TOCA boss Alan Gow refutes Rob Collard’s engine criticism

BTCC series director Alan Gow has refuted Rob Collard’s criticisms of the stock Swindon/TOCA engine, after the West Surrey Racing driver said he was losing out on top-end speed at Thruxton.

Collard told TouringCarTimes that he couldn’t stay with Jason Plato’s Volkswagen CC on the fastest section of the track in race two, after shadowing the Team BMR driver for 14 laps without being able to pass him for the lead.

But the TOCA boss has pointed out that the BMW 125i was only losing an average of 0.66mph over the course of a lap, and said Collard’s view was “very different from reality.”

Gow said the difference in speeds between the quickest Volkswagen and quickest BMW was 0mph in the first sector; 1.3mph in the second sector and 0.7mph in the final sector.

“Rob Collard’s claim that the TOCA engine was ‘too fast’ in comparison to the BMW’s engine at Thruxton simply doesn’t bear scrutiny,” said Gow.

“Thruxton is the fastest circuit we race on. Qualifying, as normal, is when the fastest lap-times were posted at the weekend.

“The fastest Passat/TOCA is an average of 0.66mph faster than the quickest BMW/BMW through all three sectors over the entire lap. I really don’t know of anyone that would look at those numbers and not feel that perhaps the perception given is very different from reality.”