Silverstone BTCC

[Graham]

decadence said:

No, that is better torque due to boost not chassis etc, hence why Jason had a moan about the Ford of Arron Smiths at Knockhill ... Jacksons NGTC ford was over boosted even more than the MG, at a track like silverstone it really became very very apparent to all but the Plato fans.

how the heck can more torque give you more grip to hold a tighter line mid bend, and get the power down earlier and still hold a tighter line.

The MG may well be extracting better performance from its motor, but the chassis was definitely giving him more grip through the corners..

you can have all the torque you want ( i have about 400ft/lb) but without grip you cant use it.. I had a cracking race against a club sport car at silly stone last year, I had about 3 times the power and twice the weight, and could muller him on the straights, but through luffield he could just drive up my inside whilst I had to just wait off the throttle running wider until I had the grip to nail it..

Im no particular fan of any of the bumper car drivers but that Mg had impressive grip... maybe the conspiracy theorists should be looking at his rubber

[Wh00sher]

StoatInACoat said:

Decadence,

I think everyone gets how you feel about Potato now but you need to lay off a bit......the endless repetitive posts about stuff that's happened during previous races, things he's said etc etc are a bit obsessive and you are beginning to ruin perfectly good threads.

There are a few drivers out there I think are complete tools and I will give my opinion here and there but you are getting a little extreme about this Plato hate thing.

[decadence]

Wh00sher said:

Some people need to learn about torque......

Derfinition of 'parity':

When Jason Plato wins.

Best thing which i think is actual genius i am totally in awe of it. Team MG cheap energy drink poor person supermarket 888, have done a blinder by getting Andy Neate the worst BTCC driver in living memory to come on board with his millions spend more developing time on JP's car let Neate look the total useless embicle that he is therefore making people believe thats how bad the MG is (its not O'Neal would of been JP wing man all season if he was in that MG)
Benefit is 2 fold, one Alan Gow has to take into account BOTH MG's, not just JP's, so while JP walks races Neate doing his usual thing of tripping over scenery and being unable to drive a BTCC car anywhere near its capabilities means that ToCA have to base any boost reduction on both cars....
2nd reason its great is that it makes JP look even better than he is, so he can say that he is extracting stuff out of that car cause he is super human touring car racer that has stuck around in BTCC for 15 years and not achieved anything else...........

Honda have Mat Neal and Sheddon, two of the best drivers in one team that also happens to be one of the best teams, if Neate was in one of those Hondas at start of the season maybe Honda wouldnt of got so penalised.....just a thought...have a crap pay for driver in car 2 to bring in the readies and make your car look crap for Alan Gow come boost level time.....its utter genius! Bond villain genius!!
I tip my hat.

And again to highlight that triple 8 despite JP saying the MG has been a 'pig to drive' all season bar Silverstone, well triple 8 dont engineer 'pigs'...hence why the Vectra of Newsham goes so well with triple 8's base line set up unchanged and that car is how old now?? 4 years? 5?

[The Wookie]

decadence said:

Benefit is 2 fold, one Alan Gow has to take into account BOTH MG's, not just JP's, so while JP walks races Neate doing his usual thing of tripping over scenery and being unable to drive a BTCC car anywhere near its capabilities means that ToCA have to base any boost reduction on both cars....

In the interest of fairness as far as I'm aware the boost calculation is done on the basis of the fastest car of its type in each session.

[decadence]

LiamM45 said:

Yes but when that car comes on boost it still had enough grip to hold it's line while powering out of the bend. Plato's car did exactly that, infact he got on the power before the other cars could, that's not torque, that's a good chassis.

Either way, to create the effect you are talking about you could map the car to bring the boost in lower down? Unless the ECU maps are locked by TOCA?

From guy who produces Ford turbos: David Mountain


"With a turbocharged engine, the turbocharger actually pressurises the inlet system. That makes a massive difference to performance, and more importantly, to the torque of the engine. At low engine speeds, you can get quite incredible torque figures. Therefore, any slight change in boost pressure – even quite a small change, say 50 millibars – makes a noticeable difference to horsepower and torque."

"Torque is what propels the car out of corners; what accelerates the car. The horsepower is its ability to maintain acceleration at higher speed. In fact you will see quite a difference from both aspects. One on how fast the car will accelerate from a low speed to a medium speed. Then you will see a difference with the car's top speed, which you will see on the speed traps."

From Jason Plato: quite why he was showing us how unfair it was, clearly by reading the above and seeing both MG and Mat Jackson fasted bellow, imagine how much faster that got to their top speed as well....silverstone was a joke, messing about with boost is a joke...

jasonplato said:
Just in case any of you are interested in facts, here are some:

Silverstone Official mph Speed Trap figures: number is an average of Q, R1,R2,R3 bests

Trap 1: Wellington Straight

Matt Jackson 137.77
Jason Plato 134.73
Matt Neal 132.00
Gordon Shedden 131.53

Trap 2: Finish Line

Matt Jackson 127.47
Jason Plato 125.85
Matt Neal 122.48
Gordon Shedden 122.80

Edited by decadence on Tuesday 9th October 09:01

[decadence]

The Wookie said:

decadence said:

Benefit is 2 fold, one Alan Gow has to take into account BOTH MG's, not just JP's, so while JP walks races Neate doing his usual thing of tripping over scenery and being unable to drive a BTCC car anywhere near its capabilities means that ToCA have to base any boost reduction on both cars....

In the interest of fairness as far as I'm aware the boost calculation is done on the basis of the fastest car of its type in each session.

Hairy muff, cheers for that.
Can i ask, does all this boost stuff annoy you? can you actually see race to race if someone has more?
Like suddenly they are just 'quicker' than you......
i think we are still another year off this whole 'parity' argument taking a back burner....

[airbusA346]

Does anyone know if the support races are available anywhere to watch, seen as ITV don't think people want to see them again.

[The Wookie]

decadence said:

Hairy muff, cheers for that.
Can i ask, does all this boost stuff annoy you? can you actually see race to race if someone has more?
Like suddenly they are just 'quicker' than you......
i think we are still another year off this whole 'parity' argument taking a back burner....

It's very, very annoying. If you're racing against a car with significantly more poke then it leaves you absolutely helpless to attacking cars down the straights and unable to pass without going for a lunge on the brakes. At Silverstone I was going around the outside of cars in front of me at Becketts so I could cut back and get hard on the throttle in a straight line before the car in front of me had even touched the gas, and even then I could only just about hang onto the slipstream of the other slowest cars, certainly not pull alongisde. Thankfully with the sort of people I'm racing against I brake massively later and can carry more speed into the corner, so I can still pass one or two people, but I'm limited.

You can see it manifest itself over a race distance at Silverstone, in both races I started I got a good start, mugged a few people on the first lap, and then got picked off by a couple of cars at a time down every straight over the next few laps and end up back where I started.

If I catch up with someone slower than me then it takes me a while to get past them, and if I've been hanging on for grim death trying to keep a gap from a following car then they usually just drive up my backside and then straight past both me and the car in front of me, before disappearing into the distance while I'm struggling to pass the car in front whilst being able to make it stick down the next straight rather than having to defend and lose time on what's ahead.

Our engine is running at maximum boost and as I've said before it just doesn't make any more power for the extra boost like the other engines. The Audi's are suffering too but are helped by the corner exit offered by RWD.

[StoatInACoat]

That would suggest that this "plan" of TOCA's to raise all the cars to a 400bhp output next year is going to be a non starter for some teams and require new engines for others including RAR who have built a car to meet full NGTC specs

It's getting silly now. The last two seasons have been dominated by this messing about with the scoreboard to make it "interesting" and penalising both big teams and small ones in the process. I really thought the whole point this year was that there would PROPER equalisation at the start of the season and then they would just leave it alone.

[Mark Benson]

airbusA346 said:

Does anyone know if the support races are available anywhere to watch, seen as ITV don't think people want to see them again.

Have a look for 'Motorsport UK' on one of the ITV channels, usually at some obscure time. Over the few weeks following the event most of the support races will be shown.

From the 2 support races I've seen so far (I recorded the entire ITV4 programme on Sunday) and my own experience of racing the Club circuit at Silverstone, be prepared for a bit of a dull procession in most races.

[decadence]

I think the key thing here is simply that if all the cars are on same boost then its apparent that the Hondas have the best package of Driver / car which i think we can be honest in saying is correct as they have two great drivers and not just one like MG (3 if you include satellite team with Jordan).
So when Honda were winning races they did so NOT cause they were running higher boost level to the rest, they did it cause they were on the day the better package...

What we see at Silverstone is that the lesser teams get increase in boosts to get level with Hondas hard work time and money....
I think people get confused into thinking that Honda win due to having more boost and its just been cut back now, they dont they just have the best car / drivers.....

Why should in motorsport or any sport the best be pegged back at all?

If a driver and team win races due mainly to boost increase its fake and its a mockery of the sport which is about triumphs of engineering, not turning up the boost over some better engineered cars.

Why are JP and triple 888 so scared to go head to head with Honda on equal boost?

[Graham]

do toca list mid corner speeds anywhere, that would be interesting to see

[jasonplato]

Im wasting my time in this forum, some of you people are total and utter fools. Then we get to Decadence, lordy lordy, you need to see a doctor.
Would people please take the biased fan glasses off. The best thing people could do is understand the rules, then you might have something constructive to say.

I will leave you with some more facts.(although i'm sure certain people will not take the facts on-board)

All the turbo engines were analysed at the beginning of the season by turbo engine experts appointed by TOCA to check flow rates, torque and BHP, the baseline boost pressure for each engine was then set to equalise the advantages/disadvantages that the various engines may have due to their basic design. An in season rolling boost adjustment calculation was agreed by all the teams. In simple terms, lap times from the 2 previous race meetings (qual, R1,R2 and R3) are used to decide the boost adjustments. The formula for this adjustment was decided and agreed by all the teams at the beginning of the season. For the record, boost adjustments can only go up and not down from the baseline boost. So when people say Hondas boost has been reduced, they are talking rubbish. What it means is that Honda have not had a boost increase because their lap times from the previous 2 race meetings mean they were the quickest! For the record, only the fastest car is taken into account when adjusting the boost.

Maybe we might have a sensible thread, but I doubt it.

Ding ding

[Adrian W]

jasonplato said:

Stuff about boost

So knowing this was coming did the MG's go slower for the previous two meetings.

[Mark Benson]

decadence said:

Why should in motorsport or any sport the best be pegged back at all?

If a driver and team win races due mainly to boost increase its fake and its a mockery of the sport which is about triumphs of engineering, not turning up the boost over some better engineered cars.

Why are JP and triple 888 so scared to go head to head with Honda on equal boost?

It's not about being 'scared', it's about working within the rules to make sure you have the biggest advantage - 888 and Plato are very good at that (maybe that's what he teaches at his academy ).

Don't blame the player, blame the game - this is a big cash cow for Alan Gow (hey, I'm a poet....) and in order to keep everyone guessing until the final round, he or his technical people muck about with 'equalisation' so that no-one can pull out a significant points lead and run away with the season - a series is always more exciting if it goes down to the wire than if one driver or team romps away and are untouchable by the mid-point of the season.
It keeps people watching and it keeps the drivers and the teams at loggerheads - which is good for the TV 'story' of BTCC.

That's why the BTCC is becoming more and more of a pantomime, with Plato as the wicked wizard ("He's behind you...."), Neal as Widow Twky, Shedden as the principal boy and Neate as the back end of the pantomime horse - It's all about ratings chasing. BTCC has unprecedented TV coverage and Gow wants as many people tuning in to see the next installment as possible - threads such as this one generate interest in a sport which, before Gow was looking a bit sickly if we're honest.

You might not like it - I don't particularly - but every motorsport fan I know watches it at some point in the season, plus a lot of people with a passing interest who wouldn't turn up to see me plod round Croft in the pouring rain no matter how many free tickets I gave them. Think of it as entertainment and not as a race series.

Of course, whether Gow should head the MSA as well as manage the BTCC is another question - as I posted earlier, surely it undermines his authority in setting rules for the rest of us when his golden geese can bounce off one another and publicly slag one another off with impunity. But who am I, I just stump up for a National Licence once a year.....

[playalistic]

This equalisation sounds so complex to enforce (reliably) no wonder it's a complete minefield.

I'd side with JP's logic but for the fact that most of the teams make the same complaints regarding unfair boost as being levelled by some of the posters here. So somebody has got it wrong. I'm just not sure who

[S0 What]

jasonplato said:

Maybe we might have a sensible thread, but I doubt it.

Ding ding

Doubt it, this site is full off arse kickers and lickers, they either fully want to ram thier tongue up somones arse or kick that same arse to next wednesday, all of course in the name of freedom of speach, internet is here for this reason ect ect, then come the worst of all, the repeaters they go on and on and on and well you all get the point, it's been quite a "Journey" and on that bad play on a songs lyrics i'm signing out

[ArnageWRC]

Mark Benson said:

Of course, whether Gow should head the MSA as well as manage the BTCC is another question - as I posted earlier, surely it undermines his authority in setting rules for the rest of us when his golden geese can bounce off one another and publicly slag one another off with impunity. But who am I, I just stump up for a National Licence once a year.....

It should be one or the other, not both. A conflict if interest surely?

[Adrian W]

playalistic said:

This equalisation sounds so complex to enforce (reliably) no wonder it's a complete minefield.

I'd side with JP's logic but for the fact that most of the teams make the same complaints regarding unfair boost as being levelled by some of the posters here. So somebody has got it wrong. I'm just not sure who

As I said about 20 pages ago, it's not how much boost that is important, its how and where it makes the boost, you can completely change the Characteristics of the engine with different cams and playing with the timing, To equalise the cars the Torque and power curves would need to be the same, if they publish the graphs you could see the truth about the different cars

[Vocal Minority]

Mark Benson said:

Neal as Widow Twky

Gotta love the swear filter.

Thanks to Mr Plato for the information on how the boost is calculated, that is something I didn't know - all I had heard was heresay - and if the teams signed up to it then it is fair enough.

Though as an armchair enthusiast, I would suggest maybe the rules would benefit from a bit of further fine tuning, as the swings in form that they produce are a bit wild to those watching on and coupled with a lack of clarity with the rules on turbo boost (or at least lack of clarity in how they are communicated to the layman) it is easy to see why this sort of conjecture and arguing occurs.

As I said earlier there are valid commercial concerns for equivalency, it is a lot of peoples livlihoods and getting bums on seats is the priority essentially.

However, whilst I understand (and fully accept) Jason's explanation above, some more clarity and communication from the organisers (or even each teams press officers) would help to soothe the uneasiness I previously mentioned as to precisely where these relatively drastic variations in form from weekend to weekend come from. After all the fans are the customers and the other half of the 'transaction' (if you look at it in cold hard terms).

Just my tuppenceworth (which is precisely what I have been told it is worth).