The silent partner: A new role for RML in the BTCC

Touring car powerhouse RML have a long and illustrious history in the BTCC, but their latest venture into the championship will see them take on a very different role – albeit one no less important than their previous exploits.

The Northamptonshire-based outfit is replacing GPRM as the supplier of the standard chassis, suspension and steering components for the current NGTC regulations, and faces a busy autumn to initially supply parts for 24 touring cars.

After dipping their toe in the water with Josh Cook’s Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze at Brands Hatch, RML went straight into the production of parts for 12 cars, which the first teams were due to take delivery of at the end of October. A further 12 sets of parts are set to be delivered to the next set of teams by the end of this month.

Although the teams aren’t under any obligation to run the RML parts in 2016, most have already committed to doing so – and can expect some subtle differences in how their car behaves.

TouringCarTimes caught up with RML’s commercial director Simon Holloway to talk about the new parts, how they will work and what their World Touring Car Championship experience is adding to the programme.

The first element of the new kit was a no-brainer for all concerned – the power steering. The old system was one which caused teams a great deal of strife, with criticisms only shared in private but failures very much in the public eye.

So testing the new system at Brands Hatch, with some of the maximum loading seen on UK circuits, was a natural choice for RML.

“If it works at Brands Hatch at Paddock Hill Bend it is going to work anywhere. The spool is designed from what we run on our World Touring Car setup, so it’s something we have quite a lot of knowledge with,” said Holloway to TouringCar Times.

“It’s not binding like the old system used to, the system is running free. We’ve inherently designed it so the rack is faster than the current setup, so less steering wheel input will equate to more wheel movement. There will be a little bit of a feel difference.”

The finals weekend was a success for RML, but there was no resting on their laurels with multiple parts kits to be produced for the 2016 grid. However, any teams wanting to keep the GPRM parts will be under no obligation to change, as Holloway explained.

He said: “We are already into full production and it’s a very quick rollout. Obviously the more cars we get it on the more feedback we will get.

“It’s been through a design process with a design group, and it’s quite difficult – it’s not like just designing it for one car, we’ve got to design it for all the cars.

“You can run a complete old kit if you want to, you don’t have to run any of our new kit. There is cross-compatibility between the parts we’ve made and the existing ones.

“It’s really up to the teams. They could just replace the frame and run some of the other [old] components.

“We’re at the stage where most of the teams are looking at doing the upgrade, so we have got a lot of work to do. We’re committed to delivering 24 kits by the middle of November.”

While the watching crowds won’t see any differences in the look of the cars, they will be different beasts underneath, adding a further challenge for the teams to get used to.

“I think they will find a few things are different in the setup of the car. The way we’ve designed it, a lot of the loads feeds directly into the frame, so that will probably make it a bit stiffer,” said Holloway.

“One of our design criteria wasn’t to make something that had a huge performance increase, it was to make something that met the issues.

“The system as it is is very good, there were just a few things to iron out.”

Perhaps the only negative of the new deal is a rather obvious one. With RML now supplying parts to the majority of the BTCC grid, as well as their continued customer car programme in the WTCC, a racing return is not on the cards at present.

“We can provide shells, we can do engineering, we can design cars for people but we’re not in a position to go racing in the championship next year,” said Holloway.

“The idea of the agreement is for us to supply the components – it’s very similar to where we are with our World Touring Car programme.”