Season summary
The 1998 season started months before into the court between the 2 promoters Salerno Corse (the historical promoter of the serie since 1987) and Sponsor Service who was supported by the 3 manufactures (Alfa, Audi, BMW). After a long discussion after the championship were already started, it was declared that Sponsor Service were the new promoter for the next 3 years.
The first change of Sponsor Service was to pass from the smaller TMC channel to Italian state channel RAI TV. The idea of the new promoter (and manufactures too) was that if the races were on RAI Channel before the start of f1, there would have been better results in term of audience.
So after the first two rounds (Binetto and Imola) without any tv coverage, RAI transmitted live race 1 of Round 3 and 4 in Monza and Varano before that the promoter was stopped again by court. Round 5, 6 and 7 in Vallelunga, Magione and Pergusa were again without any tv coverage before that the final decision from court that assigned definitively the Sponsor Service as new promotors of Italian Superturismo. Due to Rai needs for the last 3 rounds of the season it was also decided to move race 1 on Saturday going live before the f1 qualifying while there would have been a summery on Sunday night about race 2.
Although in terms of audience there was a promising result, the tv coverage in 1998 was a complete disaster compared to the previous years. The most penalised were the private drivers that never as in this year made a big effort to buy competitive cars.
In 1998 it was also decided to copy from STW, adopting a new qualifying system and a new race format. The Super Pole used until 1997 with one single lap for top ten driver was replaced by 30 minutes of qualifying session. The race format changed from 2 races of 75km into 1 sprint race of 50km and 1 mini endurance race of 100km.
Fabrizio Giovanardi after 5 years where he came always close to the title, finally won the championship, driving the new and immediately competitive Alfa Romeo 156; the Italian manufacturer won also the constructors' championship, while the rookie Fabian Peroni took the privateers' trophy driving an ex official Audi A4 Quattro.
The fight for the Championship was balanced between Giovanardi and Naspetti until round 6 in Magione where the 2 contenders were divided by just 1 point, but in the final part of the Giovanardi scored 6 victories in a row (Pergusa, Misano, Monza) that allowed him to become the new champion before of last round in Vallelunga.
Nicola Larini made his debut in Italian Supertouring after leaving the series at the of 1992 but due to his limited knowledge of the FWD he was not able to fight for the title although he helped his team mate against BMW and he won the challenge against De Simone for the third place in the final Standing.
Rinaldo Capello remained as the only driver for Audi. He drove for the first time the Audi A4 fwd but the car was not at all competitive due to high tyre degradation specially in the endurance race, with a worse aerodynamic package compared to Alfa and a worse engine power compared to BMW. On the fast tracks Audi A4 never had the same performance of Alfa 156, in the slow tracks Audi was always slower the BMW, Alfa and sometimes also of the ex official Audi A4 Quattro. Only in the last 2 round of the season with the new engine Capello was able to show a promising performance. Unfortunately Audi left officially the Supertouring (in BTCC, STW and Italy) at the end of the season to focus on Le Mans Program.
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