TCR organisers say the BoP is working fine
The TCR organisation has said they are happy with the way the Balance of Performance (BoP) is working this year, identifying the blip which allowed Lynk & Co to lock out the front two rows in qualifying at Zandvoort as a natural result from limited data on the new Chinese manufacturer’s car.
The BoP, which in theory is set for the whole year, has been adjusted twice so far this year. The first was to hand 10kg back to Volkswagen after their ECU was discovered to not be providing any notable performance benefit after the first round, which became academic after the manufacturer switched back to the original unit in Slovakia.
The second change was after Slovakia, when Lynk & Co were permitted to run at 100% power, leaving the Hyundai i30 N TCR as the only model running on reduced power – which was quickly changed after qualifying at Zandvoort, when the Lynk & Cos dominated qualifying, which caused the other teams to begin to protest about the change.
“I’m very happy with what all the technical department have done since the beginning of this year,” said WSC CEO Marcello Lotti to TouringCarTimes.
“No one can speak about BoP as not good or not working, as until Saturday, the gap between the cars was very, very good.
“When a new car comes in, you collect data from the first event, and until now that was only three events.
Lotti explained that the decision to award Lynk & Co more power was a decision the TCR Technical Committee made, and not from any pressure or request from Lynk & Co.
“There was no request (from Lynk & Co), and I think they were also as surprised at their pace on Saturday,” explained Lotti.
“When I saw qualifying, I started to speak with our engineers, and they say they just don’t know the car enough.”
As soon as qualifying was over, the teams organised a meeting and went to WSC to request a re-evaluation of the BoP.
“When something like this happens, this is normal. Outside my truck it was like a Paris demonstration, with only the yellow jackets missing, and when something like this happens you know why.”
