SUNRED lighten the load with plastic windows
SUNRED Engineering have been allowed to change the side and rear windows on their SR León 1.6T race cars from this weekend in order to be able to to achieve their minimum weight allowances.
The team has been permitted to run at a minimum weight of 1,130kg for the last two race meetings at Porto, Portugal and Donington Park, UK, but the team hasn’t been able to hit this minimum weight due to the high base weight of the car with its new 1.6 litre turbocharged engine.
The base weight for car when it was running with the TDI engine was 1,170kg as is set in FIA Appendix J Article 263D regulations for Super 2000 diesel cars. SUNRED’s petrol León 1.6T’s regulated base weight is now 1,150kg, meaning they’re able to run 20kg lighter in addition to any compensation ballast calculation, though some of that would come from the heavier nature of the diesel engine.
The León has also never before run at the minimum allowed weight since the rule change in 2009, as the SEAT León TDI has been among the fastest if not the fastest car in the championship until the introduction of 1.6 litre turbo engines this year.
Team Principal Joan Orús has successfully petitioned the FIA Touring Car Committee to change the window material from glass to plastic from this weekend’s round at Oschersleben to be able to meet their low weight allowances, though coincidentally the team will be running at their standard base weight of 1,150kg after the latest compensation ballast calculations.
In Orús’s request to the TC Committee, he wrote:
“The philosophy of Article 79 (compensation weight), is to help the championship to have cars on same level. The actual weight of our cars with after application of that article must be -20kg, and we have a initial weight of 1150kg. It is absolutely impossible to arrive at 1130kg with the actual homologate car SR LEON 1.6T.”
The committee have accepted SUNRED’s request and the team will run with plastic lateral and rear windows in the cars of drivers Gabriele Tarquini, Aleksei Dudukalo, Michel Nykjaer, Pepe Oriola, Fredy Barth and Tiago Monteiro.
