WTCC delighted with 21-car entry

Despite BMW's withdrawal leaving Chevrolet as the only fully-fledged manufacturer entrant in this year's WTCC and teams having to switch to the new 1.6-litre turbo engines, the championship will start 2011 with a slightly larger entry than it attracted for the 2010 opener, when 19 cars took the start in Brazil.

Chevrolet has hung on to its works line-up of Yvan Muller, Rob Huff and Alain Menu, and will also run Brazilian driver Carlos Bueno in his home event at Curitiba at least.

Independent SEAT team SUNRED will again field six cars, led by Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro, with second-year drivers Fredy Barth and Michel Nykjaer joined by newcomers Pepe Oriola and Aleksei Dudukalo.

BMW is still preparing cars for independent teams, and will be represented by WTCC returnee ROAL with ex-SEAT driver Tom Coronel, plus SEAT convert Zengo-Dension and its Macau race-winner Norbert Michelisz, Engstler, KK Motorsport, Wiechers-Sport and Proteam - the latter now with former GP2 frontrunner Javier Villa among its three-car line-up.

Volvo is joining the series full-time with a Polestar-run C30 for Robert Dahlgren, and the bamboo team is also fielding a pair of Chevrolets again.

"We are satisfied because we retain a solid 21-car grid in spite of the recession that keeps on affecting motorsport activities worldwide," said Lotti.

"This makes us trustful in the near future, especially when we look at the first full-season participation of Polestar Racing with a Volvo car.

"It is also very rewarding to see that all the represented manufacturers are investing in the new 1.6-litre turbo engine. And this will enable all the teams to switch to the new engines sometime during this season."

Twelve of the cars on the entry list will use the new 1.6-litre turbos at the start of the year, with the rest changing over from the old-style turbodiesels and normally aspirated power units through the course of the championship.

This week's AUTOSPORT magazine (available in digital form here) revealed that a Subaru WTCC entry is possible as early as next year, and Lotti said that he already had commitments from 20 of this season's entrants to stay on for 2012.

"I want to say that we have signed two-year agreements with most of the teams, which provides already a solid basis of 20 cars again for 2012; a minimum guaranteed that we are trying to enhance further through the negotiations currently ongoing with other manufacturers," he said.

The 2011 WTCC season commences at Curitiba in Brazil on 19-20 March.

2011 WTCC entry list:

No. Driver               Entrant                   Car
1   Yvan Muller          Chevrolet                 Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
2   Rob Huff             Chevrolet                 Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
3   Gabriele Tarquini    Lukoil - SUNRED           SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI
4   Aleksei Dudukalo     Lukoil - SUNRED           SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI
5   Norbert Michelisz    Zengo-Dension Team        BMW 320 TC
6   Carlos Bueno*        Chevrolet                 Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
7   Fredy Barth          SEAT Swiss SUNRED         SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI
8   Alain Menu           Chevrolet                 Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T
9   Darryl O'Young       bamboo-engineering        Chevrolet Lacetti
10  Yukinori Taniguchi   bamboo-engineering        Chevrolet Lacetti
11  Kristian Poulsen     Liqui Moly Team Engstler  BMW 320 TC
12  Franz Engstler       Liqui Moly Team Engstler  BMW 320 TC
14  Marchy Lee Ying Kin  Deteam KK Motorsport      BMW 320 TC
15  Tom Coronel          ROAL Motorsport           BMW 320 TC
17  Michel Nykjaer       SUNRED                    SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI
18  Tiago Monteiro       SUNRED                    SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI
20  Javier Villa         Proteam Racing            BMW 320 TC
21  Fabio Fabiani        Proteam Racing            BMW 320si
25  Mehdi Bennani        Proteam Racing            BMW 320 TC
30  Robert Dahlgren      Polestar Volvo            Volvo C30
35  Urs Sonderegger      Wiechers-Sport            BMW 320 TC
74  Pepe Oriola          SUNRED                    SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI

* Not full season