Why the new electric tin-top series deserves to be taken seriously

By:

Marcus Simmons

Jun 17, 2021, 8:41 AM

The new Pure ETCR series will get underway at Vallelunga this weekend featuring great looking cars, top drivers and real tracks. Its format is wacky, but it exists in an era when its petrol-fuelled brethren are all artificially contrived, and has the potential to move the tin-top game on

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“We all believe in the project,” enthuses latter-day tin-top superstar and early-season 2021 World Touring Car Cup points leader Jean-Karl Vernay. “Marcello Lotti and Eurosport are putting a lot of effort into it to make it big. We just have to show what this car is able to do, that it’s fun to watch, and we need other manufacturers. That’s clear – we can’t stay at three.

“We need to do a good job on track to make it fun, and other manufacturers will arrive, and if we are at five or six then it’s going to be pretty cool. The world is changing, and motorsport has to change also.”

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Marcus Simmons

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Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.

Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.