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From press release

CTCC and DBA USA are pleased to announce their partnership for the 2014 season. The partnership will provide DBA with the opportunity to promote their brand and expand their reach in the Canadian market.

Disc Brakes Australia (DBA) is an Australian owned manufacturer, designer and global marketer of after-market and OE disc brake rotors.

DBA is proud to have supported CTCC driver Damon Sharpe during his successful drive to two consecutive Touring Class championships in 2012 and 2013. This season will see DBA expand their support to all Touring Class drivers.

Photo: Blanchet Motorsports

At each event, DBA will reward one of the Touring Class drivers that finish the feature race of the event with a pair of DBA rotors.

“We are looking forward to partnering with CTCC,” stated Yoni Kellman of DBA USA LLC. “It will give DBA an opportunity to showcase its product with some of the top drivers in Canada.”

“DBA is a perfect fit for CTCC,” commented John Bondar, President of CTCC. “Their products will help to enhance competition in our already extremely competitive Touring Class which will help to showcase the quality of their products.”

A revamped World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) is kicking off this weekend in Marrakech, with new cars and drivers like Citroën and Sébastien Loeb.

Sébastien Loeb, Citroën C-Elysée (Photo: WTCC)

We crunched some numbers for you ahead of this new season.

2 - Number of categories racing on track. TC1 is for the new-spec cars, while TC2 is for smaller teams running previous generation models.

3 - Number of former F1 drivers on the grid: Gabriele Tarquini (Honda), Tiago Monteiro (Honda) and Gianni Morbidelli (Chevrolet).

4 - Number of world champions on the grid: Yvan Muller (4), Rob Huff, (1), Gabriele Tarquini (1) and of course... Sébastien Loeb (9), who comes from the WRC.

Yvan Muller, Rob Huff, Sébastien Loeb, Gabriele Tarquini (Photo: WTCC)

6 - Number of manufacturers represented: Citroën, Honda, Lada and Chevrolet, plus old generation BMW and Seat.

12 - Number of countries the WTCC will visit starting this weekend Morocco. After that it's France, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Russia, Belgium, Argentina, United States, China, Japan and Macao.

15 - Number of nationalities amongst the drivers: we have Frenchman, Chinese, Italian, Argentinian, Portuguese, British, Dutch, Hungarian, Moroccan, Serbian, German, Russian, Czech, Spanish and Japanese... but no Canadians!

37 - Number of victories to Yvan Muller's name. That's a series' record by the way.

Enjoy the season!

From press release

While their father and brothers are winning races throughout Quebec and the United States, brothers Nick and Karl Wittmer are upholding the family honour with their accomplishments in the Canadian Touring Car Championship (CTCC).



Over his CTCC career, soon-to-be 29 year-old Nick has earned a pair of Super class championships with back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010, and followed up that success by claiming the B-Spec crown in 2012. Handing control of the Ste-Rose Honda Fit to his younger brother for 2013, Karl then proceeded to score seven race victories in eight starts, reclaiming the B-Spec trophy for the Wittmer clan.



And the Montreal-based siblings are not yet through with their championship quests.
Last year, Nick struggled with teething problems aboard his #91 Honda Accord Super class ride, but worked through and corrected the issues that plagued his 2013 campaign.



Photo: John R. Walker

“Last year was a development season with a brand-new product. I don't think there are any other Accords racing in North America,” explains Nick. “The biggest problem was an oiling issue that cost us a bunch of motors. We added an oil cooler and changed the (oil) pan after Trois Rivieres, and the car ran like a charm to the end of the year.”



With his motor problems hopefully behind him, Nick has spent the off-season working on the handling setup for the Ste-Rose/ Conseils FIER Accord and is feeling confident heading into the new year.

“We were jumping up and down with a seventh in last year's championship, it was our own personal victory,” recalls Nick. “But this year, our goal is the title. I've got two in Super class, I want to make it three.”



With his own car sitting on the showroom floor and ready for battle, Nick is now turning his attention to completing a new four-door, Civic Si that Karl will take into the Touring class wars.

“This car, and this class, will be a whole new ball game for me. I'm not used to competing at much higher speeds on those big tracks,” admits Karl. He continues, “I've done two seasons in Quebec Regionals in the SPC (Super Production Challenge) series, so I have a bit of experience in the bigger cars. But adapting to the speed is still going to be a huge challenge.”

Karl's newest racing endeavour will also offer the Hudson, QC driver an opportunity to get ‘hands-on' in the development process of a new car. “I'm hungry, I want to learn every little detail and how to develop a car that's fresh from scratch,” states the just-turned 23 year-old.

“On track, if I can learn a little bit every time out by watching and following the other drivers, I think we are looking at some solid podium finishes this year.”

From GMM

Dr Helmut Marko on Friday rubbished speculation suggesting Red Bull could quit formula one.

Obviously upset with the sport's revolutionary 2014 rules, team owner Dietrich Mateschitz recently hinted that his commitment to the sport has "a clear limit".

The wilder rumour is that Red Bull could switch to another racing category, perhaps with Cosworth engines.

"This is utter nonsense and unfounded," Marko, who is Mateschitz's motor racing right-hand man, told Germany's Auto Bild.

Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull RB10 (Photo: WRi2)

"As is Red Bull's philosophy, if you are in the top league, in this case motor sport, you do not go down a class. It doesn't make sense," he insisted.

Marko said any criticism of the 2014 rules is because Red Bull is alert to "negative trends".

"We have to watch and do everything to ensure that formula one keeps its reputation," he added.

Marko also rejected rumours the currently Renault-powered Red Bull is lobbying to be supplied industry-leading Mercedes engines.

"It would of course spoil it for them, if they (Mercedes) were to lose to us," he said. "They have built their factory team to win, so we do not expect Mercedes to supply us with engines."

He also played down reports Red Bull could design its own turbo V6.

"Basically, our main expertise is the chassis. So developing an engine would only be an option if we had no other alternative," Marko added.

A document created by supplier Delphi Automotive in May 2006 and released Friday by a congressional committee confirms that a General Motors engineer, Ray DeGiorgio, agreed to a redesign of the now-recalled ignition switch without changing the part...

A change in the way it measures currency in Venezuela will cause Fiat Chrysler Automobile's Chrysler Group LLC unit to take a $130 million charge in its first quarter, Chrysler said today in a filing with federal regulators.

Most General Motors dealers continue to wait as parts that were expected to arrive this week to repair faulty ignitions on millions of recalled small cars only trickle in. The wait is disruptive to business, some dealers said today.

A congressional committee said today there were "failures within the system" over the handling of flawed ignition switches in General Motors vehicles, which have been linked to 13 deaths.

Chevrolet is dropping the top on the Corvette Z06 for 2015 and the convertible is being billed as the Stingray for owners who want it all.

The co-owner of a California luxury-car dealership pleaded guilty in federal court to making illegal political campaign donations in the name of a foreign national, according to court documents.

The 2003 Saturn Ion was supposed to be a pivotal car for GM. Instead, it came to represent the compromises and corner cutting that almost destroyed GM and now find the company in a global recall of some of its most popular models.

More than 80 percent of consumers in the United States, Australia and Britain believe connected-vehicle technology will make driving safer, a new survey by the University of Michigan finds.

Christian Von Koenigsegg and Drive are back with another installment of and#8220;Inside Koenigsegg.and#8221; Episode 3 focuses on the One:1's active rear wing.

The Canadian province of Ontario plans to sell its remaining shares of General Motors Co. in the next year as part of a review of its state-owned assets.

Melvin Betancourt, design manager for Ford Motor, speaks before the 2015 Transit Skyliner concept van is unveiled at Galpin Auto Sports in California on Thursday.

This is the new 2015 Corvette Z06 convertible, the Stingray for owners who want it all, shown a little earlier than we expected. Buyers get the

In a day when every automaker seems to be eager to latch on to the smallest details -- a few pounds of weight shaved here and there, some silly feature designed to keep you and your family protected in an accident, a flashier infotainment setup --...

Toyota is recalling certain RAV4, Yaris,

BMW is recalling 489,000 vehicles worldwide due to a possible engine-bolt defect, widening a repair program that was initiated in China.

Federal safety regulators said today they have closed an investigation into complaints of reduced power in Ford F-150 pickup trucks, stopping short of requesting a recall. The probe covered about 360,000 trucks.