The battle to be crowned the 2011 FIA World Touring Car Championship Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy winner is all set up for a five way battle around the streets of Macau.
Macau traditionally sees double points awarded in the Yokohama Independents’ and the current point’s leader is Kristian Poulsen in the Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW 320TC.
His advantage over his nearest rival, fellow BMW 320TC runner, Norbert Michelisz, is twenty three points with a maximum of forty three points to race for, twenty points per Independent class win, Point for Pole Position and a point for the fastest lap in each race.
With the double points available, Michel Nykjaer (SUNRED), Franz Engstler (Liqui Moly Team Engstler) and Javier Villa (Proteam Racing) are all in contention – albeit each with a slim mathematical chance, Villa is thirty five points behind Poulsen.
All of the top five contenders have all finished on the outright podium during the season – Engstler has secured an outright race win, during his and BMW’s home race at Oschersleben.
Poulsen is the favourite to secure the Independents crown at Macau – but with the Guia circuit being a matter of luck, anyone could end up on top.
Poulsen has the advantage in terms of victories as well – he has six Yokohama Independent Victories compared to the four of Michelisz and Engstler, three of Nykjaer and one of Villa.
For Poulsen, he just has to follow home Michelisz in both races to secure the title – while the others have to hope that misfortune befalls Poulsen in one of the two races.
Michelisz has special memories of the circuit though – he secured his first and only WTCC victory at Macau last year, which enabled him to secure the rookie challenge title – he is also the only driver to have taken a Macau victory in a SEAT.
The Independents field is bolstered by five local drivers, all competing for Jay-Ten honours.
There is a brace of BMW 320si entered – one for Joseph Rosa-Merszei from Liqui Moly Team Engstler while RPM Racing Team enters a single entry for Mak Ka Lok. Chevrolet also feature in the category as Corsa Motorsport enter two cars for Filipe C. De Souza and Kuok lo Keong while Peugeot return to the WTCC for the first time since 2006 as Lo Ka Chun races a former STCC 308 for 778 Auto Sport.
Fabio Fabiani secured the Jay-Ten trophy last time out at Shanghai, and sits out the Macau weekend while bamboo engineering have confirmed that Yukinori Taniguchi will be absent from the grid after the team were unable to repair his Chevrolet Cruze after his Tianma off.
Colin Turkington has also been replaced by renowned Canadian Touring Car Championship driver Gary Kwok in the Wiechers-Sport car. Kwok has previous experience of the Macau Guia circuit but not in a BMW 320TC.