A regular WTCC competitor from 2005 to 2010, Stefano D’Aste returns to the championship and to the Wiechers-Sport team for which he clinched the 2007 Independents’ Trophy.
From Porto D’Aste replaces Urs Sonderegger who split from the German outfit in a friendly way. “My personal life very important and to be on the pace with the professional drivers of WTCC I would be forced to invest a lot of time in testing and give up on a lot of things in my life. I was really happy to start in WTCC but now I’m happy to stop,” Sonderegger said.
Team manager Dominik Greiner stated: “Urs is a nice person and a good friend. He understood that he needed more testing to reduce the gap, but he is a very busy man. We are happy to have Stefano back in the family and our German fans can rejoice as we will arrive at our home races at Oschersleben with a lot of motivations and expectations.”
"I am over the moon! I feel honoured for receiving this call from Wiechers-Sport and extremely excited to return to WTCC! I love Porto, because is a very demanding track, though I am aware that racing there without having tested the car will be tough. I’m also eager to drive the BMW 320 TC. I have heard good things about it and I was impressed by looking at the engine data when I visited the team a few days ago,” D’Aste commented.