Weights cause chaos in the independents’ category

The Yokohama Independents’ Trophy has been dramatically shuffled at Brands Hatch as a result of the BMW old/new controversy, with some teams benefitting whilst others lost out greatly.

The issue stems from the application of ballast to cars, and not drivers – which is the norm for other championships, such as the BTCC.

This new approach was introduced into the WTCC in 2009, and has generally gone on without too much of a hitch, in the troublesome area of ballast allocation. It was a logical resolution to a specific issue in the WTCC, due to the multiple number of cars entered by the major manufacturers at that point, with BMW and SEAT fielding at least five at each race weekend in 2006-2009.

Since the beginning of this season, all BMW models were treated the same, and a definition of an ‘older’ car wasn’t adopted until Zolder, when the two models of BMW 320si were broken up into categories, with the newer 320si’s earning +20kg of ballast, the older model raced by Poulsen Motorsport losing 20kg – and then Poulsen took his first independents class victory.

Colin Turkington then joined the championship at Portimao with a three year old BMW, as EBay Motors Team Director Dick Bennetts explained to TouringCarTimes:

“We’re not bring an old car, that’s all we own. Colin’s still driving his original ’07 car which he raced in all ’07, ’08 and ’09. We had a new ’08, which would still be classified as old but he wanted to stick to his original car, he feels comfortable in it.”

The classification of an old BMW became a hot issue, as soon after Team Engstler & Wiechers-Sport also switched to older cars and could benefit from running at the lower penalty weight for this round at Brands Hatch.

Proteam however, were unfortunate to have a new model car, similar to that being run by works squad BMW Team RBM, and as a result of BMW Team RBM’s recent championship performance, has picked up the success ballast effectively attributed to the manufacturer team.

“I hope the FIA can make it work, and that they can see the difference in the laptimes method is not good for the championship” said independents points leader Sergio Hernández to TouringCarTimes.

“Everybody knows that 75kg is a lot of weight to carry around…the problem now for us is Turkington that has 75kg less (than us), and is independent.”

Hernández stated his target for the weekend was to hopefully just hold on to the independents lead leaving the UK round of the championship.

Colin Turkington had a sensational weekend in the independents class, moving up to second in the standings in only his second race meeting

Teams running the older model BMW’s had a 75kg weight advantage over the newer specification BMW 320si’s at Brands Hatch, which will eventually be adjusted when the penalty weights are recalculated using the laptimes of the old model BMW’s to derive the new ballast.

Until then, the older spec BMW’s will have a significant advantage over their newer counterparts, which will heavily affect Proteam’s ability to defend it’s independents championship position.

The problem was highlighted by BMW Team RBM turning up with an older specification car, in order to take advantage of the new weights announced for the UK round, but the team was not allowed to compete with that configuration or the lighter ballast they expected to, due to clause in the sporting regulations.

Andy Priaulx, after taking victory in race two explained:
“With the lighter car it would have brought us back into the champiionship fight…we tried our luck, and I respect BMW and my team for trying it – it took a massive commitment from them over the past two weeks to build two cars like this.”

Dick Bennetts summed up the issue succinctly:
“There are some rules I think need tweaking in the World Championship, and the British championship – the trouble is you can’t keep everyone happy all the time.”

As a result of Colin Turkington’s two podium finishes, the British champion takes the biggest points haul ever in the category as additional points are awarded to independents’ who are able to finish in the overall classification. Colin now moves from eighth to second overall, just 12 points behind Hernández.

The FIA is expected to try and find a resolution before the next round at Brno.

Yokohama Independents’ Trophy Standings after Brands Hatch