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TV and costs prompted WTCC to drop Macau for Qatar in 2015

The World Touring Car Championship replaced its blue-riband event in Macau with a night race in Qatar to obtain a more favourable timeslot for television, says series chief Francois Ribeiro

The WTCC played a supporting role to Macau's headline Formula 3 grand prix, and as such was placed in a Sunday morning slot.

"Having the opportunity to do a night race is something unique for our championship, and it gives us a much better TV slot for the final round," Ribeiro told AUTOSPORT.

"When you're in Macau, the slot we were given was 11am on Sunday - that's 5am in the UK.

"Who's watching TV at five o'clock in the morning? Who? Not many.

"Now we will finish the championship in an evening slot in Asia, an early afternoon slot in Europe, and a morning slot in South America. That's much better.

"We spent 10 wonderful years with Macau and I'm not saying we'll never go back. It was not an easy decision, because it's not easy to walk away from Macau, but it's a decision we took together with the teams and manufacturers."

It is believed that the WTCC's place on the Macau bill will be taken by the new TCR series run by former WTCC boss Marcello Lotti. TCR's calendar currently features a 'TBA' event on November 22, the same weekend as the Macau GP.

TIGHT WINTER TURNAROUND

Ribeiro highlighted cost savings as another benefit of the WTCC's move to Qatar, along with the earlier return of team equipment after the event.

Several privateers took delivery of their 2015 cars very late owing to the lack of off-season development time.

"When you have a big accident in a place like Macau, and it's a place where big accidents are more likely, it's very difficult to get insurance," he said.

"I was worried for the privateers - if you're in a big crash you could have a bill for €1million, which would put a smaller team in difficulties over the winter.

"When you spend one euro on sea freight, you have to spend three or four times as much for the same distance by air. That's the gap.

"And the teams will get their equipment back much earlier - we'll gain two or three weeks, which means the teams have more time over the winter to work on their cars, to test and develop. That was a big request from the teams: to have more time over the winter.

"We're flying the cars to Argentina at the last minute this year because the teams were desperate to have more test and development time, and to homologate new spares."

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