BTCC introduces option tyre and turbo boost changes

The BTCC organisation has revealed a number of changes regarding tyres and turbo boost calculations for the 2013 season.
“As with almost any regulation, particularly new ones, they are ‘tweaked’ based on experience gained – and that’s exactly what we are doing here,” said series director Alan Gow.

After a meeting with the BTCC teams, the BTCC organisation has decided to make three changes to the turbo boost regulations:

– The amount of change (ie. increase/decrease) in the turbo boost pressure adjustment will be reduced from the current level

– The frequency in which the adjustments are calculated is also to be finalised – currently it is a ‘rolling two-event’ average

“As well, with S2000 cars now not having strict performance parity, the baseline boost levels on NGTC cars can increase and thus the profile of the calculation can alter. All the teams endorsed that the fundamental aspect of using the lap time analysis was the right way to go, but that we should refine those three areas in particular. In the coming weeks a working group, comprising a representative cross-section of the teams, will finalise those exact details,” said Gow.

The tyre regulations will be changed for next year as well with the introduction of an option tyre, a soft compound tyre to be used once during each race weekend.
“This set of softer compound tyres is part of each driver’s normal 16 per-meeting Dunlop tyre allocation, so there is no increase in the amount of tyres used. The real twist is that prior to qualifying they must nominate the actual race in which they are going to use them the next day – in that way they won’t be able to use them to merely make up for a poor qualifying or race performance, for example,” said Gow.

The option tyre will be available for qualifying and must be used in one of the three races of each race weekend.

Also new for 2013 is that cars will not be allowed to have mixed slicks and wet tyres on track, only a full matching set will be allowed.