Chevrolet Europe is about to start its busiest winter test programme yet, with a number of multi-day, multi-car test sessions scheduled in December and January before the cars are shipped to Brazil in mid-February.

But before the activities start at the track, each of the drivers will be busy in different ways: Nicola Larini will be a show man, Alain Menu will be Father Christmas and Rob Huff will get a new toy.

Nicola Larini in fact will be racing his Chevrolet Lacetti WTC at the Bologna Motor Show in Italy next weekend. “I am really looking forward to this “race”. OK, it is an exhibition race, but quite a special one, as this Motor Show is very popular in Europe. It takes place in Italy, so I will be racing in front of my fans, a good number of WTCC stars will participate and the format of the races – direct duels – is quite exciting. I really hope I can score a victory there.” At the Bologna Motor Show – the most important motor show in Europe in terms of visitors – Chevrolet Europe will also launch the turbo diesel version of the Lacetti. Italy is a very important market for Chevrolet in general, and for diesel-engined cars in particular.

On the other side of the Alps, Alain Menu will use his brand new 7-seater Chevrolet Captiva 4x4 to load it up with Christmas presents. “I have been asked by a Swiss TV station to be Father Christmas at a children’s hospital in the Geneva area. I hope I am good enough an actor to convince them Father Christmas came all the way from Lapland in a Chevy!”

And since it is well known that one always buys the best gifts for oneself, Rob Huff decided to indulge. “I have just ordered a Corvette Z06,” he said. “Can’t wait to have it delivered and “unwrap” it!”

The reason Chevrolet’s WTCC drivers are in a festive mood already is of course easily explained by their performances during the 2006 campaign, which netted two wins and several more podium finishes, thus achieving the objectives set at the beginning of Chevrolet’s WTCC campaign. The 2005 season would be all about climbing the learning curve in what is probably the most competitive of FIA World Championships. In 2006 Chevrolet was to make its presence felt amongst the established values of touring car racing, and again the RML-run team did exactly that. Alain Menu scored a first podium finish at the season’s opener in Monza and followed that up with a magnificent historic first win at a rain-soaked Brands Hatch. From then on, Chevrolet was no longer the new kid on the block, but a team to be reckoned with as was amply proved by Rob Huff’s maiden win in Brno and by Nicola Larini’s podium finishes in Brno and Valencia.

Swiss driver, Alain Menu, sporting Louis Chevrolet’s famous racing number 8, was the man who scored Chevrolet’s first ever FIA World Championship win at Brands Hatch. “It was a day I’m sure I’ll never forget. It could almost have been a movie script, with all the links to the past and the win coming at a track I have raced so many times on when I raced in the BTCC. From then on, my season was made, although of course you try at to win every occasion. Overall, 2006 has been a positive year, although we had some downs to go with the ups. We deliberately took some risks on my car – like trying a radical set-up in Magny Cours – which didn’t always work the way we thought they would, but by the end of the season we were right there.”

An extra plus for Menu at the end of 2006, was the fact that Matias Rossi won the Argentine TC2000 Championship. Menu and Rossi won the Buenos Aires 200kms in October. “I’m really pleased for him,” Menu said. “He drove a fantastic last race, on slicks in the rain and won the championship by one point. He can always give me a call if he wants me to do the Buenos Aires race with him again in 2007.”

After the overseas summer races, Rob Huff started the WTCC’s second European part of the season with a start-to-finish win in Brno. “What a fantastic day that was,” he said. “So many times I had come close, like at Brands, but when I took the start from pole position for that second race I knew it was possible. Mind you, that race was probably my longest ever, I had to keep the reigning World Champion behind me for the whole distance. From then on our performance as a team just got better and better, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that none of us had to think long before re-signing for 2007.”

Nicola Larini came close to winning on several occasions, and twice made it to the podium. “It was a good season, and we showed real progress throughout the year,” he said. “For me, personally, the end of the season was much better, as I was among the front-runners and could achieve a couple of podium finishes. It’s a pity that we had such a bad weekend in the last race in Macau. I really wanted to win there, everything had started perfectly and then, one mistake and everything goes wrong... But races are like that. In any case, I am confident for the future. We have a very organised and motivated team, which has done a great work throughout the entire season. Having won two races is very motivating and I am convinced that in 2007 we will be among the key players in the WTCC. We have planned a hefty test programme for the winter and with the first race taking place so early (mid-March) and so far away (Brazil), we won’t even notice the winter break.”

Chevrolet Europe’s Motorsports Manager, Eric Nève, is equally happy the way Chevrolet’s second season turned out: “When we embarked on the touring car programme, we knew we entered what is probably the toughest series in the world you can race your product. At some point we had 22 cars qualifying in one second, which is something that has never been seen before in Europe. In the American Nascar series it is not uncommon to have that many cars qualify that close together, but the major difference is that we achieve these results on so-called road courses, in other words taking turns in both directions and shifting gears all the time. So to be able to qualify near the front in such a fiercely competitive environment not only shows that our cars are good, but also the drivers driving them and the team behind these men and machines. True, we had a little dip during the overseas campaign, but the team bounced back and hit back hard with a win and podium finishes, again proving what they are capable of.”

“So for the 2007 season our next objective can only be to try and win at every race, and, ultimately, have a shot at the title,” Nève continued. “That’s what the original plan was, and that is what we will stick to. Next month we will start our most comprehensive winter test programme ever, with numerous test sessions in the south of Europe, and by the time the season kicks off in Brazil we want to be in a position to go for an all blue front row and a blue podium at every race.”

To be prepared to achieve these goals, the team will start testing in earnest in three weeks time. “The first race being an overseas race in March brings our whole winter testing programme forward by a month,” Team Manager, Mark Busfield, said. “This winter we will be working on fine tuning the car to find extra speed for racing and qualifying, and improving the reliability of certain parts. We’ll also look at further increasing the serviceability, thus reducing the time needed to work on the cars in between the races, although it now seems that there may be a much bigger gap in between the two races to assist the TV-schedule.”

Busfield continued: “The shake down and initial testing of the first 2007-spec car will take place next week at MIRA and Millbrook, with Alain taking the driving duties. We will then take a 2006 car, and the new car to the first full track test at Jerez in mid-December, sharing the track with the RBM and Schnitzer teams. In early January we have a further test session in Almeria (South Spain), followed by a test with all three 2007 cars in Valencia (host of the first European race in 2007) at the end of January. In March and April, KSO is organising some official testing days at Brno, Oschersleben and Monza, where we will run just our test car as the race cars will be traveling in sea freight containers for the South American events. So, we will have done more testing before the season starts than we have done in the past, and with a car that is a proven race winner; things look good for 2007.”

As was the case last year, this year’s racing Lacetti’s have been sold to privateer teams. Chevrolet Lacetti WTC’s will now defend the bowtie logo in Denmark .