Gow announces radical NGTC BTCC regs

[Alfa Fan]

All-new technical regulations that will drastically reduce costs but also further increase the spectacle of the British Touring Car Championship by moving to bigger and more powerful turbo-charged cars have been revealed today.


The ‘Next Generation Touring Car’ (NGTC) regulations will come into force in 2011 and will slash car and engine budgets for teams by some 50 per cent. This will largely be achieved by switching to more durable two-litre turbo engines and the standardising of major components such as sub-frames, gearboxes, suspension and brakes. Furthermore, the NGTC regulations will be based around larger ‘family-sized’ front-wheel-drive cars.


Notably, the NGTC engines will utilise many standard-production internal components and be fitted with a controlled-specification turbo, wastegate, intercooler and ECU (Electronic Control Unit) to reduce both development costs and opportunities for technical infringements. Teams not wishing to undertake their own engine development programme will have the option of using a TOCA-developed (unbranded) NGTC engine that will be equal in performance. It is anticipated that engines should last an entire season without rebuild, thus greatly further reducing costs.

[LiamM]

They look very interesting!

Gow has said that the rules have been developed by the current teams - so hopefully the lot of them should be sticking around until 2011 for this new cheap touring cars they have all developed.

Another thing is that as the engine spec has changed it opens up a wide variety of other manufacturers that currently don't have an engine in their range which suits S2000 spec.

[dwboogityfan]

Again Alan Gow has managed to bring in a great set of regulations at the right time. The idea reminds me a little of NASCAR's COT.
Hopefully this should get a good mixture of new manufacturors while keeping the independents like Martyn Bell, John George etc who add so much to the championship.
Again the WTCC are left standing by the BTCC!

[wedge]

I'm not sure if I'll ever watch BTCC ever again if they run silhouettes.

[AndySpeed]

With no manufacturers currently committed to 2010 they didn't have a lot to lose, and with the current teams involved then this looks promising. I hope that the increased amounts of standardization don't diminish the spectacle.

[Allyc85]

Sounds very promising, more speed and proper sized touring cars should be great! Just hope theres loads of waste gate chatter when they back off the throttle

[I am evil Homer]

Sounds horribly like a move towards the NASCAR model. And "Family-sized FWD"...would need more detail on that - so no RWD at all?

At first sight I'm not a fan of these ideas.

[VkmSpouge]

Looking at the rules they are clearly designed to cut costs but keep the level of performance up there with the current cars which is a pretty good thing. Using some standardised parts will certainly help keep costs down but I certainly don't think these cars will come anywhere close to silhouettes or NASCAR. Dumping RWD is a shame because we won't have BMW but Alan Gow's reasons (here on BTCC.net) are pretty sound.

Using teams and those touring car experts, to help with the rules is a good idea as they really should know what they are doing. Basically these rules will offer the same level of performance but for half the price. Good deal for competitors I say!

Also the timing for introducing them in 2011 is a good idea. With any luck the car market will have picked up by then and new rules (and with WTCC in a lot of turmoil) could encourage some manufacturers to come back into the championship, especially with them having to spend less money.

My one concern about these new rules is that it could lead to the BTCC being isolated again like it was before the championship let in Super 2000 cars.

Overall though my impression of these rules is pretty positive and it will be interesting to see which teams decide to build cars to NGTC-spec in 2011.

[LiamM]

My one concern about these new rules is that it could lead to the BTCC being isolated again like it was before the championship let in Super 2000 cars.

Well the WTCC rules are set in stone yet, they might think about going back to the drawing board after todays announcement!

[UltimateDanGTR]

Brilliant ideas! 'Bigger family sized cars' and more powerful engines lead me to think that the BTCC will become a bit closer to V8 supercars-and thats a good thing!

shame about the fact that we will no longer have BMW's (unless they develop a FWD car in the next few years-which I doubt) and we wont see the Honda civic or Ford Focus-but hopefully we will see things like the Ford Mondeo (again!), and maybe things like the 406? an Alfa? Id love to see an Audi or Merc in there too-we could actually see a great championship again!

and I wouldnt discount bigger grids either..............


good news. good future.