More than a decade ago, the Great Wall Haval competed in the Dakar Rally, Weilai formed a Fe Formula E team after its establishment in 2014, and Lynk & Co officially joined the wtcr race this year, which attracted great attention. Chinese automakers have ventured into some international auto events, which at least shows that our auto industry has begun to enter a relatively mature stage.
Such as F1, WRC, MotoGP, Dakar Rally, and even the emerging Formula E races in recent years may be relatively familiar to everyone. And wtcr may be because of the Lynk & Co competition, it has gradually entered the vision of Chinese car fans, what is the origin of the unknown wtcr?
More importantly, when the Lynk & Co team won the race, the Chinese national anthem was not played on the podium. Can't the Lynk & Co team represent China?
In this article, Che Rujun will be divided into two parts to elaborate: the first part will briefly introduce the wtcr event, and the second part is to analyze whether Lynk & Co is representing China's strength in world-class automotive events.
WTCR – Motorhome World Cup
The full name of wtcr is world touring car cup, that is, the meaning of the caravan World Cup, its predecessor is wtcc, the full name of wtcc is world touring car championship, in fact, the abbreviations of both are "wtcc", but the "championship" championship is replaced by a "cup" cup.
WTCC due to years of poor management, manufacturers have withdrawn, finally can not stand up. Due to the high cost of participation, and can not play the desired publicity effect of car manufacturers, resulting in major manufacturers to decide, what to do? Since the 2018 season, WTCR has replaced WTCC, and some lessons have been learned from WTCC, merging WTCC with TCR.
The 2018 and 2019 wtcr events follow the rules of tcr racing, and its biggest feature is that manufacturers are prohibited from participating in the name of the factory team, and manufacturers like Lynk & Co who need to participate can only build the car first and sell it to the private teams participating.
Lynk & Co, for example, works with Cyan Racing, a Swedish company. This is the direct reason why after Lynk & Co won the championship, the podium played the Swedish national anthem instead of the Chinese national anthem.
Of course, there's more gossip, and we'll talk about it later.
After the prohibition of the manufacturer's team, the participation budget can be well controlled.
Because the tcr racing car has a relatively clear cost, usually around 750,000 to 1 million yuan. The vehicle also needs to pass the FIA certification, meet the tcr specifications to participate, use an engine between 1.75l and 2.0l, the maximum horsepower is limited to 350 horses, and is a front-drive vehicle, and the suspension geometry needs to be the same as the corresponding model for mass production. And the manufacturer can only play a technical support function in the race, of course, the manufacturer is not unable to contribute to the team, buy and sell, you and I want to do it.
There are 13 teams on the WTCR field, each with two cars, or a total of 26 cars. Each car can only have a maximum of 4 cars on the field, which means that only two teams can use the same car. What if I want to take 4 cars with me? It's like cyan with Lynk & Co, divided into two teams, one called cyan performance lynk & co team, the other called cyan racing lynk & co team, the clear-eyed people know that they are one.
What is the format of the wtcr? Is it hard to understand?
WTCR's race weekend schedule is different from the familiar F1, F1 has only one final result in a weekend, but WTCR has three rounds of regular racing, and the top 15 drivers can earn points, and the top 5 drivers can also get points.
However, like F1, the WTCR also takes 3 days on the weekend, with two practice sessions on Friday and the first qualifying session on Saturday morning, which determines the starting sequence of the first round on Saturday afternoon. Sunday's schedule is very full, the second qualifying round in the morning, the second qualifying is also divided into three stages, the top 12 in the first stage can enter the second stage, and the top 5 in the second stage can enter the third stage. The second qualifying session determines the starting position of the second and third rounds.
However, the second round of the main race adopts the form of the top ten reverse order, which is also to increase the excitement of the race and increase the possibility of overtaking. Of course, the drivers at the top of qualifying don't have to shout unfairness, because the last round of the main round is to start in the order of the second qualifying. The schedule of individual races differs from the standard model, such as the Neuf nord circuit in Germany.
Also, to further increase the intensity of the race, the WTCR, like other motorhome races, also has a bop performance balance mechanism. The race will increase or decrease the counterweight of the car according to the performance of each team's car, as well as the balance of performance such as driving height and engine output. So you will see that the same team will have a very different performance in different sub-stations, for example, Lynk & Co, which won a very eye-catching result in the first stop of the season in Morocco, was basically a companion role in the next two races, until the Netherlands in the fourth leg, it was back on the top podium.
What are the cars currently competing in WTCR racing?
Since the concept of the TCR came out, many automakers around the world have built their TCR racing cars. The main models active in the WTCR are the following models: the Honda Civic Type-R, Volkswagen Golf GTI, Seatleon Cupra R, Audi RS 3 LMS, Hyundai i30 NCR, Lynk & Co 03 TCR and Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR. With the exception of Alfa Romeo, who had only two cars to compete, all other models were four cars.
In addition to these cars that are active on the WTCR field, there are many other regional series of TCR, and we have Chinese mainland, so there are some manufacturers that have also built TCR cars. For example, our SAIC MG, as well as BAIC Senova, foreign manufacturers such as Subaru, Ford, Peugeot and other manufacturers also have TCR specifications of racing.
You want to know the nationality of the team
As mentioned earlier, the 26 cars on the WTCR field belong to 13 teams, and it is an interesting question about the nationality of the team.
Using Audi is not necessarily a German team, using Honda is not a Japanese team, and using Hyundai is not a Korean team. Because, your circle is really messy.
The two teams that use modern racing are a group, they are both Italian teams. The two teams using Honda Racing are from Hong Kong and Germany. The two teams racing with Seat are Belgium and Sweden. The two teams that use the Volkswagen Golf are also in the same group, the French team. The team racing with The Alfa Romeo car is the Italian team.
Okay, so what about Lynk & Co?
The CYAN RACING team that cooperated with Lynk & Co is actually Volvo's "good friend", and in the previous WTCC era, Cyan Racing also built a very strong car based on the Volvo S60, strong enough to dominate WTCC. You see, the color of Lynk & Co's car is exactly the same as the color of the previous Volvo car, which is also the representative color of Cyan Racing.
Cyan Racing is a Swedish team, so if Lynk & Co is the first to cross the finish line, it will be the Swedish national anthem playing on the podium.
This is actually not controversial, as long as you know that wtcr is a tournament that is not allowed to participate in the name of manufacturers.
The Lynk & Co team has almost no Chinese faces, can it represent China?
First of all, it should be clear that there is a lot of transnational cooperation in the automotive industry today.
For example, there are many Chinese independent brand manufacturers who have invited foreign designers and engineers to create new cars, and you can't always say that the BYD Tang designed by Wolfgang Egger is not a Chinese car, right? Moreover, this German designer has also worked for Lamborghini, and because Lamborghini currently belongs to the Volkswagen Group brand, especially cars like urus, and Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche all share platform technology, then Lamborghini counts as a German car or an Italian car?
In the same way, Lynk & Co is a full-fledged Chinese brand (of course, the official saying is the world brand of Geely and Volvo, but we all agree that it is also a Chinese brand facing the world), and their cars can represent the power of the Chinese automotive industry when they go to the international stage to compete. And because the wtcr's racing specifications are closer to the state of the original production car than other caravan events, it is not the kind of car led by NASCAR in the United States, which simply puts the shell of the production car on a frame that has nothing to do with the production car, from this point of view, it also proves that the Lynk & Co 03 car has a very good foundation.
As for the drivers, there are no Chinese drivers in the two teams of Cyan at present, but in the 26 cars of the WTCR, there is a Chinese driver, that is, Ma Qinghua. Ma Qinghua currently plays for Team Mulsanne racing using Alfa Romeo racing. The Chinese national anthem was played for the first time on the wtcr, precisely because the young Chinese driver won the championship in the second leg of the Slovakia leg.
I think most of my friends are looking forward to Lynk & Co signing Ma Qinghua next year or the year after, and having a Chinese driver drive a Chinese car on tracks around the world.
But this is probably just a beautiful idea.
You can look back at F1 from 2010 to 2012. In those three years of f1, there were two all-native driver combinations, mclaren from the United Kingdom had two British drivers, and the Mercedes team from Germany had two German drivers, which sounded a bit of a national team. Even so, there may be some non-local engineers or management personnel inside the fleet. Later, British driver Hamilton moved to Mercedes, opening his second round of winning the championship, indicating that the driver and the team need to have commensurate strength and good tacit understanding to play at the best level.
At present, Cyan's driver lineup is quite strong, which also shows that these excellent drivers have taken a fancy to the potential of Lynk & Co racing, and being able to sign a good driver is the embodiment of the team and the strength of the car.
Of course, the flag is important, and we all hope that when the Lynk & Co car is the first to cross the line, the "Volunteer March" can be played on the podium, because wtcr is probably one of the easiest places to achieve (the other is the wec endurance race). We rarely find Chinese elements in the field of racing, let alone a racing manufacturer capable of winning the championship. Because of this, Chinese car fans hope that the five-star red flag can appear on the podium, and this national sentiment is actually completely understandable.
But the game is a game after all, and the game has rules. At least, Lynk & Co's first year of racing has achieved quite good results, and after more than halfway through the year, the Cyan Racing team is in third place in the table, behind one of the teams that use Honda racing and one of the hyundai teams. On the driver side, Cyan Racing's Swedish driver Björk is also third in the standings. For a new car, the performance of the Lynk & Co 03 tcr is already outstanding, and it also shows the power of Chinese cars on a world-class stage.
Getting involved in international competitions is a stepping stone to the world
For Chinese cars, there has always been a lot of controversy, and the eyes of foreigners are constantly changing. The cottage cars everywhere in those years were really a joke, but in recent years, many new cars of independent brands have made a qualitative leap. Getting involved in international-level auto events is conducive to enhancing the image of Chinese cars and letting the world's car fans know what level Chinese cars are now.
In particular, the wtcr participated in the Lynk & Co 03 is the most important competition among many races that can reflect the strength of the original production car. Keep moving towards that reachable goal, Lynk & Co!
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