Longer first gear for rear-wheel drive cars from Croft

The rear-wheel drive cars of West Surrey Racing and Rob Austin Racing will be made to run a longer first gear from the next round of the BTCC at Croft.

TouringCarTimes understands TOCA has told the teams that rear-wheel drive cars will have to use the longer ratio from the next round until further notice.

The announcement comes in the wake of an Oulton Park meeting which saw Colin Turkington take two wins, Rob Collard take two podiums and Rob Austin also finish on the rostrum.

After the weekend’s racing, both Eurotech Racing and Triple Eight said the rear-wheel drive cars have an inherent advantage.

In a post on TouringCarTimes, Triple Eight boss Ian Harrison said his only concern was the advantage the rear-wheel cars have at the start of races.

He added: “Both WSR and RAR have well-developed cars and the NGTC regs which are brilliant in many areas are evolving like an other set of regs, so constant attention and tweaking is always required in my view.”