Btcc 2015

[MG CHRIS]

emicen said:

Hamish Finn said:

Hey, great comment MG CHRIS.

Care to elaborate?

Well, circumstances got them off with a no show at Snetterton, the rules dictate the TBL gets removed now they have the parts but nobody to enter.

As I understand it Wilmott had already walked away and with the issues he had, it would have been quite surprising for anyone else to step up with cheque in hand to take his place.

Shame to see a car disappearing off the grid but it was looking fairly inevitable.

Agreed with willmot gone missing 2 rounds now its the same thing with infiniti. Bit of more than they could chew, since building the 2nd car and changing engines welchs fortune have gone down hill wokkie on here would say the same. The proton now is an old car with a not very good engine and doesn't look to be getting any better.
The rules are there to stop the team hard mess a few years back when they had new drivers nearly at every meeting.

[MG CHRIS]

indigorallye said:

Shame for Welch.
These licenses are in danger of putting BTCC beyond amateur teams.......which is not good. Welch were not running a driver merry go round like Team Hard were.

Welches problems are nothing to do with the btcc though its a team that thought they could do better with another engine which didn't work. At the same time built a 2nd car which made the problem worse.
Infinitti is a mess of equally terms as team hard a few years back.

The whole idea of the tbl was to ensure you can run the car for a full year and to stop what happened with team hard again. If you cant afford to run a car in the btcc then don't enter it.
Its never been a cheap series to run in during the last 30 years anyway if you cant afford it or cant attened every race where you signed up for a full series its not the fault of toca.

Also the new rules means more entries for knockhill which usually had about 5-6 drivers/teams missing that round which isn't fair on people in Scotland wanting to see a full grid.

[MG CHRIS]

orange n blue said:

How do Motorbase get away with only running half a season?

Dispensation from toca/gow given they have been in the series since 2007 and the team committed to returning at the last meeting. Nick Hamilton was a guest entry hence half series and no championship points for him.

Anyway back to the weekends rd at knockhill who do we recon to be the 3 winners and pole I think tordoff pole and race one win, priaulx race 2 winner and collard race 3 winner after a reverse grid pole. Could be way off but its a strong bmw track.

[MG CHRIS]

tux said:

Expect to see Plato start from pitlane tomorrow with soft tyres for race 1.

Looks likely tbh its not a strong track for the passats and its the only way to have atleast 1 good result.

priaulx and tordoff 1-2 as expected Jackson 3rd great result for them and both morgan and moffet in the top 10 as well. Going to be a close weekend of racing ahead. Bmws are going to gain a big advantage over the Hondas and passats.

Edited by MG CHRIS on Saturday 22 August 18:19

[MG CHRIS]

iva cosworth said:

Jackson 3rd is a great result at only their second meeting back.

I'm going for a Priaulx 1st and a Jackson 2nd in race 1.

Tordoff will fluff the start,again.

That sounds about right with collard or tordoff in 3rd. I do think bmw will win all 3 races and the only chance of plato getting a top 5 finish in one race is to do what he did at corft. The passats will struggle around here. Its going to be very close in the championship coming out of knockhill.

Rockingham will be anyone to play for and Silverstone being a Passat track its all to play for at brands hatch with 6 drivers still in with a chance of the title.

[MG CHRIS]

tux said:

iva cosworth said:

TOCA said that they weren't going to do anything about this starting from the pits "loophole" but I

just think it's robbing the fans some of the spectacle.

Rule change required imo.

I agree, much rather see Plato race through the pack than hot lap but the way the rules are at the moment you lose more racing than you do hot lapping in race 1.

Tbh I would too but how far up would he get with a heavy Passat around a track really not suited to the car maybe nudge the top 10 if that. The be in the firing line for accident in race 2 if that happens hes out of race 2 and back of the grid for race 3 which would be the worst case for him.

He sacrafices race 1 to get a good grid in race 2 and removing weight which will help him. He then can remain in the top 10 for a better reverse race grid draw. Its a potential of 2 ok race and one no score over 3 low scoring races or even worse 2 no points finishes.
To many times hes gone all out for race wins and that has lost him titles when it goes wrong hes playing the long game and is looking at Silverstone for the track to get him 1/2 wins minimum.

[MG CHRIS]

iva cosworth said:

iva cosworth said:

Jackson 3rd is a great result at only their second meeting back.

I'm going for a Priaulx 1st and a Jackson 2nd in race 1.

Tordoff will fluff the start,again.

Told you so.....

Good race that.

Yea good race bmw race 1 win as expected not expecting it to be a collard win though. Good race for Jackson pushed a bit to hard at the beginning paid the price at the end. Brilliant scrap with shedden/Austin/neal all race too. Did it really work that well for plato well considering he starts just behing turks not much more to be had. I would think he be after a reverse grid race good start.

[MG CHRIS]

So who we going for on race 2 win tordoff im going for.

[MG CHRIS]

iva cosworth said:

There you go.

I have no idea how Jackson defended 2nd place on the outside of turn 1....

Colin can't blame Priaulx for the clash surely ?

Good win for shedden race 3 will be interesting plato possibility of a pole or top 4 or if really unlucky number 6 will be picked. Unlucky with turks and tordoff.

[MG CHRIS]

Merc 1-2 for the 3rd race trying to be like f1 I see hheheheh.

Line is up is good should be a lively race.

[MG CHRIS]

tux said:

Why are the licenses even needed at the moment though? The grid isnt at capacity.

Apparently it was behind closed doors. There was meant to be 32 cars on the grid(3rd mg fell through at the last minute) with nick Hamilton being the 33 driver as a guest. That is why he only done half the season and missed knockhill as knockhill can only run 32 but the other tracks can run more.

It doesn't mean nothing unless they do something else ie what happened with Honda last year or the year before its a warning another problem then will become a loss of a license.

[MG CHRIS]

Also as suspected priaulx will miss rockingham driver tba shortly.

[MG CHRIS]

rscott said:

The Wookie said:

Basically it means they've lost their right to return with the car in next season and have to apply along with anyone else that wants to enter BTCC.

Frankly I'm surprised that TOCA have done this given the leniency shown elsewhere, particularly given the indisputable reason for a driver not turning up compared to some fairly spurious excuses knocking around at times!

Are you sure they've withdrawn the TBL for next year? The announcement seems to suggest it's only been suspended for the rest of this season? The post on btcc.net is so badly worded it's almost impossible to work out what they actually mean.

it means its not automatically accepted for next year they will have to apply for the 2nd license which looks likely tbh. Rumours going around is a manufacture is back next year and gow/toca want a few licenses back for it.

[MG CHRIS]

emicen said:

Reading the article he is (to be fair, as usual) very forthright in his distain for understeer and FWD. Also mentions manufacturer support being critical as Audi aren't interested and even parts discount would be a game changer.

Infiniti weren't all that wholehearted (for appearances anyway) in their support of the current team and have now had their fingers burnt somewhat.

Mercedes have the Cicely connection and I don't see that being overcome.

BMW, via WSR or otherwise, are compromised aerodynamically and he references how good the Passat CCs are in that respect.

Off the top of my head, that leaves Lexus. Toyota didn't achieve much with their Avensis promotion, would Lexus fair better with the IS, hard to say and it's the same organisation really.

They need something coupe rather than hatch, and RWD to fit his needs. There's not a lot of options out there.

The new alfa will be rwd however its a big car and would loss its current engine pretty cheap for exposer for the new model perhaps, lexus is another interesting point they haven't entered tbh apart from with the is200 in the early to mid 00s.

[MG CHRIS]

marshall100 said:

Vauxhall?

Cant see it unless last choice rob wants rwd and unless they enter with the vrx8 if its even in production anymore then it be a fwd model which he doesn't want.
Wonder if they will use the parts from the a4 are will be sold on to other teams.

[MG CHRIS]

Hamish Finn said:

MG CHRIS said:

Cant see it unless last choice rob wants rwd and unless they enter with the vrx8 if its even in production anymore then it be a fwd model which he doesn't want.
Wonder if they will use the parts from the a4 are will be sold on to other teams.

Engine, subframes, suspension, in fact all the running gear? Why sell that when you can bolt it all on to a new shell (of whatever manufacturer)?

Well they could sell both cars to fund the new build with new parts but yea I would say that they use the parts from the a4.

[MG CHRIS]

JZZ30 said:

What about Indian owned Jaguar and the XE? Pure fantasy?

Could be an option be epic to have jaguar back on the grid.

On other news rml have taken over the roll of parts supplier from gprm for the standardised toca parts.

[MG CHRIS]

Wh00sher said:

Having been away this weekend, I finally managed to watch the Knockhill races. Thoroughly enjoyed them too.

Really surprised with the lack of track limits warnings though. Almost every driver had all 4 wheels off the circuit at the chicane, at some circuits they run a wheel on the grass and get the circuit limits flag, but at Knockhill it was lap after lap. Why the lack of consistency ?

I`ve picked an extreme example from the absolutely superb FlatOut album on Facebook. but there are many others where the car is completely off the circuit..


That`s just ridiculous.

Or is it down to msv not owning knockhill so not quite as concerned with their grass. The thing is everyone does it at that corner well apart from the fords so it be like giving a penality to the full grid kind of pointless.

[MG CHRIS]

Wh00sher said:

MG CHRIS said:

The thing is everyone does it at that corner

Doesn`t make it right though.

Whilst I appreciate the job of a racing driver is to get round as quick as possible, isn`t the idea to try and stay on the tarmac ? That`s a challenging chicane if you keep on the tarmac, they are just straight lining it.

Yeah, it might be the same for all of them, but it just seems very inconsistent to me. Some circuits, not only MSV ones, police the track limits yet others don`t.

Not disagreeing with you on that one but each track is ran differently so this sort of thing will always happen.

[MG CHRIS]

Wh00sher said:

Any ideas on who will be driving Priaulx`s BMW at Rockingham ?

seen some hints on facebook from wsr but nothing official yet.