Perhaps someone has the answer?

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3rd April 2007, 10:55
CarlMetro

Perhaps someone has the answer?

Thoroughly enjoyed the days racing at Brands on Sunday, well except for the getting out of the car park bit :rolleyes: , but I was slightly puzzled whilst sitting listening to the commentary at Paddock Hill Bend of just how many of the BTCC teams had only finished their cars a week or even a couple of days before they'd arrived at Brands Hatch.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but the season finished mid-October last year? I realise that there are a lot of new teams on the grid, some of which are stepping up into BTCC and some which are new to racing full stop, but what I can't understand is why the likes of VX and TD have taken so long to produce there cars, to the point that they have had little or no testing.

Is there something in the rules which says that you cannot start building your entry until the full moon arrives in February? These are well-established teams who knew that the regulations were going to change and therefore knew that they would have to build new cars for the 2007 season yet they seem to have left it to the last minute :confused:

I can understand some of the smaller teams not being ready, they may have been waiting for sponsorship deals to be done etc, but not the big boys surely?
3rd April 2007, 11:05
BeansBeansBeans

I think in TD's case they spent more time than they'd have liked trying to find a car to race. They looked into using Alfas (the ones that eventually went to Pinkney / Marsh) and Seats before deciding on the Civic, which they then had to rebuild from the ground up to unfamiliar regulations.
3rd April 2007, 11:57
BDunnell

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeansBeansBeans

I think in TD's case they spent more time than they'd have liked trying to find a car to race. They looked into using Alfas (the ones that eventually went to Pinkney / Marsh) and Seats before deciding on the Civic, which they then had to rebuild from the ground up to unfamiliar regulations.

They also considered BMWs, of course.
3rd April 2007, 12:00
BeansBeansBeans

Quote:

Originally Posted by BDunnell

They also considered BMWs, of course.

I wasn't aware of that.
3rd April 2007, 12:57
Iain

VX were ready by February. Their car had well over 600 miles of testing on it come the weekend there. WSR only got the BMWs ready last week because they only got delivered to them in kit form in mid-February and then had some delays with other parts coming from Germany.
3rd April 2007, 19:30
Ian McC

According to the interview on Crash, Matt Neal said they didn't get started until December

Quote:

It's been massive to be honest as we had to start with a clean sheet of paper. We couldn't start as soon as we wanted as at the end of last year, we lost a few sponsors and didn't have other sponsorship in place – and you can't go our and spend money that you don't have. We had to try and do things without spending much money but we only got most of the sponsorship in place in early December so that is when they could start getting stuck in.