These are a few of my favorite shots of the Pirelli World Challenge part of the 2012 Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg. A couple weeks back, when I started thinking about how I was going to write this article, I was very fixated upon the lack of rotaries in the Pirelli World Challenge. There was of course, the Star Mazdas and their RX-8 pace car, but no RX-8 elsewhere. There weren’t a lot to begin with, two if I remember right, in last year’s PWC. This brought up many questions. Would Star Mazda continue if the rotary were to cease future production? Would they move to something with pistons, like the MZR found in the Mazdaspeed 3?
It was all put to rest, at least for the time being, with this linked article from The Truth About Cars, stating that “In more performance oriented news, Mazda is working on not one but two new rotary engines. A new, more efficient, more powerful rotary engine as well as a rotary designed to be used as a range extender for an electric vehicle.” So, hopefully we’ll see a future evolution of a rotary sports car, be it a new RX-7, RX-8, or maybe call it an RX-9. Whatever they call it doesn’t matter to me, as long as it’s made.
On to the race day shots. I got some nice shots of the PWC cars when they were doing display laps at the beginning, along with what seemed like a seemingly never ending run of caution laps. In case you missed it, we also previously took a look at the paddock areas.
Up next is IndyCars, then it’s supercar time!
