Change to WTCC penalty weight system

The Swedish Touring Car Championship is going to switch to the same penalty weight system as the World Touring Car Championship uses.
“The compensation weight is going to be applied to each model according to a lap time calculation,” said STCC technical director Johnny Haraldsson.

The major difference between the old system and the new is that all cars within one model, for example the BMW 320si, is going to have the same weight despite driver and team.

“There must be a weight difference between the models that have different technical conditions. We have rear- and front wheel drive, different type of gearboxes and different fuel.

These parameters must be taken in to account, but other than that we are going to follow the WTCC rules and when they introduce a change, we are going to follow it,” said Haraldsson.

The maximum penalty weight is going to be 60 kilos above the base weight set ahead of the season start by the STCC technical bureau together with the Danish Touring Car Championship counterpart.

“If a specific car model is three tenths apart from each other on a lap tim, there is not going to be an adjustment. Above that the weight is going to be adjusted with 10 kilos per tenth,” said Haraldsson.

In basic: The fastest driver of each car model is going to set the weight for the others driving the same car model.

An example released by the STCC organization:

A BMW 320si is four tenths faster than the closest Volvo C30, but one second faster than the closest Peugeot 308 in the first race.

That means that all BMW 320si is going to weigh 10 kilos more than all Volvo C30 and 60 kilos more than all Peugeot 308 in the second race.

The weight are going to be updated ahead of each race weekend and a bit in to the season the three last heats are going to be used for a more exact average.

A rather complicated penalty weight system in other words.