Yvan Muller (front) won his third Drivers' Championship and Chevrolet won the Manufacturers' Championship. The Chevrolet trio (from the front: Muller, Robert Huff and Alain Menu) occupied the top three positions in the Drivers' Championship ranking.
Chevrolet retained their three full-time drivers from 2010, Yvan Muller, Robert Huff and Alain Menu. Cacá Bueno also joined the team in a fourth car at his home meeting in Curitiba. The team utilized the newly introduced 1,600 cc (98 cu in) engine. Again, two further Chevrolets were entered by bamboo-engineering, who retained their 2010 drivers, Darryl O'Young and Yukinori Taniguchi. Bamboo campaigned Lacettis at the first round in Curitiba, but contested the rest of the season with Cruzes.
SUNRED Engineering again ran six cars through three different team guises. Gabriele Tarquini remained with the team and was joined by former SEAT León Eurocup racer Aleksei Dudukalo, who brought Lukoil sponsorship into the team. Another three-car outfit was headed by Tiago Monteiro, who was joined by Michel Nykjær, and another graduate from the SEAT León Eurocup, Pepe Oriola. Fredy Barth completed the SEAT sextet, with his SEAT Swiss Racing by SUNRED team. The SEATs began the season using a two-litre turbo diesel engine and from Hungary introduced a similar engine to that used in the Chevrolets. However, the cars were branded as SR Leon with no SEAT support at all. Leaving the team is Jordi Gené, who parted with the team before the end of the 2010 season.
Norbert Michelisz remained in the championship with the Zengő Dension Team, but switched to a BMW 320 TC, having campaigned a SEAT in 2010, winning a race at Macau. He began his campaign at the second round of the season at Zolder. Three other teams campaigned a single 320 TC during the season; ROAL Motorsport returned to the series, with Tom Coronel switching from a SUNRED SEAT, Wiechers-Sport ran Urs Sonderegger – another driver from the SEAT León Eurocup – at the European races held during the season, and DeTeam KK Motorsport ran Marchy Lee, who steps up from the Asian Porsche Carrera Cup.
Polestar Racing campaigned a Volvo full-time in 2011, having contested five meetings over the past four seasons. Swedish Touring Car Championship runner-up Robert Dahlgren again campaigned the car as he had done in each of Polestar's events to date. The team also introduced a similar engine in the mid-season.
The provisional calendar for the 2011 season was approved by the FIA World Motor Sport Council on 8 September 2010[4] with further amendments on 3 November 2010,[5] 7 December 2010[6] and 8 March 2011.[7]
The Race of Brazil was going to move from Curitiba to Interlagos. The move was reverted due to logistical issues connected to renovation at Interlagos in regards to safety in the Subida dos Boxes area, which has been the site of touring car fatalities.[8]
The Race of Argentina was originally scheduled to be held in Buenos Aires, but was dropped from the calendar and replaced with the Race of Belgium when the circuit failed its homologation and it was found that there would not be enough time to complete the work necessary to upgrade the circuit to the required standard.[10]
Manufacturers Championship points were awarded on a 25–18–15–12–10–8–6–4–2–1 basis for the first ten places in each race.[1] However, only the results obtained by the best two cars classified per manufacturer in each race were counted.[1] All the other cars of that same manufacturer were invisible as far as scoring points is concerned.[1]
^Ziegler, Stefan (21 March 2011). "Der Hungaroring ersetzt Marrakesch". motorsport-total.com (in German). Motorsport-Total.com GmbH. Retrieved 21 March 2011.
