Category | Touring cars |
---|---|
Country | Sweden, Norway |
Inaugural season | 1996 |
Folded | 2010 |
Last Drivers' champion | Richard Göransson |
Last Makes' champion | Volvo |
Last Teams' champion | Polestar Racing |
Official website | stcc.se |
Swedish Touring Car Championship (STCC) was a touring car racing series based in Sweden, but also with rounds in Norway. They began operating in 1996, heavily influenced by the British Touring Car Championship and the success of BTCC racing on Swedish television. There are also a number of support classes that compete with their races alongside STCC; Radical, the Camaro Cup, Superkart, Pro Superbike, the JTCC and the Porsche Carrera Cup Scandinavia. The final STCC season was in 2010, as the series merged with the Danish Touringcar Championship to form the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship. [1]
In 2023, STCC planned to re-introduce itself as an all-electric category, transforming the series for a new generation of racing. [2] Utilizing multiple manufacturers, the series was set to debut on a street circuit in Helsingborg. The championship and all planned races were then delayed to 2024 [3] when production of the vehicles could not be completed on time. Demo laps were held at Mantorp Park in September, followed by an official test day [4] for the top three championship drivers of NXT Gen Cup. The series is now slated to begin in 2024.
The cars are built according to the Super 2000 rules used in the FIA WTCC. A national counterpart, N2000, also exists to encourage teams to build their own cars without having to have them homologated by FIA. So far Audi, Volvo, Opel, and Mercedes have constructed their own cars.
Points System (as of 2006)
Position | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Points | 10 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Qualifying & Race
Every racing weekend consist of the following:
STCC was first aired in 1997 on SVT, featured in the program called "Race" along with the British Touring Car Championship. BTCC was dropped by SVT at the end of the 1999 season and was replaced by CART, while STCC stayed. When BTCC, which had been the main focus of Race, was dropped, STCC was upgraded to be the series which the program had its focus on. Previously when BTCC and STCC clashed, the STCC races were shown in-between the two BTCC races. This was changed for the 2000 season, and now CART was shown in-between the two STCC races. In 2002 VEIDEC Trophy, a motorcycle class that raced on the STCC-weekends, replaced CART on the program. All Race programs were either 30 or 45 minutes in length, depending on if one or two series were featured.
In 2003 STCC coverage moved from SVT to TV4. The program was now shown on TV4 Plus, a channel which not everyone had access to (at the time only SVT1, SVT2 and TV4 was available to all viewers for free). TV4 only kept STCC for a year, selling it to TV3. The races appeared again in a highlights format on TV3 during 2004, but in 2005 the coverage was extended to include several hours of live coverage from each race weekend on the TV3-owned sports channel Viasat Sport.
In 2006 STCC returned to SVT and Race, again being available to all viewers, but coverage was cut down to only a 30-minute highlight program. Nowadays the competition is broadcast by another TV3-owned channel, Viasat Motor.
The cars competing in the STCC are (as of 2010): Alfa Romeo, BMW, Chevrolet, Honda, Opel, Peugeot, Seat, Volkswagen and Volvo.
The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by TOCA. It was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and was renamed as the British Touring Car Championship for the 1987 season. The championship, currently running Next Generation Touring Car regulations, has been run to various national and international regulations over the years including FIA Group 2, FIA Group 5, FIA Group 1, FIA Group A, FIA Super Touring and FIA Super 2000. A lower-key Group N class for production cars ran from 2000 until 2003.
Mattias Andersson is a Swedish race car driver and Eurosport commentator, who currently resides in Linköping, Sweden. He started his career in Scandinavian Formula Opel in 1991 and continued in Scandinavia until 1996, when he joined the Barber Dodge Pro Series. He moved to Indy Lights in 1998, where he drove a select few races, before moving on to the Swedish Touring Car Championship in a works Opel Vectra. In 2003, he drove a BMW 320i in the STCC for WestCoast Racing, before moving to Team Italienska Bil in an Alfa Romeo 156 in 2004. Since 2006, he has driven that car for his own team, MA:GP.
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