Swedish Touring Car Championship Explained

Pixels:200px
Category:Touring cars
Inaugural:1996
Country/Region: Sweden, Norway
Folded:2010
Champion Driver: Richard Göransson
Champion Team:Polestar Racing
Manufacturer:Volvo
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. STCC replaced the 1991–1995 . There were also a number of accompanying support classes that raced 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.

Rules

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:

TV Coverage

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.

Car brands

The cars competing in the STCC are (as of 2010): Alfa Romeo, BMW, Chevrolet, Honda, Opel, Peugeot, Seat, Volkswagen and Volvo.

Champions

SeasonChampionshipIndependent
DriverManufacturerTeamDriverManufacturer
1996 Jan NilssonVolvoFlash Engineeringnone
1997 Jan NilssonVolvoFlash Engineeringnone
1998 Fredrik EkblomBMWWestCoast Racing Pontus MörthOpel
1999 Mattias EkströmAudiKristoffersson Motorsport Kim EsbjugBMW
2000 Tommy RustadNissanCrawford Nissan Racing Magnus KrokströmAudi
2001 Roberto ColciagoAudiKristoffersson Motorsport Tobias JohanssonAudi
2002 Roberto ColciagoAudiKristoffersson Motorsport Tobias JohanssonAudi
2003 Fredrik EkblomAudiKristoffersson Motorsportnone
2004 Richard GöranssonBMWWestCoast Racing Johan NilssonVolvo
2005 Richard GöranssonBMWWestCoast Racing Johan NilssonBMW
2006 Thed BjörkBMWKristoffersson Motorsport Joakim FridhBMW
2007 Fredrik EkblomBMWWestCoast Racing Joakim FridhOpel
2008 Richard GöranssonBMWFlash Engineering Tobias JohanssonMercedes-Benz
2009 Tommy RustadVolvoPolestar Racing Viktor HallrupBMW
2010 Richard GöranssonBMWWestCoast Racing Andreas EbbessonBMW

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Johan Meissner . DTC: New regulations confirmed for Scandinavian TC in 2012 . TouringCarTimes . 2010-08-12 . 2010-10-14 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120323232532/http://www.touringcartimes.com/news.php?id=5119 . March 23, 2012 .
  2. Web site: STCC . 2023-11-16 . STCC . sv-SE.
  3. Web site: Mästarteamet om flytten av elektrifierad STCC-säsong till 2024 . 2023-11-16 . STCC . sv-SE.
  4. Web site: Sju juniorer testar nya elektriska STCC-bilarna i Try Out 2023 . 2023-11-16 . STCC . sv-SE.