Opinion: BTCC Performance Tweaks Working Wonders

No racing series offers more close and thrilling action than the British Touring Car Championship and its success can be put down to a number of reasons. But how it goes about balancing performance between cars must be one of the key factors in creating the best show on four wheels.

There has been a lot of talk recently regarding this, with TOCA increasing the boost from the engine for all cars, except the fairly dominant BMW’s. As 3-time champion Colin Turkington and 2013 champion Andrew Jordan have taken nine victories between them from 15 races prior to the summer break.

To close the competition even more, the BMW’s were also given an option to either raise their ride height by 6mm or add 10.5kg to their cars weight in a bid to bring the chasing pack closer to the dominant 330i. They opted for the ride height change which has seen them win just one race in the six since returning from the break.

The BMWs have always been able to make incredible starts thanks to rear-wheel drive and changes have been made in the past to limit how big of an advantage they get but it still seems to be more than capable of surging past the front-wheel drive cars from a standing start which immediately gives them a helping hand in races.

It can seem, from the outside, that TOCA are doing all of these changes to penalise BMW for making a good car and there’s been some outcry from some fans of the sport to revert these changes as they believe that if you make a good car then it’s up to the competition to catch up. But if TOCA were to take that approach, you’re left with an F1 style problem where one team are so much better than the rest and it becomes boring and predictable – two words which aren’t in the vocabulary of the BTCC.

We’ve heard no end of complaining in the F1 paddock about Mercedes complete and utter dominance of the hybrid era and the displeasure it causes so many fans worldwide, so why would we want that for the BTCC? It’s not as if the BMWs are suddenly back-markers who can’t score points for love-nor-money, all three BMWs scored points in every race at Thruxton this past weekend (17^th-18^th August) so these small tweaks have clearly worked a treat. I expect them to still be right at the front when the series heads to the rear-wheel drive favourable Knockhill next (14^th-15^th September).

I can understand BMW supporters being upset that their team is no longer winning every race but I’m sure they were the same people calling for the Subaru Levorg of Team BMR to be neutered in 2016 and 2017 as it began to be dominant and take multiple victories in the hands of Turkington and Ash Sutton.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on every matter, but when all points are considered, I can’t see a logical reason why the balancing of performance is a bad thing for the BTCC.