It's time to lose Ballast

[Reido Rules]

I did initially support the Ballast system in the BTCC, but now I'm adament that we do not need it. The cars and drivers are now closer than they were when the system was introduced. Proof that the system is surplus to requirements is the fact that Vauxhall with hardly any ballast in race 1 at Brands, were not exactly dominant.

In my view the Ballast system, only serves to take drivers out the equation. Warren Hughes won race 1 at Brands, but he certainly wasn't dominant, and the MG and the Vauxhall were evenly matched, but in race 2 he had no answers. Now that the cars can race each other competitively, even when on equal weights, and some occassions it takes a driver who won a close race out of the equation, making it look as though he dominated race 1.

Let the cream rise to the top of the coffee, we don't need synthetic racing any more, the real thing is here!

[sunflower]

Is ballast like a sack of potatoes filled up to the required weight then just placed in the car where the other seats would have been?

[SPARK Msport]

I would had thought adding ballast to where you were in the championship would make it more exciting then where you finish in a race...

...but yea, get rid of the ballast, F1 was able to answer their problems without ballast, time the BTCC did the same :-)

[Reido Rules]

I certainly think changing ballast in the same weekend is stupid, sometimes a driver might only win one race in a season, and his chance of a second on a circuit he's doing well on is taken away, he might not be anywhere for the rest of the season.

Entertainment issues can be solved in other ways.

[Sim_Da_BTCC_Man]

Originally posted by sunflower
Is ballast like a sack of potatoes filled up to the required weight then just placed in the car where the other seats would have been?

The higher up the results a driver finsishes, he is given more weight to add to the car in the next race in the form of balast blocks which can be placed around the car.

[100%VauxhallFan]

I thought the balast system is doing quite well. Turkington might never have won without it in place. It creates new winners.

No. I'm all in favour of it. Lets keep it.

[racer69]

But if Turkington couldn't win without others being weighed down with success ballast, did he really deserve to win?

[Reido Rules]

Good point racer69, with Warren Hughes pulled back, with a comparitive shed, was Turkington really any betetr than him.

Lets not forget the circumstances in which he took the win!

[SPARK Msport]

I think doing it by championship placing is better. So it gives the others a chance to catch up. Then the person at the front of the championship really has to work hard to keep his championship lead...that could be a way of showing a TRUE champion???

I'm happy for Turkington, it was a mistake by Muller in the first place anyway. Makes up for his lost second place in May at Brands, and all his problems. He is a fast driver, just needs the right car really. But then it was a shame for Warren who should had won the second race...say if they were to get rid of the ballest, turn the grid upside down for the second race. So, the person who finishs 10th in the first race, gets pole for the second. Who ever finishs 9th, goes 2nd...etc etc. Something i've seen in the ETCC, always exciting watching the Alfas move there way up the field!

[FABIADOZA]

Colin Turkington is a young gun rubbing salt into sore wounds. Running without ballast would be a good idea as it would be down to driver skills not team orders to take out the opposition.

[Reido Rules]

This is not an Anti-Turkington thing, because I'm sure you will remember how vocal I was in supporting MG's decision to sign him up, so I was quite pleased to see him win.

I just don't think that drivers should succeed to be punished. We should be rewarding success, and punishing idiots, anybody say lets put 80Kg's on Mullers car for the rest of the season?

[mr_x]

Yea Ballast should go. it was good a few years ago cos it helped tighten things up again.

[ATF]

Originally posted by 100%VauxhallFan
I thought the balast system is doing quite well. Turkington might never have won without it in place. It creates new winners.

Without ballast on any of the cars, I think any one of Reid, Hughes, Turkington, Muller, Thompson, Neal or maybe Morrison could have won that race. I think not having Hughes heavy on ballast would mean he could have stayed with Muller and we would have got a more exciting race!

[The Bear]

When the ETCC cars race in the BTCC ballast will have to be used. BTCC this year has been excellent, why change it?

[Neil Adams]

-btcc this year has ballast
-the only change is to allow etcc cars into the championship. They will probably ballast the btcc spec cars to compensate as etcc cars arnt as advanced meaning we'll have a larger field of cars closer in performance to each other.
- how is this not good?

why change it...
- to get the btcc to grow its in limbo at the moment
- to get more manufacturers into the championship!
- to get it back to the good old days!
- due to the etcc rules change four production teams have announced their plans to move up to touring class, with plans for eleven plus cars between them, this has got to be good!!

ballast has been used this year so whats the problem with it having to be used next year?

[Reido Rules]

Ballast has helped screw up some races this year, so that's why we should change it.

As far as I have been told, the ETCC cars will not be in driect competition with the BTCC ones, I hear that there will be an ETCC class, and that there are no plans currently to compensate the tech difference with weight. Pit-stops will be scraped to help the euro's and races will be shorter but other than that, there will be no changes. (at the moment)

[touringlegend]

So who would be overall champ then? The fastest? The ETCC cars? The BTCC cars ?

[Craig]

There will be one class - the difference in performance will be equalled out using ballast.

[paulzinho]

Yeah and hopefully with a certain pair of BMW's in front!

[david_james2000]

Here us what i've posted on the TOCA forum to Alan Gow.


"1 Its about time you ditch the success ballast. Because as I see it the team have to develop 2 types of car one that runs well with ballast and one that runs well without success ballast and that equals more development costs, as we've see this year the Vauxhalls go well no matter what ballast there have but Honda and MG do loss out once there have the ballast added. But at the start of the year when everyone ran with no success ballast everyone was quite completive until you stuck the ballast in and the Vauxhalls started running away with it.

2 Bring back the sprit race and feature race but keep the pit stop in the feature race, also keep the late in the day Snetterton race or even a night race??? And if the CART race is off this year can we have the Knockhill race back (I know CART haven’t announced anything yet but there are on a cost cutting mission at the moment and we might not see CART back here in the UK for a while).

3 Qualifying. How about on the Saturday the team have a 40min qualifying session to determine the grid for Sunday 2nd race the feature race and on the Sunday morning 1st thing running reverse order to Saturday 40min qualifying session for a 1 shot shoot out for Sunday 1st race the sprit race. But in the 40min qualifying session each driver is allocated 2 sets of tyres, which there must use in that session, also there much complete at least 10laps but no more then 20laps for there qualifying times to stand if there don’t do 10lap or go over 20lap or don’t user both sets of tyres there start from the back of the grid. This will create more on track action on the Sunday for us the fan and also the suspense of no know who going to be on pole for the sprit race until after the 1 shot shoot out.

4 Free Practice I don't know what the rule is for free practice is but there should be a 50min free practice session and each drive has 2 sets of tyres which that can only use in free practice. Private testing (see my post about How to make BTCC more competitive that I posted 4th June 2003 about the Private testing)"

[SPARK Msport]

...now im looking forward to 2004. Just hope that at some point someone can come on here and tell us next years rules and regs on ballast, races...etc.

[paulzinho]

I have to say I did prefer the sprint/feature race format for last year, why they changed it I have no idea but its not as good. Also preffered the old 43 minute qualifying for the grid, though David's suggestion there sounds interesting, if not a little confusing!

As for ballast, hard to say now that the ETCC cars are coming in.

[ATF]

Originally posted by paulzinho
I have to say I did prefer the sprint/feature race format for last year, why they changed it I have no idea but its not as good. Also preffered the old 43 minute qualifying for the grid, though David's suggestion there sounds interesting, if not a little confusing!

They change the race format so that it would be easier for the public to understand how the BTCC works.

As for qualifying - this new system sucks and last years was still confusing with having the two 20-min sessions so close together. Bring back the one-shot showdown! Quality!

[redshoes]

I think we can dafely say that there will be no pit-stops next year. ETCC cars don't have the single centre-lock wheelnuts, they use the same 4 or 5 stud (road-style) wheels as the current Production cars. Pits stops with those would take far too long.

[Neil Adams]

i can live with no pit stops but not shorter races!