LADA Granta hits several set backs from FIA

The new LADA Granta Sport, in development by TMS Sport ahead of its FIA World Touring Car Championship debut at Hungary in May, has had a string of waivers turned down by the FIA.

The team, with which 2002 and 2004 British Touring Car champion James Thompson will race for at the Hungaroring and at Estoril, made nine requests for technical deviations from the standard LADA Granta road car of the FIA, but only one was accepted by the FIA on the first pass.

The first key request was for permission to lengthen the wheelbase of the car by 94mm from the car’s standard configuration. This was in order to improve the wheel’s caster angle in addition to changes which would be made to the damper.

The FIA turned down the request as it was too far outside the tolerances permitted under Super 2000 regulations. The largest shift from the standard wheelbase dimensions for any currently homologated car is that of the SEAT León, the wheelbase of which is longer from the production model by 36mm. However both cars are far short of the car with the longest wheelbase, that of the BMW 320si.

The LADA will in fact have the shortest wheelbase on the grid (if it remains as the road car model) at 2,476mm, 28.4cm shorter than the BMW.

The team then requested to use the front and rear subframes from the LADA Priora race car (from 2009). This request has been suspended pending further information requested by the FIA.

Further waivers by LADA were also suspended pending the resubmission of the previous request, which included a change to the pivot point of the wheels, extended wheel arches to support the 17″ wheels, a different steering rack from the LADA-Renault-Nissan family and to install a removable front panel to aid the team with crash damage repairs.

The team’s request to install a replacement front hub carrier more suitable for competition racing was the only change accepted at this time.

LADA also requested permission to install the almost obligatory flat floor, which is used by all teams in the WTCC.

The team stated in its request for the flat floor that the “LADA Granta has poor base car aero, even worse than previous LADA PRIORA model. Wind tunnel test results show that without flat floor car has insufficient drag and downforce values to make the car reasonably competitive.”

The FIA has also suspended that request until the team’s next submission for the car’s design.