[BTCC] Rounds 7, 8, 9 & Test Day at Thruxton, 2017

[AdrianM]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Most seem to think it is driving styles. Over the years, how much has Plato been able to influence a car's performance - and how much has he relied on the input of others (engineers / teammates)?

Sutton seems to be gaining an understanding of how to make the car perform better than the others in it's current configuration.
How much he is able and willing to pass on that expertise to his teammates is a different matter.

Don't think it's as simple as that. Unless he's totally lying Sutton said everything is shared between all of them and there are no secrets.

The change of engineer after having the same one for so long can't be helping Plato but it's not as though he's left the team so the same expertise will be available.

Plato has brought the car into the pits four times during races by my count since the crash at Brands. I just wonder if there is still some lingering effect from there.

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by AdrianM

Plato has brought the car into the pits four times during races by my count since the crash at Brands. I just wonder if there is still some lingering effect from there.

wouldn't be very easy to take Sutton's car, just change numbers and markings during the night

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by AdrianM

Don't think it's as simple as that. Unless he's totally lying Sutton said everything is shared between all of them and there are no secrets.

Sutton may be sharing everything in an open manner in terms of data.
It's more the passing on of 'feel' I am referring to. They may be looking at data from mid-corner for instance and see somewhere Sutton is gaining over his team-mates.
The question is - is Sutton explaining how he is achieving that to the others in way they can use? Sometimes - racer's instinct is the one thing that can't be shared.

Plato put out a rather subdued tweet after the weekend.

'Sorry to all our sponsors and investors' - who is he apologising on behalf of - and for what?

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I think that is something that would be difficult to implement - as most large scale grass mowing methods simply deposit the cuttings back in situ.
Collection then is an expensive, and timely, undertaking.
I agree that it is far from ideal to have people's races impacted by grass cuttings, and maybe there is a lesson identified over the weekend.

It's more a case of timing the mowing to de-conflict with the event. If no mowing is carried out for over a week before, then the cuttings will have time to disperse naturally through rain or air movement.

I think most large scale venues undertake mowing several times before an event so the grass keeps short and the clippings that are left are very small, those looked like large grass clippings so I would suggest that grass was cut when long with a tractor with mower and it was cut a few days before the BTCC rocked up.

I am working on an event to be held on grass in the summer and when we last met with the ground staff they were planning to cut it twice in the same week prior to our event. The grass was already pretty short when we were there and they were out cutting it!

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by Greem

Indeed, and I would fully expect the incident to feed into the planning of the next phase. Bill C did say on TV that the barrier will eventually be >50m further back and a couple of metres higher up once all the backfill is in place. He also said that it isn't the work of a moment (which should be fairly obvious).

I just had a quick look back at the 2014 post meeting discussion, which was pretty interesting in light of yesterday's prang.

I was going to mention barrier height, we couldn't see much in the dust but the MG went pretty high and may well have been close to clearing it and a lighter single seater would probably do that.

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Sutton may be sharing everything in an open manner in terms of data.
It's more the passing on of 'feel' I am referring to. They may be looking at data from mid-corner for instance and see somewhere Sutton is gaining over his team-mates.
The question is - is Sutton explaining how he is achieving that to the others in way they can use? Sometimes - racer's instinct is the one thing that can't be shared.

Plato put out a rather subdued tweet after the weekend.

'Sorry to all our sponsors and investors' - who is he apologising on behalf of - and for what?

Last year JP made it clear that this was his baby, he thought of the car with Carl Faux, he got Subaru and no doubt the sponsors are his too, so now the planis not going to plan, maybe he is feeling the heat - even more so when he is at the back and one of the same cars is up at the sharp end.

No doubt there were/are high expectation and he can see that they are nowhere near realising them.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Moneyseeker

Last year JP made it clear that this was his baby, he thought of the car with Carl Faux, he got Subaru and no doubt the sponsors are his too, so now the planis not going to plan, maybe he is feeling the heat - even more so when he is at the back and one of the same cars is up at the sharp end.

No doubt there were/are high expectation and he can see that they are nowhere near realising them.

I always feel that with Plato there will be more than the public message.
If I was a sponsor or financing in any way, I would expect more than just a short tweet to apologise. In all likelihood, that is already happening behind closed doors.

There will be another reason behind the tweet - and this could be one of a few things I feel:

Apologising on behalf of TOCA for preventing their dominance?
Apologising on behalf of BMR for not being able to engineer the car to success?
An apology on behalf of ITV for not getting any airtime?
Or a simple apology from himself for not being able to drive as fast as Sutton?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by sceptic

It's an issue because you don't want a car to bounce off a tyre wall and spin back onto the track into the path of other cars.

Circuit owners can't just ignore the MSA's safety instructions. If they did, they would lose their operating licence.

Sorry but that doesn't wash. There is a longer run off at Church than other corners, and they had tyres elsewhere. So why can they use them at other corners (which did actually cause a car to bounce back), but not church? The rotational forces injury makes much more sense...but again, there are faster corners in the world that are using them, and safer barriers are a problem. I don't see why armco is the best they can come up with frankly.

As for the Subaru - it didn't lack top speed with Sutton driving it.

[thlbtcc]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

I think the performance difference between the Maximum Focus and the Motorbase cars is the engine - the Maximum car runs the TOCA engine doesn't it? And we know that the Mountune engine in the Motorbase cars took a hit on boost and they're now lacking in grunt (Jackson and Bartrum have both mentioned this in interviews). That doesn't explain the driver situation - Jackson is clearly their best driver, the other 2 are certainly some of the weakest drivers on this years grid - so why are they there? Seems odd to have 3 fully sponsored cars then waste 2 of the seats. Jacksons results seem to have suffered as a result of the cars performance - he's qualifying further back than you'd expect and then getting tangled up in the usual tail end / midfield scrapping as he tries to make progress.

Interesting theory, but the Maximum car is the Ecoboost engine and not the TOCA unit.

[thlbtcc]

Owch. Shame to see this after all the hard work to get the car back on track. Wonder what state the chassis is in?

[luckn002]

Originally Posted by thlbtcc

Owch. Shame to see this after all the hard work to get the car back on track. Wonder what state the chassis is in?

Its a 2012 chasis so probably not great - hoping that after the MG deal runs out 888 will get a more competitive car and be back to their winning ways.

Though looking at the touring car register there seems to be the early stages of a new shell they may end up switching to?

Does anyone know what exactly happened then - contact with Davenport? Who was at fault?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by luckn002

Its a 2012 chasis so probably not great - hoping that after the MG deal runs out 888 will get a more competitive car and be back to their winning ways.

I think they'd be behind the BMR side of the house in the queue for a competitive car. As long as Plato is bringing in the main cashflow, he'll make sure he's in the best car at BMR, and if there is a better option than the Subaru , expect the Subarus to move to 888-run, and BMR to take the better option.

[pagey318]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I think they'd be behind the BMR side of the house in the queue for a competitive car. As long as Plato is bringing in the main cashflow, he'll make sure he's in the best car at BMR, and if there is a better option than the Subaru , expect the Subarus to move to 888-run, and BMR to take the better option.

Could end up a 2+2 next year, two as BMR and 2 as 888. It would make more sense financially. They don't need such a big team of people then and they only need to take spares for one type of car and less lorries!

[MagicBoy]

Originally Posted by thlbtcc

The MG's are lapping 0.5 seconds slower than they did last year, despite new suspension and the latest engine.

To add to the variables the 2017 tyres are of different dimensions, construction and compound this year. That's 5 years of setup knowledge that needs to be re-learned.

[MagicBoy]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

I think the performance difference between the Maximum Focus and the Motorbase cars is the engine - the Maximum car runs the TOCA engine doesn't it?

Originally Posted by thlbtcc

Interesting theory, but the Maximum car is the Ecoboost engine and not the TOCA unit.

It's the same Mountune EcoBoost Ford. AMD ran that car with the original Mountune engine, Maximum stated they were updating to the newer EcoBoost when they bought the car in early 2016.

[pimmy]

Originally Posted by luckn002

Does anyone know what exactly happened then - contact with Davenport? Who was at fault?

Lloyd pulled over to the right to get out of the way, then a group of cars approached on the right as well, as they were all defending from one another. A few cars nearly hit him, but Davenport seemed to be unsighted and clipped the MG.

[thlbtcc]

Originally Posted by MagicBoy

To add to the variables the 2017 tyres are of different dimensions, construction and compound this year. That's 5 years of setup knowledge that needs to be re-learned.

Absolutely, massive change and the team haven't quite 'got there' yet by the look of things.

[thlbtcc]

Goodness only know how this was okay in the end! Love it.

https://twitter.com/itvmotorsport/st...32164234551296

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by luckn002

Though looking at the touring car register there seems to be the early stages of a new shell they may end up switching to?

That never got much beyond being a striped road car shell. The cage fabrication work was cancelled.

The Lloyd car is too badly damaged to be fixed in time for Oulton, although it might be repaired for later in the year. In the short term they will be going back to the ex Sutton car damaged at Snetterton last year and updating that.

[AdrianM]

Just been going through the speed trap and sector data on TSL and there does seem to be something a bit odd about the Subarus.

In FP2 and quali they're all about the same levels in speed traps, sector times etc but come the race and Sutton suddenly jumps right to the top of sector 1 and is right up on the highest speed trap as well.

Plato was saying on the Flux blog that it's critical to get the car in fast traffic otherwise they can't progress. Could it just be that getting a good quali position is hyper important in that car?

It will be interesting to see what happens with the spate of RWD friendly circuits coming up.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

wouldn't be very easy to take Sutton's car, just change numbers and markings during the night

27 years ago a certain Alain Prost insisted Ferrari do just that as he was miffed that Nigel Mansell was running faster laps than he in practice.

One of the mechanics told Mansell - who had sussed the car felt odd but hadn't identified why.

Mansell then qualified the thing ahead of Prost and made a point of rubbing it in to Prost, Ferrari management and any body else who happened to be in ear shot!

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by pagey318

Could end up a 2+2 next year, two as BMR and 2 as 888. It would make more sense financially. They don't need such a big team of people then and they only need to take spares for one type of car and less lorries!

That seems to make sense. Which would mean they have 6 drivers chasing 4 seats.
Based on this season so far, Sutton would take one. Plato and Cole would effectively finance theirs, leaving Taylor-Smith, Lloyd and Price competing for the last place.

Given Plato's previous with T-S, that would be a tough call. I wonder how closely Motorbase will be watching developments?

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by billy bleach

Just because the cars are fully liveried it doesn't follow they are all fully funded. Often a pay driver likes to have the big name sponsor on his car so it looks like he has arrived

A certain Andrew Neate carrying Marshall amplification branding springs to mind... as we all found out the cupboard was bare.

[Alfisti]

Last post from me tonight...

I have been speculating about BMR/888 being in financial mire. Having done a little research I now know 888 came very close to being dissolved this March and Ian Harrison is no longer a Director. Last accounts (March 2016) show shareholders funds at - 700,000 (yes, minus) so quite a debt... guess that explains why there has been little testing.

[Sodemo]

Did I hear right that after Thruxton there will be a round of "performance balancing" taking place?