2011 World Touring Car Championship season

The 2011 World Touring Car Championship season is the eighth season of the FIA World Touring Car Championship, and the seventh since its 2005 return. It began with the Race of Brazil at Curitiba on 20 March and will end with the Guia Race of Macau at the Guia Circuit on 20 November, after twenty-four races.

The series will undergo major changes with new circuits Suzuka and Tianma coming into the championship, new drivers such as Pepe Oriola to SUNRED Engineering and Robert Dahlgren with Polestar Racing for the whole season. The series will lose the FIA Formula Two Championship as a support championship, but it will be replaced by Auto GP. It will also be supported by a brand new series, European Production Series which will be supporting the six rounds at Zolder, Monza, Brno, Donington, Oschersleben and Valencia.

Teams and drivers
A provisional list of teams and drivers was revealed on 23 February. The championship released the official entry list on 4 March.

Team and driver changes
Chevrolet retain 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, and will contest selected meetings with the team. The team will utilise the newly-introduced 1600 cc engine. Again, two further Chevrolets have been entered by bamboo-engineering, who retain their drivers that completed 2010, Darryl O'Young and Yukinori Taniguchi. Bamboo campaigned Lacettis at the first round in Curitiba, but will contest the rest of the season with Cruzes.

SUNRED Engineering will again run six cars through three different team guises. Gabriele Tarquini remains with the team and is joined by former SEAT León Eurocup racer Aleksei Dudukalo, who brings Lukoil sponsorship into the team. Another three-car outfit is headed by Tiago Monteiro, and is joined by Michel Nykjær, and another graduate from the SEAT León Eurocup, Pepe Oriola. Fredy Barth completes 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. Leaving the team is Jordi Gené, who parted with the team before the end of the 2010 season.

Norbert Michelisz will remain in the championship with the Zengő Dension Team, but will switch to a BMW 320 TC, having campaigned a SEAT in 2010, winning a race at Macau. He will commence his campaign at the second round of the season at Zolder. Three other teams will campaign a single 320 TC during the season; ROAL Motorsport will return to the series, with Tom Coronel switching from a SUNRED SEAT, Wiechers-Sport will run Urs Sonderegger – another driver from the SEAT León Eurocup – at the European races held during the season, and DeTeam KK Motorsport will run Marchy Lee, who steps up from the Asian Porsche Carrera Cup.

The factory BMW Team RBM outfit has not returned in 2011, and drivers Augusto Farfus and Andy Priaulx have moved into sportscar racing, entering the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. Independent BMWs will however be campaigned by the Proteam Racing and Liqui Moly Team Engstler outfits. Proteam will run three BMWs; two 320 TCs for Mehdi Bennani, who moves from Wiechers-Sport and former single-seater racer Javier Villa, as well as a naturally-aspirated 320si for Fabio Fabiani. Bennani and Villa replace Independents' champion Sergio Hernández and Stefano D'Aste. Team Engstler will run two cars once again, with Franz Engstler being joined by Kristian Poulsen, who drove for his own team in 2010 after driving for Engstler in 2009. Poulsen replaces Andrei Romanov.

Polestar Racing will campaign a Volvo full-time in 2011, having contested five meetings over the past four seasons. Swedish Touring Car Championship runner-up Robert Dahlgren will again campaign the car as he has done in each of Polestar's events to date. The team also introduced a similar engine in the mid-season.

Calendar
The provisional calendar for the 2011 season was approved by the FIA World Motor Sport Council on 8 September 2010 with further amendments on 3 November 2010, 7 December 2010 and 8 March 2011.

Calendar changes

 * 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.
 * The Race of China will be held for the first time. It was originally scheduled to be held at the Guangdong International Circuit, but was later relocated to the Tianma Circuit.
 * The Race of Portugal will return to Porto as in recent odd years.
 * The Race of Japan will move from Okayama to Suzuka.
 * The Race of UK will move from Brands Hatch to Donington Park.
 * 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.
 * The Race of Morocco was dropped from the calendar, and replaced by the new Race of Hungary.