Following the World Motor Sport Council meeting in December in Paris, the 2020 WTCR – FIA World Touring Car Cup calendar has been approved. The revised schedule isn’t; however, the only novelty the world’s premier touring car racing series will see in 2020.

New races, new excitement

The 2020 calendar features visits to two new venues – Spanish track MotorLand Aragón and South Korea’s Inje Speedium.

04-05 April Morocco Marrakesh 25-26 April Hungary Hungaroring 22-23 May Germany Nürburgring Nordschleife 06-07 June Slovakia Slovakiaring 20-21 June Portugal Vila Real 04-05 July Spain Motorland Aragon 05-06 September China Ningbo 17-18 October South Korea Inje Speedium 21-22 November Macau Macau 13 December Malaysia Sepang

The Spanish venue will host the WTCR – FIA World Touring Car Cup not once but twice in 2020. As well as staging the inaugural WTCR Race of Spain, the circuit located in the land of Aragón will be the setting of the official pre-season test from 24-26 March.

The test, previously held the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, is traditionally the first point of the year when the bulk of the major contenders are on track at the same time. Its proximity to the opening event in Morocco provides an opportunity for teams to complete their final preparations for the upcoming campaign.

Compensation weight calculations based on qualifying lap times only

Once the 2020 season is underway, race lap times will no longer be considered for the compensation weight calculations, meaning only qualifying lap times will count. Furthermore, the calculations will be made without the effect of the ballast being taken into consideration. Instead, a correction to the lap times will be applied, according to the ballast carried in the previous events.

The changes to the Sporting Regulations have been made to discourage teams – in tandem with customer racing brand engineers – from instructing drivers to effectively set slower race lap times to help limit the amount of additional weight added to their cars for the subsequent race weekend. The intended result is better racing as drivers will push on each lap to try to gain position, rather than driving with a compensation weight strategy in mind. The compensation weight calculations will be more accurate, fluctuate less and be close to the actual performance of each car in reality.

Rookie classification to showcase new talent

Drivers 23 and under on 1 January 2020 who have participated in no more than three WTCR events will be included in the new rookie classification, which has been introduced to recognise the achievements of young racers in WTCR.