The WTCC cars will start their weekend (12th and 13th April 2014) with half an hour of free practice that just ended earlier today, Friday at 1.30 p.m. Two further practice sessions will be held tomorrow on Saturday, at 9 a.m. and 11.15 a.m., to help the teams prepare for qualifying at 3 p.m. Like in Formula 1, the crucial qualifying runs will take place in three stages.
After an initial 20-minute session, Q1, the 12 fastest drivers will proceed to Q2. They will then have just 10 minutes to get themselves into the top 5 and win a place in Q3. In this last run, each driver has just one flying lap to try and clock the best time. The drivers who take part in Q3 receive 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points towards their World Championship tally.
On the Sunday, race 1 (14 laps) will get underway at 4.20 p.m. The teams will then have just 15 minutes’ ‘repair time’ to prepare and/or repair their cars before the second race, which starts at 5.25 p.m., with the top ten qualifiers lining up in reverse order on the grid. Points are awarded to the top ten drivers in each race, as per the usual FIA scale.
