2008 Race of Champions Preview

Sunday Dec 16

The Race of Champions will see the brand new Wembley Stadium in London, UK transformed into a parallel tarmac racetrack. The RoC needs about 60 people and five days to erect the track, and another 3 days to take it all down again, the track will be 1 kilometer long and allow for speeds upto 150 kmh. 1,800 tonnes of asphalt, 2,200 tonnes of underlay and a 100-tonne cross-over bridge will make the track on which 8 teams of two drivers each will battle it out in one-on-one heats. Wembley can hold 80,000 race fans and is expected to sell out.

This year will mark the 20th episode of the Race of Champions which was founded by Fredrik Johnsson and Michele Mouton in 1988. Michael Schumacher will take another shot at winning after his 2004 debut at RoC saying: “I thought it was a marvellous event, especially for the spectators who really seemed to enjoy themselves and cheered us all up. But it was also extremely funny for us drivers, who got to know each other a bit better, competing for fun. So I have only good memories on this last event I was participating.”

The drivers will race in intense head-to-head challenges in identical cars, this year the cars are:

ROC Car, a 170 bhp 1100cc RWD buggy weighing just 475 kg
Ford Focus WRC, this years winning WRC team supplies their 300 bhp 4WD rally car
Aston Martin Vantage N24, the 410 bhp RWD endurance race car on its home turf
Solution F rally car with 3.5 liter engine producing 310 bhp and weighing just 950 kg
Fiat Grande Punto S2000 Abarth, 270 bhp 4WD rally car with 2 liter engine

The teams are mainly from Europe, but the Europeans don't always take home the honours. In the past Jeff Gordon (NASCAR) and Felipe Massa have won the Race of Champions. This year the eight teams are:

Team England: Jenson Button F1, Andy Priaulx WTCC
Team F1 Scotland: David Coulthard F1, Alister McRae WRC
Team Germany: Michael Schumacher F1, Sebastian Vettel F1
Team USA: Jimmie Johnson NASCAR, Travis Pastrana motocross/Rally
Team France: Sebastien Bourdais F1, Yvan Muller WTCC
Team Scandinavia: Tom Kristensen DTM, Mattias Ekstrom DTM
Team Finland: Heikki Kovalainen F1, Marcus Gronholm WRC
Team Norway: Henning Solberg WRC, Petter Solberg WRC