BTCC 2024 News & Rumours

[MarcusH26]

In the piece that went out on the series website over the summer it sounds like Unlimited have a second Cupra all ready to go for next season, could that be the unaccounted for 076?

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by coffinpilot

Is 076 still owned by the bailiffs?

At Croft I was told by one of the Toyota managers that the Cook car was partially built from reusable RML components from one of the Cupras, anybody know which of the three cars that would be, and what stuff could be sold to be reused (if it's true.)

I'd heard that 076 went to Excelr8 and was striped for part, then the remains handed back to the finance company. Possibly whoever told me that could have got Toyota and Hyundai mixed up. As far as I know the finance company still have it.

That said, the subrames and running gear had already been removed from most of the cars before the finance company repo'ed them so there will be plenty of spare bits floating around.

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by redshoes

I'd heard that 076 went to Excelr8 and was striped for part, then the remains handed back to the finance company. Possibly whoever told me that could have got Toyota and Hyundai mixed up. As far as I know the finance company still have it.

That said, the subrames and running gear had already been removed from most of the cars before the finance company repo'ed them so there will be plenty of spare bits floating around.

Probably all worn out though!

[Pickles]

It was Excelr8 that had the missing car for parts before returning the shell to the finance company. According to Bob Sharpless all 6 cars are 'accounted for'. Un-Limited do have a second car for next year, I get the feeling with the way the team is being run that they will only run it if a driver has the budget in place, rather than the old HARD way.

[MarcusH26]

Originally Posted by Pickles

It was Excelr8 that had the missing car for parts before returning the shell to the finance company. According to Bob Sharpless all 6 cars are 'accounted for'. Un-Limited do have a second car for next year, I get the feeling with the way the team is being run that they will only run it if a driver has the budget in place, rather than the old HARD way.

Yeah the article all sounded very sensible, I expect they might have a fight to keep DeLeon but if they can keep Duckhams as a title sponsor that would be a bonus.

[MarcusH26]

https://btcc.net/dan-zelos-earns-second-btcc-shot-at-silverstone/

Zelos confirmed for Silverstone

[Greem]

That's excellent news.

[Matt K]

Fantastic news, really happy for Dan. Hope he could secure a full-time seat for next season although I guess it'll be another difficult task to find budget for Brands Hatch, let alone full season next year.

[Racing_Dad]

Great for Dan to get another run, hopefully he'll get 3 good results and find the monies for Brands.

[BTCC frog]

Does anyone know of anywhere I can see the running total for the BTCC championship after individual rounds in past seasons?

Specifically, I need to know how much ballast every car had after qualifying in each race in 2012-2021.

Any ideas?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by BTCC frog

Does anyone know of anywhere I can see the running total for the BTCC championship after individual rounds in past seasons?

Specifically, I need to know how much ballast every car had after qualifying in each race in 2012-2021.

Any ideas?

Do you mean how much ballast was carried in Q and R1 - which I think are the same thing?

It might be a bit of work to link two sources together.

Part 1 - TSL timing. The championship standing (on which Q ballast was calculated) is given in pdf form after each event.

e.g. - The standing after the first meeting in 2012 can be found here - https://www.tsl-timing.com/file/?f=T...1303ptstrg.pdf

Part 2 - Wayback Machine. I can only see back as far as 2015, but you might be able to get the earlier seasons (unless anyone can confirm the amounts stayed the same for 2012-2015).
From this site, the ballast is confirmed as:
2015 - 1st:75kg, 2nd:66kg 3rd:57kg, 4th:48kg, 5th:39kg, 6th:33kg, 7th:27kg, 8th:21kg, 9th:15kg, 10th:9kg
You should be able to trawl through the scrapes to see when the amounts changed.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150915...d-regulations/

[crmalcolm]

n.b. - the weights changed for the 2019 season:
1st: 54kg, 2nd: 48kg 3rd: 42kg, 4th: 36kg, 5th: 30kg, 6th: 24kg, 7th: 18kg, 8th: 12kg, 9th: 6kg, 10th: 6kg

again in 2020:
1st: 60kg
2nd: 54kg
3rd: 48kg
4th: 42kg
5th: 36kg
6th: 30kg
7th: 24kg
8th: 18kg
9th: 12kg
10th: 6kg

For 2021:
1st: 75kgs
2nd: 66kgs
3rd: 57kgs
4th: 48kgs
5th: 39kgs
6th: 33kgs
7th: 27kgs
8th: 21kgs
9th: 15kgs
10th: 9kgs

[BTCC frog]

TSL timing is exactly what I needed, thank you very much.

I thought of a formula I could use to estimate how much difference the success ballast made to the lap-times, but I was struggling to find out how much ballast each car had in each qualifying session in order to test it, because I didn't know who was leading the championship going into each round but TSL timing has that information.

[tee.1s]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

n.b. - the weights changed for the 2019 season:
1st: 54kg, 2nd: 48kg 3rd: 42kg, 4th: 36kg, 5th: 30kg, 6th: 24kg, 7th: 18kg, 8th: 12kg, 9th: 6kg, 10th: 6kg

again in 2020:
1st: 60kg
2nd: 54kg
3rd: 48kg
4th: 42kg
5th: 36kg
6th: 30kg
7th: 24kg
8th: 18kg
9th: 12kg
10th: 6kg

For 2021:
1st: 75kgs
2nd: 66kgs
3rd: 57kgs
4th: 48kgs
5th: 39kgs
6th: 33kgs
7th: 27kgs
8th: 21kgs
9th: 15kgs
10th: 9kgs

a bit unrelated, but I kind of wish we could have some sort of ballast back alongside the hybrid... or would that be a bit silly/far-fetched??

[BTCC frog]

The result I got was about 0.009048% per 1kg of ballast.

This translates to 0.679% for 75kg.

This is about 0.34s at Knockhill or Brands Hatch Indy and 0.78s at Snetterton.

I don't know if this was worth four hours of work considering it probably isn't even the same for each track, but I now have an estimated grid for every 2021 race if there was no ballast.

Pole positions are:
Thruxton - Ash Sutton (Infiniti)
Snetterton - Colin Turkington (BMW)
Brands Hatch Indy - Jake Hill (Ford)
Oulton Park - Ash Sutton (Infiniti)
Knockhill - Ash Sutton (Infiniti)
Thruxton - Dan Rowbottom (Honda)
Croft - Jake Hill (Ford)
Silverstone - Colin Turkington (BMW)
Donington Park - Ash Sutton (Infiniti)
Brands Hatch - Ash Sutton (Infiniti)

[BTCC frog]

The Goodyear Wingfoot Award would give these results:

1 Ash Sutton 168
2 Colin Turkington 151
3 Jake Hill 137
4 Josh Cook 114
5 Tom Ingram 108
6 Dan Rowbottom 88
7 Gordon Shedden 83
8 Rory Butcher 76
9 Senna Proctor 65
10 Tom Oliphant 58
11 Aiden Moffat 42
12 Adam Morgan 40
13 Stephen Jelley 37
14 Dan Lloyd 36
15 Jason Plato 28
16 Chris Smiley 25
17 Ollie Jackson 23
18 Jack Goff 12
19 Tom Chilton 7
20 Sam Osborne 5
21 Dan Cammish 4
22 Carl Boardley 3

[Greem]

Originally Posted by BTCC frog

I don't know if this was worth four hours of work

That depends on whether you were procrastinating over a hand in or not!

[Matt K]

Originally Posted by tee.1s

a bit unrelated, but I kind of wish we could have some sort of ballast back alongside the hybrid... or would that be a bit silly/far-fetched??

silly and far-fetched. What would this be for? Hybrid is enough to make chances equal (although IMO everyone should have the same amount), cars are close to each other anyway, option tyres is another silly gimmick. Do we really need another?
I've been following the GT3 DTM for three years now (never before really followed GT3 or TCR racing) and the BOP there and discussions it raises is just idiotic. Let alone the fact that at times it gives impression that results are 90% down to who gets the best BOP/weight rather than who really is the strongest and who really does their job best. I really don't think we need something like that in the BTCC.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Matt K

silly and far-fetched. What would this be for? Hybrid is enough to make chances equal (although IMO everyone should have the same amount), cars are close to each other anyway, option tyres is another silly gimmick. Do we really need another?
I've been following the GT3 DTM for three years now (never before really followed GT3 or TCR racing) and the BOP there and discussions it raises is just idiotic. Let alone the fact that at times it gives impression that results are 90% down to who gets the best BOP/weight rather than who really is the strongest and who really does their job best. I really don't think we need something like that in the BTCC.

I think it's more about how the hybrid 'handicap' can be eradicated in a race and become non-effective.

Take the situation of a 15-lap race, where you have 1 lap of hybrid more than the car in front. That means that for one lap only, and only on a part of that lap, do you have a performance advantage over the car in front.
With ballast, even a tiny amount, you have a performance gain in every single braking zone and every single traction zone for every single lap of the race.

[TinTopGrumpy]

Can't please all the people all the time. Whatever combination of hybrid, ballast, option tyres etc there will always be people against it. The racing this year has been pretty good compared to recent years IMO. I would remove the big gaps between tyres though as it's silly to see people waving others by but that's just my view of course.

[Matt K]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I think it's more about how the hybrid 'handicap' can be eradicated in a race and become non-effective.

Take the situation of a 15-lap race, where you have 1 lap of hybrid more than the car in front. That means that for one lap only, and only on a part of that lap, do you have a performance advantage over the car in front.
With ballast, even a tiny amount, you have a performance gain in every single braking zone and every single traction zone for every single lap of the race.

Yes, true but would we want it changed? Personally, I wouldn't. As much as hybrid (or lack of it) is a 'hindrance' for best drivers, it's not as punishing as big ballast. Perhaps it's more punishing in qualifying and that's why IMO everyone should have the same allocation there but in general, for me, hybrid is a better solution than weights simply because it's less "unsportslike."

[S griffin]

I'd sooner keep the hybrid system too. It's less of a handicap than ballast and a driver can still make up lack of hybrid. I'm not really missing the ballast system

[tocatrucky]

Originally Posted by S griffin

I'd sooner keep the hybrid system too. It's less of a handicap than ballast and a driver can still make up lack of hybrid. I'm not really missing the ballast system

Agreed, there hasn't been a single moment where I've thought ''oh I wish they had ballast boxes in the cars''.

[porsche962fan]

Jake Hill speculates that Hyundai engine has some secret qualy setup because it's always the fastest in speed traps

[SV8Predator]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

Jake Hill speculates that Hyundai engine has some secret qualy setup because it's always the fastest in speed traps

Source?