support women in motorsport. It's important for women to understand that they can compete on equal terms with men in the sport and I really hope the initiative will get that message across. I always like competing at Monza, but I only did about twenty laps in the test session and this is my first time in a front-wheel drive car, so I'm a little cautious about predicting how the races will be for me."

Ksenya Niks: "I think what the FIA is doing for women in motorsport is very important; until now, there hasn't really been any promotion of women in the sport and I really welcome it. I am only in my second year of competition, so I am still learning, but I think the programme will encourage other women to take up the sport. Here in Monza, I don't really know how I will get on as I didn't complete the practice session but I hope I can learn a lot this weekend."