FIA WTCC AND ENVIRONMENT

FIA WTCC AND ENVIRONMENT

Nowadays motor sport is more and more sensitive to the environmental protection. And among motor sport's international categories, the FIA World Touring Car Championship is probably the most enviromental friendly of them all.

Not only the Super 2000 racing car that take part in the WTCC are closely derived by modern production cars, but also the championship's technical and sporting regulations have been carefully studied to limit the environmental impact in terms of air and noise pollution.

Key points of FIA WTCC environmental care:

1 Catalytic converter: all cars must be equipped with homologated catalytic converters, which filter all the exhaust gases at any time

2 Unleaded fuel: all cars may only use the unleaded fuel supplied by the manufacturer appointed by the championship's promoter

3 Noise control: the exhausts of all cars must respect the sound level of 110dB at 6000 rpm, at any time

4 Technical check: during all the events the FIA technical delegates carry out frequent and strict measurements to check that all cars comply with these regulations

5 Alternative fuels / diesel: specific technical regulations have been issued to allow cars powered by low-polluting turbo diesel engines to take part in the championships

6 Alternative fuels / bio-ethanol: eligibility will be soon extended to Super 2000 cars powered by bio-ethanol; such cars are already racing in national Touring Car Championships and Volvo is evaluating the possibility to join FIA WTCC in the future with their bio-ethanol S60 cars

7 Event format: the format of the FIA WTCC events provides limited track time – three 30-minute practice/qualifying sessions and two 50-km races over two days – in order to limit both the running costs and the environmental impact.