Please everyone, lets be factual.

[Jason Plato]

Dear All,

In an attempt to stop the ridiculous totally inaccurate banter that frequents the forums, would you all please read and understand the following facts before making any further silly posts. You are all perfectly entitled to have your own opinions, however these must be based on facts rather than total bias to whoever you may or may not be supporting.

1. There were NO equivalency regulations regarding the Turbo Diesels in 2008. Those regulations had been available for any team or manufacturer to adopt years prior to 2008.
SEAT Sport believed they could gain an advantage and invested many millions over many years developing the Diesel engine. I repeat, there were NO equivalency regulations in place.

2. Turbo Diesels have been banned in the BTCC from 2009 because of the performance advantage they have.

3. TOCA made a promise to all the teams and drivers prior to the 2011 season that there will be performance parity between turbo and normally aspirated engines for the 2011 and 2012 BTCC seasons. One of the main reasons for this was asset protection. For the 2013 season onwards, the performance of the turbo engines will be turned up and normally aspirated engines will become uncompetitive.

4. The definition of Parity is: [Encarta English Dictionary]
1. Equality - equality of.
2. Similarity between things - the quality of being similar or identical.

5. The BTCC Series Director stated publically on 21st April …
“This year all NGTC engines (turbo) have a significantly revised turbo system, which has changed their engine performance/characteristics.” When compared to 2010.

6. The Series Director stated publically on 18th April …
“Clearly we have always stated that there should be performance parity between the two types (normally aspirated and turbo) for the next two seasons. That is not an issue and is a policy known and agreed by every team - and one we have publicly stated many times over the last 18 months. In very simple terms; the performance of the fastest/best of each type should be comparable for 2011 and 2012 – of course given that they are of a comparable level of quality of driver/team/car/preparation”

7. The teams that have not adopted turbo engines early (before 2013) have every right to demand performance parity. It has been promised by TOCA prior to and during the 2011 season.

8. As a professional driver, with many years of BTCC experience, I have a duty to myself, my team, my sponsors and investors to make complaint when promises and/or agreements are not being honoured. I also, as a human being, have the right to respond to unfounded public criticism.

9. If there had been NO promises of performance parity between the two engine types by TOCA I would have no complaint.

For the record, if my complaints and opinions which are based on facts and data (of which a fraction of, I have shared with you above) has caused offence, then as a gentlemen I apologise. However, I trust that if you read and understand the above points you will agree, I have a very valid complaint.
I hope this will put an end to the churlish forum banter.

Sincerely,

Jason Plato

[Dave B]

I hear you, and respect you for speaking out both on the live broadcast and on this forum.

Let me ask you one question, and please understand I'm playing devil's advocate rather than making an accusation: how do you know that Steve Neal's team aren't simply doing a better job than you? They're breezing past you on the straights, that's obvious for all to see, but how is anybody to know that this wouldn't have happened anyway?

As I said in the other thread, maybe they're just better and it would be unfair to penalise them for that. Maybe they've got an inferior car but are being handed an unfair advantage. That's what I hate about equivalency formulae, it's simply impossible for us to make a fair comparison between two teams running to different specifications.

[Daniel]

Dear All,

In an attempt to stop the ridiculous totally inaccurate banter that frequents the forums, would you all please read and understand the following facts before making any further silly posts. You are all perfectly entitled to have your own opinions, however these must be based on facts rather than total bias to whoever you may or may not be supporting.

1. There were NO equivalency regulations regarding the Turbo Diesels in 2008. Those regulations had been available for any team or manufacturer to adopt years prior to 2008.
SEAT Sport believed they could gain an advantage and invested many millions over many years developing the Diesel engine. I repeat, there were NO equivalency regulations in place.

2. Turbo Diesels have been banned in the BTCC from 2009 because of the performance advantage they have.

3. TOCA made a promise to all the teams and drivers prior to the 2011 season that there will be performance parity between turbo and normally aspirated engines for the 2011 and 2012 BTCC seasons. One of the main reasons for this was asset protection. For the 2013 season onwards, the performance of the turbo engines will be turned up and normally aspirated engines will become uncompetitive.

4. The definition of Parity is: [Encarta English Dictionary]
1. Equality - equality of.
2. Similarity between things - the quality of being similar or identical.

5. The BTCC Series Director stated publically on 21st April …
“This year all NGTC engines (turbo) have a significantly revised turbo system, which has changed their engine performance/characteristics.” When compared to 2010.

6. The Series Director stated publically on 18th April …
“Clearly we have always stated that there should be performance parity between the two types (normally aspirated and turbo) for the next two seasons. That is not an issue and is a policy known and agreed by every team - and one we have publicly stated many times over the last 18 months. In very simple terms; the performance of the fastest/best of each type should be comparable for 2011 and 2012 – of course given that they are of a comparable level of quality of driver/team/car/preparation”

7. The teams that have not adopted turbo engines early (before 2013) have every right to demand performance parity. It has been promised by TOCA prior to and during the 2011 season.

8. As a professional driver, with many years of BTCC experience, I have a duty to myself, my team, my sponsors and investors to make complaint when promises and/or agreements are not being honoured. I also, as a human being, have the right to respond to unfounded public criticism.

9. If there had been NO promises of performance parity between the two engine types by TOCA I would have no complaint.

For the record, if my complaints and opinions which are based on facts and data (of which a fraction of, I have shared with you above) has caused offence, then as a gentlemen I apologise. However, I trust that if you read and understand the above points you will agree, I have a very valid complaint.
I hope this will put an end to the churlish forum banter.

Sincerely,

Jason Plato

I think you might have more luck pissing into the wind Jason. I've been on here for over 10 years and it's no different to any other forum, people will think they're right because they want to be right or they want their favourite team to have an advantage. Just last week we had people in the F1 arguing that Pastor Maldonado should have moved out of the way for Hamilton in Monaco like Schumacher did. Anyone who watches racing would know that it's unreasonable for one driver to be expected to act in exactly the same manner as any other driver. I did ask whether Pastor should drive off a cliff is Schuey did so, but strangely enough I didn't get an answer.

Personally I feel that touring cars in general are a mess these days compared to the good ole days of Supertourers where you either built a car to win or you were Peugeot and the best thing about your car was the livery.

To come back to my original point, personally I wouldn't bother arguing with people on a forum, they can say whatever they want to say for whatever reasons and the nature of forums means that people can just say whatever they want to say whether it's true or not and whether any intelligent thought has gone into it.

[Alfa Fan]

I think the evidence for them not being able to do that is from last year, where they were on a par/ever so slightly slower than the Chevrolet's in a straight line. No-one in the history of the championship, certainly post Super Touring, has developed an engine that could just blow by cars the year after it was struggling to match them. (The Aon Ford is a special exemption).

[Jason Plato]

Dave,

The simple facts of the matter are engine power and torque is what makes a car go in a straight line, chassis is for braking and corners. I have a development of a car which won the world championship last year and a quicker car than i had in 2010, A year that I won the championship and dominated the second half of the year when Honda and Chevrolet were competiting to the same set of rules. It is clear to see that the all the turbo cars are quicker in a straight line than the non turbo cars, and the Honda has the best turbo engine. Imagine how quick my car would be with a turbo engine in?

[Daniel]

Dave,

The simple facts of the matter are engine power and torque is what makes a car go in a straight line, chassis is for braking and corners. I have a development of a car which won the world championship last year and a quicker car than i had in 2010, A year that I won the championship and dominated the second half of the year when Honda and Chevrolet were competiting to the same set of rules. It is clear to see that the all the turbo cars are quicker in a straight line than the non turbo cars, and the Honda has the best turbo engine. Imagine how quick my car would be with a turbo engine in?

To continue Dave's line of thought..... Put a turbo engine in and lets see how fast you are.

To be fair I agree with you, I've never liked equivalency formula's at all because they can never work properly for situation. Penalising RWD cars based on their dry performance is silly when they're clearly at a disadvantage at some times during a wet race. There should be 1 set of rules for everyone and if someone chooses to bring a better racecar to the track which is built to the same regs then they should win.

[Jason Plato]

Daniel,

I think you may be right, probably wasting my time engaging with fans! No doubt I will recieve a bashing for this.

Cheers JP

[Alfa Fan]

The problem with the idea of putting a turbo in the Chevrolet is who is going to pay for it? They can't use the TOCA engine as its a manufacturer entry, so it would have to be a Chevrolet engine. I'm sure that if it was as simple as just switching to a turbo, they'd have done it at Brands!

Just a note: http://www.motorsportforums.com/tour...tml#post929888

Lots of data regarding engine situation in that post, and a comparison to other perceived disparities in the last 3-4 years.

[Mark]

I think you may be right, probably wasting my time engaging with fans! No doubt I will recieve a bashing for this.

Not at all, we need your perspective otherwise it's just uninformed speculation!

[Daniel]

Not at all, we need your perspective otherwise it's just uninformed speculation!

The problem is that anyone can come on here, say that Jason is wrong and call him a crybaby purely because he's not winning. As someone who needs to maintain a certain image it would be silly for him to argue the point and get involved with a slanging match with some halfwit on a forum. Therefore things are stacked against someone like Jason.