The shortlist of seven nominees for Car of the Year 2021 has been announced, chosen from 29 eligible candidates.

Cars must essentially be new and available in at least five European countries at the time of voting; the seven finalists are the Citroën C4, Cupra Formentor, Fiat 500, Land Rover Defender, Skoda Octavia, Toyota Yaris and Volkswagen ID 3.

Some 60 judges representing 23 European countries select the shortlist in a simple vote (including yours truly from Autocar). Second-stage voting takes place between now and the end of February, with the winner to be announced in March.

Traditionally, the announcement takes place in Geneva on the eve of the motor show. This year, the announcement will go ahead on 1 March but broadcast from a location still to be determined.

The second-round vote, which decides the winner, is more complex than the first round. Each juror gets to allocate 25 points across the seven cars. They can give no more than 10 points to any one car, can't place two cars in equal first place and must give at least five cars some points.

There are six jurors from the UK: me, Autocar senior contributing writer Andrew Frankel, ex-Autocar road tester Vicky Parrott, occasional contributor Andrew English and two very nice people who I think I’m obliged to pretend don’t exist because they write for the enemy.

Normally, we would get together to drive all the candidates on the same roads at the same time, typically near Silverstone, then eat some sandwiches while arguing, before going and independently allocating scores exactly as we wanted to anyway. This year, we will somehow work out a way of doing that.

The full adjudication and every single judge’s comments about every car will appear at caroftheyear.org when the 2021 winner is announced.

1 Peugeot 208 2020 rt hero front 2