This year the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) has reached its eighth season since its inauguration in 2005. It was founded as one of FIA's only three world championships along with the much older Formula One and World Rally Championship, although FIA later added two more, the FIA GT1 World Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship. In the motor sport hierarchy, these FIA championships are always regarded as the pinnacles of each category, WTCC is therefore ranked as the highest level of touring car sprint race series.

The race format of a WTCC event remains the same since the first season. On Saturday, two 30 minute practice sessions are held before a 30 minute qualifying session with exceptions for temporary street tracks. Then there is a 15 minute warm up session on Sunday morning and two final races follow with a certain time interval between them.

In addition, an official test session is to be held on Friday for the events in Italy, Morocco, Brazil, America, Japan and China, and on Thursday in Macau, of the race weeks. The sessions are 30 minutes long but, for the Italian round, two one hour sessions are given to the teams as it is the first race of the season.

The main appeal of WTCC events are breathtaking close battles from start to finish in both two final races. And one of the main factors which creates this is the so-called reverse grids system.

The qualifying session on Saturday consists of two sections: Qualifying 1 and Qualifying 2 - abbreviated as Q1 and Q2. Q1 is the first 20 minutes (30 minutes for street tracks) of the session in which all competitors run to qualify.

Then only the top 12 drivers in Q1 are allowed to continue in remaining 10 minutes (15 for street tracks) Q2 section and try to get a better starting position within the top 12 grids. Until the last season, the top 10 drivers went on to Q2 but two more slots are added this year.

The starting grids for the first race - Race 1 - are decided by the qualifying order in Q2 and, for the drivers in 13th or lower, the order in Q1 are applied. The top 12 grids for Race 2 are, however, arranged as the diagram below, according to the reverse grid rules. The competitors aren't allowed to add or reduce the amount of fuel onboard between Q1 and Q2.

As has been in the past seasons, the two final races get underway with different starting procedures, a rolling start for Race 1 and a standing start for Race 2. Rear wheel drive cars have a slight advantage in a standing start - that's why two different ways to start are employed - and they often make a great getaway on their way to the first corner.

As another tweak in the event format, the race distance is now extended a little for 2012 and it shall be between 50km and 60km per race, while it had been stipulated as 50km or less until last year.

The lineup of participating drivers is also very intriguing in WTCC. The holders of FIA's International B driver license are eligible for a race meeting and the lineup includes a wide variety of talent from youngsters to renowned veterans.

The teams are divided into two categories: registered manufacturer teams and YOKOHAMA trophy competitor teams. In short, the former can be called as 'factory teams' and the latter as non-factory 'independent teams.'

You might think that sprint races don't require complicated strategies but the leading drivers in WTCC always have their 'plans' before stating the race. For example, as one of very common tactics in this series, if someone was to start the race behind his rival, he may put heavy pressure on the rival to let him use up his tires earlier and wait for an opportunity to overtake him in the closing stage.

As mentioned above, close battles throughout a race are the main appeal of the series and it is often described as 'a combat sport on a race track.' But it doesn't necessarily mean the rampant rough fights. In fact, such battles are exchange of stunts between those skillful world class drivers under the strict sporting rules.

From 2012 season, a driver who received his third reprimand during the season for his conduct on the track will automatically be given a ten grid demotion penalty in the following race. All decisions on penalties made by the race stewards during the race weeks are published on the WTCC's official website and, by reading those documents, you can see that every detail of incidents are closely monitored by the stewards to ensure fair judgments.

Since 2006, the second year of WTCC, The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd has been supporting the championship as the sole tire supplier. The partnership becomes even more solid when it reaches the seventh season this year, as its products has earned strong trust from the teams and drivers.

Yokohama supplies two types of tires, slick and rain for dry and wet surfaces respectively, of single specifications each. The WTCC's own rational philosophy for cost reduction led to this single spec tire rules for all competitors regardless of differences in car types.

But it required the tire manufacturer to produce the rubbers that perform equally well with all types of cars. To begin with the difference in drive system, front- or rear-wheel-drive, and vehicle weight, the competing cars are different in many characteristics. The single specification tires, however, must provide the equal conditions to avoid a situation that one type of cars is better suited to the tires than others.

To address this task, Yokohama Rubber had started up a dedicated project team prior to beginning to supply the WTCC tires in 2006 and fully utilized technologies, experience and data from its domestic and international motor sport activities in a wide variety of categories. Since then, Yokohama has always provided very reliable products for the world championship, even though the technical regulations have changed during the period, from 2000cc normally aspirated petrol engines to 1600cc turbo charged petrol engines, with a turbo diesel cars' era in between.

It is also noteworthy that the Japanese company has supplied its unique orange oil blended Eco Racing Tires since 2010 season.

The teams are allowed to use four sets of dry tires during the season opening Italian round. From the second round, the number is increased to five sets in each event but the regulations stipulate that only 12 dry tires out of 20 can be unused. As for the rain tires, four sets can be used in each event.

This rule means the teams can carry over eight used tires from the previous event and, if they aren't badly worn, these used ones are still useful for running-in or set up works in practice sessions. Therefore, the good tire management in the span of two or three events is considered as an important strategic factor for the leading teams.

In WTCC, the rules allow the use of tire warmers which heat up the tires before the cars hit the track. Thanks to them, the spectators can enjoy watching some aggressive drives from the very first lap of the race or qualifying session.