The crisis is just what touring car racing needs

First of all, the answer to your question: Yes, the touring car racing in Europe is in a crisis. The touring car racing scene is heading to a decisive time over the coming three years.

The current situation

The FIA World Touring Car Championship is in deep trouble due to the fight over consistently changing rules and the difference between petrol and turbo diesel.

The turbo pressure of the SEATs has been changed almost as many times as there has been races this year, BMW consistently talks of pulling out and the organization penalizes differently between qualifying and race over a issue that never has been penalized before.

The British Touring Car Championship has lost all of its manufacturers. SEAT pulled out their strong team ahead of the current season and Vauxhall pulls out after the 2009 season after having been in the championship for 20 years.

The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters continues to fail getting more manufacturers in despite having an attractive promotional package. Only two manufacturers after close to ten years is an evidence of too expensive and complicated rules.

The Danish Touring Car Championship recently lost Chevrolet after a rule dispute and has been forced for this season to introduce an “invitation class”, where anything goes to fill out the grid.

The Swedish Touring Car Championship is holding up rather well with a bit over 20 cars. But the rule spectacle is present in Sweden as well with dispensations, weights, petrol, bio ethanol, bio gas and turbos all over the place.

Why are we in a crisis?

– The Manufacturers: They have too big influence over the rules and get allowed to modify the rules according to their needs of their respective models.
– High costs: For example, the renovation costs for a majority of the S2000 engines exceeds the costs of the DTM engines.
– Dispensations: They have opened up for a frenzy of further dispensations, making the rules even more unequal.
– Turbo-N/A: Turbo charged engines together with normally aspirated engines are too complicated to equalize

Three important years

The next three years are going to decide the future for the touring car racing scene. And it looks like we are going to have a fight between, at least, three different set of rules, just like we had a little under ten years ago when the Super Touring rules died.

Which rules are up for the fight?

S2000 – FIA announced recently that turbo charged 1600cc engines are going to be introduced for the 2011 season. But many questionmarks remains on the rest of the rules. Are there any more changes coming? Because there is no doubt that the current S2000 rules are not good enough with just a change of engine type.

NGTC – BTCC organizer Alan Gow announced a set of completely new rules for the 2011 season a few weeks ago. The basic idea is good with standardized parts and one engine type. But there are questionmarks here as well: Is turbo the way to go? Is banning RWD (excluding BMW) a good idea? How about the costs, are they really lower compared to S2000?

DTM – The new DTM rules has, according to information to TouringCarTimes, been ready for more than a year. Less aerodynamics, lower costs, etc. It all sounds good. But is it good and cost efficient enough to lure in more manufacturers than Audi and Mercedes?

Which rules will conquer?

The three, or more, different set of rules that the different major touring car series are up for raises a lot of questions.

The way FIA goes is often the strongest way. The championship gets the strength and status of the FIA blessing, world wide spread of the rules and cars. The fact that they are going to run more or less the same rules in the World Rally Championship is another strength as well.

But the current FIA S2000 has not gone down the strong way. BMW, SEAT and Chevrolet (with Lada half way in) is not a strong line up for a World Championship that has existed for five years.

BTCC and NGTC then? Even if the rules are strong, there is a possibility that NGTC goes down the same road as when they tried last time with the BTC rules due to the competition of the FIA rules.

DTM is seemingly, as usual, heading down its own road. But can they afford it this time? On paper the new rules looks like just what the series needs. But with the current financial situation the world is in, and Mercedes especially, is the time right for carbonfibre, expensive, V8 monsters?

Why the turbo frenzy?

Both S1600/S2000 and NGTC are heading down the turbo road. And it puzzles me. For sure, a turbo makes it cheaper and easier to get power out of the engines and a big part of the engines in road cars sold today are turbo charged.

But, and that is one big but, the usage of turbo also has a lot of drawbacks:

– Reliability
– Control
– Cheating

It is much harder to control the power output of a turbo charged engine compared to naturally aspirated engines and it adds yet another component that can fail.

Why is Scandinavia not co operating?

Another thing that puzzles me is why the Scandinavians are not joining forces. The STCC is rather strong, imagine how strong it would be if it joined forces with DTC plus Norway and Finland.

If the Scandinavians joined forces and selected one set of rules, it would become a very strong force on the touring car racing scene in Europe.

The big teams are there, spread out in the different countries. But joined together it would provide an excellent field.

Crisis = Golden opportunity

While I have listed a lot of negative points in this column so far, I still think that the crisis is just what the touring car racing scene needs. The crisis draws forward new minds, ideas and improved rules.

The touring car racing scene is bleeding and we “finally” have reached the point when it bleeds so much that all are forced in to action.

Act now!

It is time to act now for all of the touring car championship organizers out there! Alan Gow and BTCC are heading in one direction, the FIA have started to point in one direction at least.

But DTM, STCC and DTC, where are you headed? Doing nothing is not the answer. The 2010 season is getting awfully close, awfully fast.

Clear your minds, let go of the old rules and think in new directions! The crowd wants close and spectacular racing, they do not want pleased manufacturers!

Create fair and equal rules that need no tweaking after the finalization and that promotes the best drivers and teams!