Storm of criticism after Volkswagen dominance

A storm of criticism has risen after the dominant performance from the biogas powered Volkswagen Scirocco’s at Karlskoga.
“They [VW] are unbeatable on the straights. At Karlskoga, even if I got a good exit to the main straight and they are far behind, I still have to defend for the coming corner. All thanks to the turbo,” said BMW-driver Thed Björk to TouringCarTimes.com.

Volkswagen homologated a new version of the Scirocco, in S2000 specification, which meant a new calculations for the weight. The team had full penalty weight, 1210 kilos, for Falkenberg but got 60 kilos less for the race at Karlskoga, 1150 kilos.

The loudest voices against the performance of Volkswagen and the bio-gas regulations has been the Volvo-team Polestar Racing.

“They [STCC AB] let a car with turbo in, they [VW] are the only ones with turbo and a lot of power. Then they [STCC AB] are trying to re-write and balance the rules during the season, something they are not succeeding with,” said Polestar team boss Christan Dahl in an interview with SVT.

Dick Jönsson-Wigroth, teamboss for championship leader Richard Göransson and WestCoast racing, is critical of the current situation as well.

“I am of course irritated over the situation. It is frustrating, I am a racer, I want to win and race on somewhat of equal terms and it does not feel like we are doing that now,” said Jönsson-Wigroth.

Volkswagen Motorsport Director Kris Nissen was present during the Swedish Touring Car Championship race at Karlskoga and commented on the situation.

“Well, all I can say is that the championship is handled by an organization and it is a decision from them. I think our cars were not really competitive in the last race at Falkenberg. If you want to keep the championship close, if you want to have different cars winning, you must also penalize the fastest cars sometimes and give the other cars and teams a little advantage,” said Nissen and continued.

The number one driver of the Biogas.se team, Fredrik Ekblom, closed in on the top two of the championship, Göransson and Dahlgren, after the strong performance at Karlskoga. Previous championship leader, now seven points behind Göransson in second, Dahlgren is critical of the power of the Volkswagen.

“Ekblom is a nice driver, but the car is too fast. It is something that is not right with the power of the engine,” said Dahlgren to Aftonbladet.

STCC boss Bob Huzell says that the problem the championship currently facing is because of the FIA.

“The problem is built in from the start from the regulations that the FIA created, allowing cars with different capacities. If there is no form of equalization, there is no reason for any other manufactures to enter the sport than the ones with the absolute best capacities based on the production car the racing car is built on. A field of two cars is not something anyone want to see,” said Huzell.

Technical director of STCC AB, Johnny Haraldsson, says that looking at just the race at Karlskoga does not give a fair view of the season in total.

“The weights can shift initially for a new car, but the weight stabilizes after a couple of races and has leveled out where the performance of the car is comparable to the others. Ten kilos equals to about a tenth per lap and if you add the six tenth that it equates on the laptimes of the biogas-cars in the qualifying of this weekend, you can see that they are on the same level of Volvo and BMW. It is going to even out,” said Haraldsson.

The STCC has announced that the championship is going to change regulations in 2012, scrapping the S2000 regulations for a new, yet to be announced, set of rules. This is going to eliminate these types of problems according to Huzell.

“We are going to completely eliminate the need for equalization regulations without losing the advantage of attracting manufacturers to the series,” said Huzell.

The Volkswagen team is going to be hit with full weight for the coming race at Jyllandsringen as it then is regarded as a new model, just as in Falkenberg, as it is the Scandinavian round and gets full weight – 1210 kilos.