[BTCC] Round Ten, Brands Hatch GP 23-24 Oct, Races 28,29&30

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Greem

Notably he also doesn't get involved in rubbishing his competitors in interviews, or on social media. He's quite the smooth operator, isn't he?

Clearly not what we want in BTCC.

We need heroes and villains, or faces and heels for the entertainment. Then we can watch faces turn-heel, factions form, proper feuds develop and real heat can be generated.
All we have now are a bunch of tweeners, sticking to kayfabe with Sutton being the one monster.

[antnee]

Big back the good old days of Neal and Plato smashing each other's cars up!

[S griffin]

I don't think we will see Neal back. Plato will just have to do his best to compete with others. He'll probably be back with Vauxhall next year, despite a disappointing year

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by antnee

Big back the good old days of Neal and Plato smashing each other's cars up!

and eachother literally

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAk0MI4E8UA

[hen henths]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

And it seems that pretty well all the top drivers appreciated his winning the title this year, and I think that it churlish for armchair viewers to criticise the system or regulations because he was the class of the field by some margin.

Yeah, I don't always like Shedden's persona but I was impressed by the way in his interview he directed the conversation back to Sutton's achievement. There seemed to be real recognition and respect there.

[hen henths]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Well sounds like Ash wants his future in the BTCC for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, I'd been hoping he'd go for five or more titles, so it was nice to hear him spell that out. In that interview after he said he wanted to go in the history books, to equal Colin and then carry on, it sounded like he said something like:

if that means ten championships that's what we'll do

but I couldn't hear the word that sounded like ten properly. Did anyone else hear that?

[hen henths]

Originally Posted by S griffin

For me he did all that was required. To do it in spite of the ballast was a great achievement and shows what he was up against. He’s a tin top legend, one who could win in any series and should be remembered for years to come

That's the biggest illustration of his unique talent, I think. He wins in whatever vehicle he steps into: an oddly handling Subaru, a Lotus Cortina, and at the start of the pandemic in the TCR Australia ARG eSport Cup he won some of the races with an absolutely enormous gap against other professional racers.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by S griffin

For me he did all that was required. To do it in spite of the ballast was a great achievement and shows what he was up against. He’s a tin top legend, one who could win in any series and should be remembered for years to come

The matter of how quick the car was even with full ballast onboard was mentioned quite a few times on ITV's coverage, and at least twice I think last Sunday for the Finals. Apparently, when the Moffat's, BRM and whoever else was involved in the initial build of the current race winning Infinitis, they specifically engineered them to be able to carry maximum success ballast.

This, one would assume from the comments made, was something that other teams don't normally do and one could also infer that they were being a bit ahead of themselves to so do. But it obviously paid dividends, because especially in Sutton's hand, they were able to get a fastest lap even when carrying maximum ballast.

I think that over the winter, a number of those front running teams will be trying to adapt their cars to carry the extra weight that will come with the new hybrid system, otherwise it is possible that the Infinitis will start the new season with a built-in advantage.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

The matter of how quick the car was even with full ballast onboard was mentioned quite a few times on ITV's coverage, and at least twice I think last Sunday for the Finals. Apparently, when the Moffat's, BRM and whoever else was involved in the initial build of the current race winning Infinitis, they specifically engineered them to be able to carry maximum success ballast.

That is definitely true - and the car obviously appears to run better with weight than some others in the field.

What I find interesting is to look at the average finishing position of the top 7 cars in Races 1, 2 & 3.

Sutton averaged 7.4 as his finishing position in R1, slightly better than Turkington and only bettered by Shedden and Cook.
The R2 results show that Sutton averaged a 4th place finish, closely finished by Cook with a noticeable gap to Ingram.
The R3 results are where Sutton really capitalised, averaging a 4.5 compared to the nearest rival of Hill on 5.9.

I know that going into each weekend, things were not always equal - but the top seven regularly carried some form of ballast heading in. Ingram, Cook, Turkington and Sutton all seemed to improve once the ballast was lower, and the Sutton really capitalised in R3.

What do I interpret from this. The Infiniti was not 'unbeatable' with weight in - but that Sutton/BMR/Carozza planned their campaign from back in the design stage of the build to be carrying weight into each weekend. They scored consistent (but not blistering) results and built over each weekend.

Contrast this to when we have seen criticism of other 'dominant' cars.
2019 - The BMW was carrying ballast into each weekend and still scored the majority of points in R1 and R2.
2017 - The Subaru (from Oulton) again scored most points in R1 and R2 of each weekend.

Other than the BMW, cars seemed to drop in performance once they got their R1 or R2 ballast added, and so appear to carry weight less well.

Sutton and Turkington look to have carried weight well over a weekend, Sutton slightly better so.
Cook, Ingram and Butcher seem to better in R2 once the weight is out, and then drop again in R3 with ballast added again.
Hill seemed to take until R3 to get the weight out and then score well.
Shedden's results were too variable to reach a conclusion.

	R1 Average	R2 Average	R3 Average
Ashley Sutton	7.4	4.1	4.6
Colin Turkington	8.4	7.1	6.1
Josh Cook	6.4	4.6	9.0
Tom Ingram	8.7	5.9	9.1
Jake Hill	8.4	9.4	5.9
Gordon Shedden	6.8	10.0	8.1
Rory Butcher	7.9	5.1	9.5

[Sodemo]

How free are the teams to position the hybrid stuff in the car? Say can they place the batteries in a location that is designated by them or do they have to go in a specified place?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

How free are the teams to position the hybrid stuff in the car? Say can they place the batteries in a location that is designated by them or do they have to go in a specified place?

The battery pack is mounted in the passenger footwell, the same place success ballast is currently put.
Motor is integrated into gearbox.
Cooling (I think) is in a mandated location.

[AnnoyedMoose]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

How free are the teams to position the hybrid stuff in the car? Say can they place the batteries in a location that is designated by them or do they have to go in a specified place?

The only place they would really fit is where the ballast box is now. I can't think of any other place that has space and would make sense.

Pretty sure it's a rule that it must go there as there is a lot of mention of safety cells around it so letting teams put it where they want would lead to all sorts of expensive safety testing.

[Sodemo]

Reason I ask about that is that BMW were ordered to move the ballast box further forward in about 2016 (at a guess) in order for them to have a worse weight distribution on the 1-series. So that would mean then that the ideal spot for such weighty items would be further rearward in some cars?

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

That is definitely true - and the car obviously appears to run better with weight than some others in the field.

What I find interesting is to look at the average finishing position of the top 7 cars in Races 1, 2 & 3.

I admire your patience for doing such detailed research. Even though I certainly have the time to do it, being retired and pretty much housebound currently, it's not something that I could or would do.

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I think that over the winter, a number of those front running teams will be trying to adapt their cars to carry the extra weight that will come with the new hybrid system, otherwise it is possible that the Infinitis will start the new season with a built-in advantage.

I don't know about being specifically built to carry weight but in previous years WSR have certainly done a lot of pre-season testing with ballast

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Reason I ask about that is that BMW were ordered to move the ballast box further forward in about 2016 (at a guess) in order for them to have a worse weight distribution on the 1-series. So that would mean then that the ideal spot for such weighty items would be further rearward in some cars?

It was actually ahead of the 2015 season the regulations were amended, and you are right that the ballast box was moved further forward for all RWD cars (the Audi was also affected).

The intent was to put more weight back over the front axle, to counter the RWD 'advantage' of an engine being further back in the chassis. The regulations were amended to "rear-wheel-drive cars will carry their success ballast as far forward in the cabin as possible, in order to better equalise the front to rear weight balance between both drivetrain formats".

That was also the time when Plato hinted at the Subaru plan:
"I've got some really exciting opportunities in the BTCC," said Plato. "We're looking at those and [Plato's marketing company] Brand Pilot is speaking to manufacturers.

"We want a manufacturer to work with, from a marketing perspective.

"But at the minute, it's very difficult to make a decision on which way to go because we don't know what the regulations will be.

"If they are going to remain as they are, you have to be RWD. If they are going to be penalised and brought back in line with FWD performance, then you don't have to go RWD, and we need to know that."

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by redshoes

I don't know about being specifically built to carry weight but in previous years WSR have certainly done a lot of pre-season testing with ballast

The use of a 3-Series (Ciceley) for some of the hybrid testing will mean that certain data regarding how the car performs with the extra weight is known.

Although it must also be remembered that most of the grid have experienced running their car with the full 75kg this season at some point. The exceptions being HARD. and PMR.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

How free are the teams to position the hybrid stuff in the car? Say can they place the batteries in a location that is designated by them or do they have to go in a specified place?

A bit more detail on the packaging:

'The entire vehicle strategy system has been packaged into one unit. This means that the battery management, motor control strategies, cooling and all of the control surrounding the internal combustion engine is managed by our Antares 8 ECU. This allowed us to cut crucial weight and freed up additional space for the packaging of other components.

The battery pack sits in its own unique safety cell located in an area where the existing success ballast box is positioned, enabling easy accessibility and keeping the weight within an already defined area.

Another apt solution was incorporating the electric motor into the gearbox. We went down this route to satisfy the requirement of the cars needing to run on electric power only when exiting the pits. Considering that the gearboxes are a spec part across the grid, it made sense to integrate the motor in this way.

Utilising a remote cooling system allowed us to overcome some of the packaging challenges. We decided to separate the cooling into two small radiators, one for the battery whilst the other supports the motor and its control unit. This move gave us the scope to maximise the limited space left in areas of freestream airflow, a priority when it comes to efficient cooling of any component. Thus, we mounted the coolers below the headlights and behind the front bumper. The combination of the cooling package and our control capabilities allow precise and accurate management of the motor’s temperature, a very sensitive component that delivers high loads and suffers from gearbox heat-soak.'

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

A bit more detail on the packaging:

'Thus, we mounted the coolers below the headlights and behind the front bumper. The combination of the cooling package and our control capabilities allow precise and accurate management of the motor’s temperature, a very sensitive component that delivers high loads and suffers from gearbox heat-soak.'

This might mean for many drivers that they are more careful about tapping the rear of other's cars.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

This might mean for many drivers that they are more careful about tapping the rear of other's cars.

It depends how far 'behind the front bumper they mount them. There is a quite sturdy metal crash bar/frame mounted directly behind the fibreglass bumpers...

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

This might mean for many drivers that they are more careful about tapping the rear of other's cars.

I think so - there was comment a while ago about how drivers will benefit from protecting the system.

“For us, the difficulty comes with the location of the coolers,” comments Andrew Parker, operations and customer support engineer at PWR. “There’s always a trade-off there between packaging space and the cost of the technology that you choose; because of the vulnerable location right at the front of the car we didn’t want to use anything that would be particularly costly to replace, but that in turn increased the packaging volume that we’d need.”
The stakes are quite high here, he points out, because the electric motor also acts as an alternator supplying the car’s 12-volt system through a DC-DC converter that’s driven from the high-voltage battery. Given the BTCC drivers’ sometimes robust driving styles, it was critical that the motor could continue to function as an alternator even if the cooling system was damaged
and the hybrid side was disabled.
[...]
As it is, the cooling portion of the hybrid system will be supplied as an identical package for all installations. Part of the reason for this was to prevent a ‘cooling war’, Parker notes: “We’ve already seen how much some of the teams spend on optimising their engine cooling and we didn’t want the better-funded outfits to have more options for their hybrid system."

So - break your cooling system and you lose the hybrid power, but still carry the weight around.

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Reason I ask about that is that BMW were ordered to move the ballast box further forward in about 2016 (at a guess) in order for them to have a worse weight distribution on the 1-series. So that would mean then that the ideal spot for such weighty items would be further rearward in some cars?

This is probably part of the testing they did with the 3-series hybrid.

"From there, we were able to set the motor’s position in the Y-axis [across the car]. Next came the X-axis [longitudinally]. We needed the motor far enough away from the gearbox that it would fit, but close enough that we could get the drive into the transmission with some sensible ratios. [...] Positioning the Z-axis [vertically] was important. It’s a 7.4 kg motor, so if it’s too high the driver will feel that in the car. In terms of the all-important centre of gravity, the positioning of the electric motor is still slightly higher and slightly further forward in the front-wheel drive installation. TOCA has a plan to address this without affecting the architecture of the drive system."

A further CoG calculation to be applied between RWD/ FWD cars before 2022?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

It depends how far 'behind the front bumper they mount them. There is a quite sturdy metal crash bar/frame mounted directly behind the fibreglass bumpers...

Right underneath the headlights - and outside of the subframe:

[Pdh]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

The use of a 3-Series (Ciceley) for some of the hybrid testing will mean that certain data regarding how the car performs with the extra weight is known.

Although it must also be remembered that most of the grid have experienced running their car with the full 75kg this season at some point. The exceptions being HARD. and PMR.

You do know the hybrid BMW is a 1 series

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Pdh

You do know the hybrid BMW is a 1 series

Ah - yes, forgot about that.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

It depends how far 'behind the front bumper they mount them. There is a quite sturdy metal crash bar/frame mounted directly behind the fibreglass bumpers...

I would imagine that the set up will be as vulnerable as they are on the Porsches; and we see all too often what happens with them.