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Cycling inspires World Touring Car Championship to bring in team time trial format (+ video)

Manufacturers Against the Clock competition will count towards manufacturers' championship...

Motor racing series the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) has turned to cycling for an innovation for next year’s competition – it’s introducing a team time trial.

Called MAC3 – the initials stand for Manufacturers Against the Clock, with each nominating three vehicles – the format is inspired by the team time trial that features in races such as the Giro d’Italia, Vuelta and Tour de France.

The three vehicles will start alongside each other for two or three laps of the circuit at each round, with the time the third crosses the line determining the time, and points counting towards the manufacturers’ championship.

WTCC promoter Francois Ribeiro told Autosport that the initiative is aimed at making the world manufacturers’ championship more prominent.

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"If you put the manufacturers in a room and ask them which world title they want most, the manufacturers' title or the drivers' title, all of them immediately will say the manufacturers’,” he explained.

"It's a kind of paradox, because you see the drivers' title is always the most exposed on media.

"For a while I have been looking for an idea, how to better promote the manufacturers' title, give it more value, so that it becomes a bit more than just the addition of the two best individual results of the drivers.

"I was watching a cycling race in May and I saw the team time trial and that reminded me of the pictures of WTCC qualifying a few years ago when there was no Q1, Q2, Q3.

"When the SEATs and then the Chevrolets were truly qualifying together to bring not only the first car but also the third or fourth car as quick as possible on the flying lap.

"I remember that it was beautiful on TV. I said to myself, 'why don't we import that team trial concept from cycling into motorsport?'"

Autosport says that teams will be able to fit new tyres and fuel vehicles before the MAC3 laps, which will happen 10 minutes after qualifying sessions.

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Ribeiro says that the manufacturers have quickly bought into the concept.

"Some of them knew about cycling and team time trials, so it was easy for them to understand.

“Some of them were not very familiar, so we showed them some simulations, how it would look on screen and how the TV format would look, and they understood it would be very interesting to follow the dynamic within each team.”

He added that drivers would have to put their racing instincts to one side and co-operate with one another.

"In qualifying, the first thing a driver wants is to beat his team-mate, and exactly 10 minutes after, he will have to exactly the opposite exercise and drive together for their brand and their employer,” he said.

"The drivers will have to drive together, help each other, slipstream each other. If one of them is making a mistake, and this happens very often in Q3, then it will penalise the entire team."

Citroën currently holds the manufacturers’ championship, having won it in each of the past three seasons. Honda won it in 2013, following a three-year winning streak by Chevrolet.

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The initiative is subject to ratification by the World Motor Sports Council of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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2 comments

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Gkam84 | 8 years ago
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Eliminations already exist in motorsport.

I want to see every track add a cycle lane where cars are not allowed to drive on during a race...

Avatar
cub | 8 years ago
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If motorsport wants to take a concept from cycling what about an elimination race? Every race the last driver across the line gets eliminated.

Or in qualifying they could space out the cars and the slowest each lap gets eliminated.

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