The Touring Car season 2010 will not stay straight on many dazzling memories. Especially not at BMW, who have lost the world title in front of the sports court.
BTCC and WTCC did not exactly her best year. Can you find so much already at the beginning of a season retrospective, but the reasons are both series are not exactly in top form, are very different. In the BTCC, the problems are obvious: one has only a Chevrolet factory team, whose financial resources are sufficiently available and therefore lack a little competition. Honda does have a semi-works program, but infected, compared with Chevy Europe, little money clean. The same goes for Ford, which have pushed forward the Aon team to test the new gas-powered turbo engine. A proper use of the work is not, but still a bright spot. The BTCC 2010 season was just exciting to the end, because Chevrolet is allowed a few mistakes and let the organizers of the long lines at Ford. And because the Team Dynamics Honda's got really good going.
Ray Mallock Ltd.., Who brought the Chevrolet to the starting line, was used in the BTCC is really just a "waste product", but with an ulterior motive. It is anyway the three in the WTCC Cruze, and since the car was new at the beginning of the season, bounded on the other hand, the test time, you could use the data from the BTCC well. On the other hand, was already at the start of the season clear that anything but the title in the BTCC would have been a bitter disappointment. Because you put so not only identical with the WTCC cars had been involved with Jason Plato also one of the best British driver. But it went wrong but a lot. The engine suffered from teething problems, particularly the electronics played like crazy times. Also, a little revenge, the fact that you had with Michael McDowell Although a highly talented, but she is also very inexperienced pilots placed next to Plato. Who was responsible for all the responsibility and it was in the team standings life itself a little heavy.
Nevertheless, the extended test use of the Cruze was worth in the BTCC. This can be realized, especially after the tests at Brands Hatch in July. Obviously it was time something important in the tuning of the chassis, for both in Plato, as well as the three WTCC car, there was significantly better after the tests. Thus, the use of two Cruze in the British Isles was quite worthwhile. Although Plato was able to win the title until the last race weekend, but at least there were two titles for RML.
Ford did at first difficult, which in view of the new S2000 engine which was fueled by gas, was also not surprising. Because the BTCC at Ford Motor free hand was long, you could see the heavy focus fairly well put forward. Eventually it was the competition but too stupid. After the Focus at Snetterton and Silverstone on the line almost at will the competition obsolete, the BTCC had to intervene and eventually the Ford slowed a bit. The result could be seen at the following race then good. Since the focus rather go straight than around the corner, they were in the title fight then even more outsiders. The team had also partially attributed to themselves, for they sat completely on Tom Chilton, and had in this country relatively unknown Tom Onslow-Cole in the league at times more chances. Nevertheless, he whistled his team back a few times to Chilton to push forward.
Team Dynamics that official Honda team in England, was at the beginning of the season as the main competitor to Chevrolet have been identified and saw Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden in the season of good. Weakness of the angular Civic was the engine that simply had too little power. Only at Silverstone was the new unit, which was a bit too late. Four victories were the result of the new engine, but also triumphant Chevrolet could not be caught. Still not a bad season for both drivers.
BMW had no chance this year. The overaged 320si, the team had developed the airwaves without further support from Munich, came just at the beginning of the season to two wins and only because it was the reverse grid in race 3. After all, the BMW still good enough to often in the top five and took care of exciting fights for positions.
So did the rest of the field, but the victory could not go with the most private teams. Only the Pirtek team get two wins with Andrew Jordan, the one with the new Vetra einsetze NGTC engine. After all, you can say, but it showed as well that the distance between the middle and the top is not as great as in other series. There were many exciting races, especially in the midfield and the old English tradition of touring car experienced another good year. There were some terrific races (Donnigton, Thruxton) but also a few boring races. Nevertheless, the BTCC race is always a highlight of the show and competition, can work as good racing.
Your crisis has been overcome, the BTCC but not yet. Chevrolet will also be there again in 2011, just as Ford and Honda, but does little behind it. Will be interesting but the announcement of STR (Special Tuning UK) which started in the upcoming season four seats. But which are used by the S2000 regulations and this year was the seat rather hopeless.
From 2011, the BTCC is on a mixed set of regulations. The tip will be after the new regulations NGTC the world the way engine, the rest will probably continue to use the S2000 cars. One can now assume that the balance of power will persist long discussions. For this purpose but more so when the season starts.
WTCC 2010
The FIA World Touring Car Championship this year has disappointed me a bit. The culprits were once again the wrangling about the "Balance of performance" that were more or less continuously operated behind the scenes. BMW and Chevrolet was the generally too lax classification of Seats, Seat, which, in this year only as a "quasi" works team defended the move, usually successful where they threatened to withdraw. The organizers found themselves in a dilemma and acted sometimes headless. Time, the boost pressure of the seat-diesel set down, then up again. There were changes the weights, the ratings for it and they also met several behind the scenes, when the race was run. And if one could not win, it was natural to blame for the classification.
Of course it is normal to be jockeying in a world championship behind the scenes. That's always been that way, but the way in which it expired this year in the WTCC, remembers then already partly a Slapsick comedy. Any tricks, each trying to influence the officials and by the way were a couple of races. Sadly it was the culmination of Okayama affair. BMW was still on the road this year with the normal H-shift. Reason: With a sequential transmission of the 320si was never homologated. It reached deep into their bag of tricks and argued that Zanardi was so driven with a sequential gearbox for all these years, therefore you could probably even now to be on the road. Perhaps the Bavarians with the trick would also come through if they had tried it earlier in the season, but in the penultimate race, it was something very bold and obvious. In the end, they lost not only the points, but also because of the World Cup.
This, for the WTCC was in terms of PR, not just symptomatic positive thing for the entire season. The officials seemed helpless in the game some of the manufacturers and staggered from decision to decision, which was not always clear. A fine example of the sometimes bizarre moments of the year was the "race" in Marrakech. A course which just corresponded times just the FIA regulations, a set of traffic lights that did not work, completely overwhelmed the marshals, chrashfreundliche pilots and stewards, some of which apparently not knowing what to do, took care of the most ridiculous event, each of the has borne the name "World Championship".
But it was not all bad. If you could hide the policy, the races were at times very handsome. The race in Zolder (to a lesser extent), Portimao, Brands Hatch, Oschersleben and Valencia offered really good racing and showed that the WTCC was not completely dead. At least in the phase of the FIA seemed to have finally found a decent BoP.
The Chevrolet Cruze with the new brand could win the championship was at the end but still somewhat surprising. It's been a little art in such a close series with a new car to land directly on top, even if you initially do something difficult. Yet I had rather the seat on the bill, but against the Cruze Tarquini was then too little. Really fascinated me was the performance of BMW, which could squeeze out of the old 320si still enough power out, so Farfus and Andy Priaulx had chances at the title. This performance I thought was very remarkable, and five victories for the Priaulx make abundantly clear. One should also not forget the private company to the Team BMW Avira, which initially were in the independent evaluation with Colin Turkington in a BMW. Due to the better classification in terms of weight and due to the excellent performance of last year's BTCC champion it was so fast that the FIA took Avira immediately disqualified.
Sporty, therefore, a varied season, politically considered a small disaster. Since 2011, the diesel will be neutered once, and disappear, at least the hope remains that one can argue a little less. Allerdinsgs disappears with another BMW factory team and screwed his bet back seat as well.
2010 DTM
I had taken the DTM to the, again, ridiculous decisions of the stewards at Oschersleben, the reporting here on the blog. That will not change in 2011, unless the series surprised with a completely new setting.
Let me not be misunderstood: It is not about the technology, the teams or the drivers. It is the technical regulations and especially the criticism spilled out of control aerodynamics, but looked like pure technical standpoint, the DTM is high class. The cars are complicated and have high demands on the drivers, the engines are excellent, and also stopped by. The teams work very hard, the quality of drivers is high, as was also seen in the NASCAR trip from Ekstrom, or the use of separators in Le Mans. Still, this does not know if the rules cause some head shaking and just a racing line is about to punish every overtaking maneuver. That slows down the one driver who dare nothing more, and kill all tension.
Let's hope that 2012 BMW beside maybe for another producer (Opel?, Toyota?) Comes into the series. Or will bring the planned globalization of the SuperGT and the mysterious racing series in NASCAR a little more kick to Germany.
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