Honda Racing Team hit with additional boost reduction

The Honda Racing Team say they will be running with an extra restriction this weekend compared to some of their competitors, as the manufacturers’ points leading team will be running with a handicap limit of 1.6 boost on their turbos.

TOCA last week announced that as an equalisation measure, all cars running with the Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC) specification engines will be made to run at 0.1 boost less than they achieved at Brands Hatch and Donington, which for the S2000 cars with NGTC engines means some cars will hit a maximum of 1.7 bar.

As a result of the way the 0.1 bar reduction is being applied, the Team Dynamics Honda Civics of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden will be running to a lower boost level than the Mountune-engined Fords and Swindon-powered Vauxhall teams.

2005-2006 champion Matt Neal believes the restriction is punishing the team for having developed the best car and engine package of the NGTC-engined runners.

The car has shown good pace in qualifying with two pole positions, but struggled when running with full ballast at Donington Park in race two, falling behind the Vauxhalls of Andrew Jordan and James Nash.

Matt Neal’s Honda will already be running with the championship points handicap of 36kg of additional ballast at this weekend’s race at the high-speed Thruxton circuit.

Matt Neal said to TouringCarTimes that Team Dynamics is a manufacturer backed team with what is regarded as one of the best handling cars in the paddock with the Honda Civic, and believes to treat the Honda team differently to the other NGTC-powered cars is unfairly hampering the team for their hard work.

TOCA have promised performance parity between the Super 2000 and NGTC-powered cars for 2011 and 2012, but the application of the 0.1 boost reduction across the team’s at Thruxton will have a varying effect from team to team by using the qualifying session as the benchmark.

The reason for the difference for Team Dynamics is because the Honda Racing Team did not reach their maximum boost levels during the qualifying session, instead they only did this during the race (not counting Gordon Shedden’s accidental boost level of 1.88 for which he was excluded from race one).

The application of the 0.1 boost reduction from TOCA is being applied to the cars qualifying performance, where the Honda didn’t reach its maximum boost levels, which is why the reduction of 0.1 will have a different effect on the Honda.

The end result is the Honda Civic will still be restricted to a maximum boost level of 1.6 at Thruxton, whilst other cars which recorded highest boost levels in the Donington Park qualifying session will have more boost available to them, even though the maximum levels recorded by the Civic in the race were higher.