Macau compensation weights place Audi on top of the scales

The Audi RS 3 LMS will be the heaviest car at the season finale of the World Touring Car Cup next weekend, with the German cars carrying full ballast of 60kg, while the championship leading Hyundais will be at their lightest since Slovakia.

The performance of all of the manufacturers during the Asian leg of the calendar have been used for the Macau finale calculation, and the Audi Sport car has been the fastest during qualifying and the races in the flyaway portion of the calendar, and has been penalised with the maximum possible compensation weight.

The next-fastest car is the Honda Civic Type R TCR, one-tenth off the pace, which will carry 50kg of compensation weight, though as the Audi has a 10kg break due to it’s TCR-specified Balance of Performance adjustment, the two models will be technically running at the same weight of 1,315kg.

The Hyundai i30 N TCRs, all of which are in contention for the title, will run with 40kg of compensation weight, with the South Korean cars two-tenths from the Audi pace.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI TCRs will all carry 30kg of ballast, while the Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR, which took pole position and its first victory last time out at Suzuka, will run with ballast for the first time since Hungary, and the first time based on the car’s on-track performance, with 20kg of weight.

The Peugeot 308TCRs of DG Sport Compétition and the Cupra TCRs of Zengo Motorsport and Campos Racing will have the lowest compensation weight of 10kg, meaning for the first time this year, no car will be ballast-free.

The six wild card entries will have to carry both the above compensation weight, plus 20kg of new entry ballast.