As announced by the championship officials in early March, the Marrakech round will not take place this season due to financial difficulties encountered by the local organizers. What this means is that the African continent will no longer be part of FIA WTCC's traveling schedule this year, with the field packing for Hungary instead.
The initial dates of the round have not been changed (June 3rd – 5th), as it will mark the first time the FIA WTCC will travel to the Hungarian track.
“We are very happy that the opportunity arose to find a worthy replacement for Marrakech,” admitted championship promoter Marcello Lotti, who had promissed the WTCC fans that he would secure a race in Central Europe to replace the Marrakech round.
“Budapest is the perfect solution: it is a modern and demanding circuit with impressive facilities, brings the championship to a new country in which WTCC has a lot of fans thanks to Norbert Michelisz and also means huge saving in terms of logistics as it lies only 350 km away from Brno that hosts the following event.”
“I am very glad that Hungary was given the chance to stage a WTCC event. This FIA World Championship is the second most popular series after Formula 1,” added Hungaroring's CEO Zsolt Gyulay.
“For this reason I think that the Hungaroring has added another prestigious international event to its racing calendar and this is also invaluable to Hungary because of the tourism.”
“We sincerely hope that the WTCC Race of Hungary will be exciting and interesting for the Hungarian and the foreign fans. It is of high importance to us that Hungarian driver Norbert Michelisz can compete in front of Hungarian audience and at a Hungarian track for the first time in the series' history.”
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