2024 Argentine Touring Cars

[TuteZaek]

The TC will race the first "Copa de Oro" race this weekend at the Rosendo Hernandez track at San Luis, with a load of engine ruleset changes and 3 new cars.

Santero (Ford Mustang-LCA Racing) starts as the leader of the mini-tournament with 23 points, with 2022 and 2023 champions Urcera (Ford Mustang-Moriatis Competicion) and Werner (Ford Mustang-Fadel Memo Corse), Esteban Gini (Toyota Camry-Maquin Parts Racing) and Valentin Aguirre (Chevrolet Camaro-Canning Motorsport) chasing behind with 8 points each product of their respective wins in the regular season.
Something to note, Aguirre's engine was found to have some irregularities in its cylinder head and as a penalty will have to start from last place in the series he is asigned to race acording to his qualy. His engine builder Giustozzi was also charged with a 1,5 millon pesos fine.
There isn't, at the moments, details about what was specifically the irregularity on Aguirres head.

Now, onto the new cars:

Otto Fritzler will debut its Dodge Challenger, and the Pradecom team learned how to design good liveries, it took 3 tries (Ledesma's Camaro Debut, Ledesma's first part of the year, and Ledesma's Buenos Aires)



Lautaro de la Iglesia will drive the other debuting Challenger, with his traditional nice and simple livery with Argentina's flag colors that looks really good on the car



One thing to note about those two, they're on the new Challenger spec mandated by the ACTC (that forced some delays in the Challenger armada, with 2 more cars coming in the next races, Vazquez and Castellao) while Trucco afaik is still on the Bs. As. winning spec car, so it will be interesting.


Finally Matias Jalaf will be debuting his Mustang built on the base of his old Falcon, also, another nice livery.



In terms of cars, another curiosity is that there is a single Falcon in the paddock as of now in the hands of Spataro, and a single Chevy, driven by Bonelli with the sunset now being closer for the old gen cars.
(That said, Ponce could do a race or two more with the Falcon before starting his Mustang, and Dose wants to be the last one racing a Chevy)
Torinos are already gone i think, but Abella could race again this year with only the Dodge GTXs remaining in numbers and with only Chapur (Already confirmed) and Carinelli (this one, not confirmed) to end the year in theirs.

[TuteZaek]

Now on the rule changes:
The Challenger had a lot of changes mandated, mainly to restore it's appeareance to be more close to the street car, Di Meglio (the Challenger prototype builder) wasn't too happy, but nonetheless he completed De la Iglesia's one, and will change Trucco's winning car to comply on the next races (There is kinda a grace period because the changes were kinda sudden, thats why Castellano's and Vazquez didn't debut theirs at this race)

To offset the posible loss on speed, they're given more displacement, and will be the most powerfull TC car in the paddock.

New engine regs (old values in brackets)

Dodge Challenger: 3.500 cc (3.260 cc, 290cc increase) 8900 rpm max

Dodge GTX: 3.460 cc (3.260 cc, 200 cc increase) 8900 rpm max

Toyota Camry: 3.500 cc (3.310 cc 190 cc increase) 8900 rpm max

Torino (Both Models) 3.460 cc (3.310 cc, 150 cc increase) 8900 rpm max

Ford (Both models) 3.400 cc (3.260 cc, 140 cc increase) 8800 rpm max

Chevrolet: 3.460 cc (3.260 cc, 200 cc increase) 8700 rpm max for the Camaro, 8900 for the Chevy

All of this with a 10,5:1 compression ratio for all engines and models.

The expected increase on power is 36hp for the Challenger, 28hp for the GTX and Chevrolets, 24hp for the Camry and 20hp for the Torino and Fords
The Torino teams, specially Trotta/ACRA are kinda baffled from this having the smallest update together with the Mustang, but while the Ford has been the dominant car in the season, the Torino's only victory came after last lap eliminations and technical revisions after the race, and in fact, there is no Torino on the "Copa"

With all the changes this year, we're way over the 500hp mark, and afaik, dancing in the 550's range.
There is also talk of going FI for next year (even before the new blocks for 2026)

[Adamcas87]

Updates on TC2000 Future?

I see a deal been agreed but will that be a new series with ACTC

[Andrew Abbott]

Originally Posted by Adamcas87

Updates on TC2000 Future?

I see a deal been agreed but will that be a new series with ACTC

Where have you seen that?

[NaBUru38]

The ACTC-run "Turismo Carretera 2000" (or whaterver name they choose) is official.

https://campeones.com.ar/mazzacane-r...vo-campeonato/

Meanwhile Tango Sport has threatened with an intellectual property lawsuit for some spec car parts.

https://www.carburando.com/notas/tc2...ntos-elementos

[NaBUru38]

After the Turismo Carretera race, Esteban Gini filed a complaint for technical infringements of some rivals.

Ardusso was excluded for an illegal air intake.

José Manuel Urcera was excluded because his car wasn't sent to the technical inspectors at all (!).


Mind that Ardusso's team owner is Roberto Valle, who is leading the exodus of TC2000 teams to the ACTC. And Urcera's team owner is Emanuel Moriatis, president of the Turismo Nacional organization (APAT), which switched from the CDA to ACTC sanctioning this year.

https://campeones.com.ar/tc-en-san-l...o-por-tecnica/

Worst of all, an ACTC executive said about the exclusions: "This is not pretty, but since there was a complaint, regrettably... obviously we had to do it".

https://www.carburando.com/notas/tc-...a-la-categoria

[TuteZaek]

The week i'm stuffed with work and can't even think about races are the most "interesting" ones.

TC: What a mess, and Gini even continued attacking Fritzler (Who's Challenger actually passed the revision with no problems) on instagram, this is gonna be weird, specially with Urcera's case (The engine was being dissasembled, they did the revision in public, for everyone to see, but they suddenly said..."no, we're not continuing"... really strange)

TC2000: and another chapter of the telenovela is up... we need a sudden pregnancy and a long lost identical twin and we get a bingo.
Jokes aside, the Levy's (Tango) doesn't seem like people that compromise in anything, they're losing everything and they're not changing anything and they don't look open to dialogue... another weird thing.
The ACTC2000 (or whatever is called) seems an interesting first step, specially if, as rumors say, Chevrolet is coming back as a works team with Canapino as a driver.

[NaBUru38]

The Turismo Pista (not to be confused with TC Pista, TC Pista Mouras or Turismo Nacional) competes this weekend at Buenos Aires, with a two-driver, two-race format.

Guest drivers include Agustin Canapino, Norberto Fontana, Mariano Werner, Jonatan Castellano, Diego Ciantini, Ricardo Risatti, Martin Basso, Facundo Chapur, Jorge Barrio, Germán Todino, Otto Fritzler, Andrés Jakos, Rafael Morgenstern and Patricio di Palma. Curiously, not all of them will enter the main class.

Meanwhile, the Toyota TC2000 team will have Pechito López and Sacha Fenestraz as guest drivers at Buenos Aires 200 km, partnering with Rossi and Ciarrocchi respectively.

[TuteZaek]

For the next TC race at Parana Werner will change the livery of his Mustang, replacing the white parts with silver parts.
And more importanly, he will change the gearbox and go from the Saenz TT3 to the recently authorized Sadev SCL924, which he tested at La Plata

[TuteZaek]

Oh, and about the San Luis drama: Urcera got fined 10 millon argentine pesos, and his qualy times will be removed for the race at Parana (so he will start last in his series)
Same for the other 3, but with a 5 millon fine instead.

[NaBUru38]

Turismo Carretera - Gold Cup standings after round 12 Paraná:

1. Julián Santero (Ford), 114 pts
2. Diego Ciantini (Chevrolet), 80.5
3. Mariano Werner (Ford), 75.5
4. Santiago Mangoni (Chevrolet), 73.5
5. Mauricio Lambiris (Ford), 69
6. Valentin Aguirre (Chevrolet), 68.5
7. Germán Todino (Ford), 52
8. Marcos Landa (Torino), 48
9. Juan José Ebarlin (Chevrolet), 48
10. Nicolás Trosset (Foord), 44
11. José Manuel Urcera (Ford), 41
12. Ricardo Risatti (Chevrolet), 39
13. Esteban Gini (Toyota), 24
14. Marcos Quijada (Chevrolet), 14.5
15. Juan de Benedictis (Ford), 12.5

Round 13 is on October 20 at San Nicolás.

[NaBUru38]

TC2000 - Buenos Airs 200 km

1. Damián Fineschi / Agustin Canapino (Chevrolet), 55 laps, 1:18'20.0
2. Matias Rossi / Jose Maria Lopez (Toyota), + 5.0 s
3. Leonel Pernia / Nicolás Moscardini (Renault), + 7.0 s
4. Tiago Pernia / Exequiel Bastidas (Renault)
5. Marcelo Ciarrocchi / Sacha Fenestraz (Toyota)
6. Franco Vivian / Diego Ciantini (Honda)
7. Matias Capurro / Marcos Landa (Renault)
8. Figgo Bessone / Facundo Marques (Renault)
9. Facundo Aldrighetti / Marcos Siebert (Renault)
10. Ignacio Mendez / Antonino Garcia (Chevrolet)

TC2000 - standings after round 9 Buenos Aires:

1. Leonel Pernia (Renault), 272
2. Matias Rossi (Toyota), 182
3. Tiago Pernia (Renault), 181
4. Damián Fineschi (Chevrolet), 176
5. Franco Vivian (Honda), 14
6. Marcelo Ciarrocchi (Toyota), 154
7. Facundo Aldrighetti (Renault), 143
8. Bernardo Llaver (Honda), 136
9. Matias Capurro (Renault), 119
10. Figgo Bessone (Renault), 80

Round 10 is on November 3 at a track to be confirmed...

[NaBUru38]

Turismo Nacional - Class 3 standings after round 10 El Villicum:

1. Leonel Pernia (Ford), 213
2. Jorge Barrio (Chevrolet), 197
3. Alfonso Domenech (Ford / Volkswagen), 183
4. Joel Gassmann (Chevrolet), 181.1
5. Jerónimo Teti (Chevrolet), 174.5
6. Facundo Chapur (Ford), 170.5
7. Manuel Urcera (Ford), 167.5
8. Germán Todino (Toyota), 167
9. Andrés Jakos (Toyota), 164
10. Fabián Yannantuoni (Fiat), 160

Round 11 is on November 17 at Concordia.

[NaBUru38]

Meanwhile in Turismo Nacional Class 2, there was another massive crash where dozens of drivers would refuse to lift the throttle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uc0RcvmtWI

[NaBUru38]

TC Pick Up - round 9 El Villicum:

1. Mariano Werner (Toyota), 30'38.5
2. Hernán Palazzo (Toyota), + 1.1 s
3. Valentin Aguirre (Chevrolet)
4. Germán Todino (Toyota)
5. Tobias Martinez (Chevrolet)

TC Pick Up - playoffs standings after round 9 El Villicum:

1. Juan Pablo Gianini (Ford), 100
2. Gastón Mazzacane (Volkswagen), 80
3. Valentin Aguirre (Chevrolet), 77.5
4. Mariano Werner (Toyota), 71
5. Rodrigo Lugón (Ford), 65
6. Germán Todino (Toyota), 64.5
7. Matias Rodriguez (Toyota), 62
8. Javier Jack (Ford), 53.5
9. Tomás Abdala (Ford), 53
10. Andrés Jakos (Toyota), 51.5

Round 10 is on November 3 at Alta Gracia.

[Andrew Abbott]

Why do so many racing cars in Argentina look like they crashed into a sticker factory...?

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by Andrew Abbott

Why do so many racing cars in Argentina look like they crashed into a sticker factory...?

I assume it brings money.

[NaBUru38]

Yes, the Turismo Carretera and Turismo Nacional do not enforce livery aesthetics. I'm pretty sure that the TC2000 and Top Race do.

[Andrew Abbott]

Originally Posted by FIRE

I assume it brings money.

Well, yes (!), but sponsors bring money throughout global motorsport. It seems more often that in Argentina (or South America), there's little attempt to design coordinating liveries or colour schemes.

I wondered if this was also noticed at a local scale.

[NaBUru38]

I just checked the Turismo Pista, and there's a few nice liveries and several really ugly liveries.

Here in Uruguay the AUVO cars are rarely as pretty but even more rarely as ugly.

[uesugi kenshin]

Without YPF there would be hardly any stickers at all in TC2000 !

[FIRE]

Somehow I like these wild liveries.

[NaBUru38]

Turismo Carretera - round 13 San Nicolás:

1. Mariano Werner (Ford)
2. Agustin Canapino (Chevrolet), + 13.5 (!)
3. Germán Todino (Ford)
4. Jonatan Castellano (Dodge)
5. Valentin Aguirre (Chevrolet)
6. Marcelo Agrelo (Toyota)

Turismo Carretera - Gold Cup standings after round 13 San Nicolás:

1. Julián Santero (Ford), 127 pts
2. Mariano Werner (Ford), 120.5
3. Santiago Mangoni (Chevrolet), 103
4. Valentin Aguirre (Chevrolet), 101.5
5. Mauricio Lambiris (Ford), 100
6. Germán Todino (Ford), 90
7. Diego Ciantini (Chevrolet), 83.5
8. Jonatan Castellano (Dodge), 63
9. José Manuel Urcera (Ford), 59.5
10. Marcos Landa (Torino), 54.5
11. Juan José Ebarlin (Chevrolet), 54
12. Ricardo Risatti (Chevrolet), 54
13. Marcos Quijada (Chevrolet), 36
14. Esteban Gini (Toyota), 29.5
15. Juan de Benedictis (Ford), 18

Round 14 is on November 10 at La Pampa.

- o -

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Round 10 is on November 3 at a track to be confirmed...

The TC2000 moved their round 10 to November 10 at Termas de Rio Hondo to join TCR South America. It clashes with the TC...

Originally Posted by FIRE

Somehow I like these wild liveries.

Oh no, you are suffering from exoticism!