Chevrolet Lacetti (S2000)

The Chevrolet Lacetti made its race debut at the opening round of the revived World Touring Car Championship in 2005. Chevrolet's rivals - Alfa Romeo, BMW, and SEAT - had all raced in the European Touring Car Championship previously, so the RML-run team faced an uphill battle to catch up. 2005 proved to be a pretty brutal season for the Lacetti, with all three drivers ending the year outside the top 15 in the standings.

That was followed up with a stronger second season, though one where all three drivers again made little impression in the standings. Alain Menu took the first podium finish for the Lacetti at Monza in the opening weekend, then claimed its first race victory at Brands Hatch soon after. He only finished in the points in three other races however, which summed up the inconsistent nature of the car at this stage.

Rob Huff finished in the points the same number of times, and also scored a race victory; his came at Brno in the latter stages of the year. Nicola Larini ended the year highest in the standings in 12th, taking consecutive third place finishes at Istanbul and Valencia, but missed out on a win.

2007 saw another step forward, with all three drivers ending the season within the top ten in the championship. Larini led the way for the third year in a row, despite once again not winning a race. He ended up fifth thanks to six podiums and fairly consistent points finishes. Menu followed in sixth place with a heavily contrasted season; five race wins and two further podiums cancelled out by lots of non-scores. Huff rounded out the line-up in ninth with four podiums, including one victory.

The Lacetti's final season with the works team proved to be its best in the WTCC, as Rob Huff ended the year third in the championship. Menu dropped to ninth - though still won three races - while Larini fell all the way to 11th. 2008 also saw the Lacetti make an inconspicuous BTCC debut in the hands of the independent Robertshaw Racing team, becoming the first Chevrolet to race in the series since the demise of the big Camaros in the mid-1970s.

RML opted to run Lacettis in the BTCC for 2009, while running their new Cruzes in the WTCC. Jason Plato led the team, narrowly missing out on the title to Colin Turkington in his BMW. Notably, Plato achieved the extremely rare feat of three race wins in a single weekend at the final round. Mat Jackson finished fifth in the standings - also scoring multiple race wins - while James Nash had a few outings in a third car, claiming a solitary podium finish.

Harry Vaulkhard also raced a Lacetti in the BTCC in 2009, before stepping up to the WTCC for most of the 2010 season with Bamboo Engineering; though neither campaign produced any standout results. His teammate Darryl O'Young enjoyed a slightly better 2010 season, with a best finish of seventh.

Bamboo Engineering replaced their Lacettis after the first round of the 2011 WTCC season, and besides an unremarkable season in the BTCC for Chris James that same year that largely marked the end of the Lacetti's career. Some single weekend entries in the WTCC in 2012 and 2013 followed, but the change of regulations for 2014 finally left it obsolete.

While significantly overshadowed by its successor, the Chevrolet Lacetti nonetheless enjoyed a reasonably significant career and is a memorable part of the S2000 era of touring car racing.