The Chevrolet Lacetti World Touring Car will make its racing debut at the opening rounds of the 2005 World Touring Car Championship in Monza, Italy this coming weekend. After a winter long of development, building and testing the team is now heading for its first competitive outing in the Italian capital of speed.

As with any new racing programme the first target will be to finish races and gather as much data as possible. For Chevrolet Racing it will be no different. "At this early stage of the programme it is very important to finish the races," Team Manager, Mark Busfield said. "We need to gain further knowledge of the Lacetti, which can then be fed back into the ongoing development programme. Our initial target for Monza therefore is to finish both races with all three cars. Finishing both races without any major technical issues would be the next significant step in Chevrolet's World Touring Car Championship programme."

Two weeks ago Alain Menu, Nicola Larini and Rob Huff were already in action at the Autodromo for the FIA test days, the first time all manufacturers entered in the 2005 WTCC shared the track at the same time. "Monza is an engine circuit and we all know that Alfa are very strong in this area," Mark Busfield, explained. "We are still in the very early stages of our development programme and did not expect to be challenging Alfa, BMW and Seat this early in the programme. We have a long term development plan in place which we believe will allow us to meet our objectives. It is important that we remain focused on this plan rather than at one particular circuit."

Despite the car lacking speed, the team is confident that they will solve the problems: "The Monza test did not raise any new concerns," Busfield continued. "While we have identified that the chassis, handling and brakes are already comparable with the established competitors, the Monza test also confirmed that we have a shortfall in engine performance. This, however, is already being addressed as part of our existing development plan, and will also get most attention in preparing for the race. None of the problems experienced so far in our pre-season testing are insurmountable, it is just a case of continuous improvement over the course of the season."

At the race, all three cars will run in identical specifications for the first time. Until now the cars ran with different engine specifications, but these have now been finalised. "So far in testing our three cars have been prepared to different specifications in order to amass as many data as possible, but now all cars are prepared to the same race specification. This has included finalising initial race specifications for engine, fuel system as well as aerodynamics," Busfield concluded.

MONZA WTCC SCHEDULE

Saturday 9th April09.00-09.30 Free Practice 112.30-13.00 Free Practice 215.15-15.45 Qualifying

Sunday 10th April09.20-09.35 Warm Up15.10-15.35 2005 WTCC Race 1 (9 laps = 52.137kms)16.15-16.40 2005 WTCC Race 2 (9 laps = 52.137kms)

Both races and the warm up are broadcasted live on Eurosport.