The Audi WRT team has announced the Scottish driver as Vernay’s teammate.
Gordon Shedden has officially become Audi’s new driver for the World Touring Car Cup. The Scottish driver joins the WRT team and will share team with Jean-Karl Vernay. Shedden, 38, has been three-time BTCC champion, the last one in 2016. The Scottish announced last month that he was not going to continue in the competition and rumours pointed towards this signing by Audi.
Gordon will drive the Audi RS3 LMS in his first year in the WTCR: “The change to the WTCR was quite unexpected, but it comes at a perfect time for my career. The WRT is a very successful team with a long and flourishing partnership with Audi Sport and its competition client division. They have won the 24 Hours of Spa and the 12 Hours of Bathurst in the GT3 category and for me it was a logical decision to join the team”, said the Shedden.
As a partner, he will have an experienced in the category, third consecutive year that runs for the team, Jean-Karl Vernay. The Frenchman was champion of the Indy Lights in 2010 and also won the Porsche Cup in 2012 in France and the TCR International Series last year.
Audi Sport has also announced the driver lineup of its other team, Comtoyou Racing. Frédéric Vervisch joins Aurélien Panis, Denis Dupont and Nathanaël Berton, in the fourth drivers of the Belgian team.
Chris Reinke, director of customer careers at Audi Sport, said: “We look forward to the strong competition in the new racing series which is an attractive stage for many manufacturers in touring car racing. Our teams and drivers bring valuable experiences from touring car racing and other disciplines to the grid, so we intend to battle for the titles in the drivers and teams classifications”, said ambitious, Reinke.
The series is reserved only for TCR cars and covers rounds in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. The provisional calendar has nine events on four continents, each with three races per weekend.
Provisional calendar:
Apr 7, 08 Marrakesh
April 28-29 Hungaroring
May 10-12 at the Nürburgring
May 19-21 Zandvoort
23-24 June Vila Real
August 04-05 Río Hondo
September 29 and 30 Ningbo
October 27-28 Suzuka
November 15 to 18 Macau