After a season of Clio cup, two seasons spent in Endurance, Andrea Barlesi is ready for a new challenge this year, with a participation in the FIA World Touring Car Championship ( WTCC), whose opening round is to take place in Monza at the end of week . The young Italian-Belgian driver joins the ranks of the SUNRED Engineering Team where he will be the team mate of Tiago Monteiro and Pepe Oriola. It is the beginning of a new adventure for him: ” The level of WTCC is extremely high with many talented drivers such as Yvan Müller, Gabriele Tarquini, Rob Huff, Tiago Monteiro, Tom Coronel or Alain Menu. I looked at the various options to carry on my career in Endurance this season, in particular in World Endurance Championship, but none of them allowed me to fight in the front. I decided at the end to change category, and it was at this moment when the opportunity to join the WTCC with SunRed showed up. WTCC is still one of the rare championships where a young driver has the possibility of being spotted by a manufacturer.”
” I am delighted to be the team mate of Tiago ” adds the Formula Le Mans 2010 Champion. ” We worked in the same team last year in the 24 Heures du Mans and we had immediatly a good feeling together . I count on his experience to make me improved as fast as possible. I am certain that driving in such a championship is going to give me the opportunity to have an even more complete business card. WTCC is very formative and it is for me a return to basics as when I competed in Clio Cup with beautiful battles in pack in sprint races. I expect the races to be rough and intense, but I am fully ready and I am hungry of result, I am going to make everything to represent well, and represent as high as possible Seat and SunRed. “
Andrea does not close the door of the Endurance and the prototype: ” I just put my career in Endurance in parenthesis, I have the opportunity,thanks to SunRed and Seat, to compete in one of the most prestigious championship. My objective remains to integrate a manufacturer team into the horizon 2013-2014 and Touring is the category where you need to be, as from 2013, new manufacturers will be officially present. However it is not excluded seeing me participating in the 24 Heures du Mans next June. »
Source : Andrea Barlesi