TECHNICAL COLUMN PROVIDED BY WITHAM MOTORSPORT – DISTRIBUTORS OF MOTUL AUTOMOTIVE LUBRICANTS
Speedworks Motorsport boss Christian Dick is excited about the new BTCC hybrid systems
The 2022 British Touring car Championship will represent a brave new world for all of the teams and drivers on the grid.
The introduction of new hybrid systems fitted to all machines will not only create a new engineering challenge but will also introduce a further element of strategy to the racecraft.
The Motul-backed Speedworks Motorsport team, which will field a brace of Toyota Corollas in this year’s contest, has been at the cutting edge of developing the new systems. Twentythree of the potential 2022 entrants took to Donington Park last weekend for a hybrid installation test session and it was an eyeopener for all teams and racers to get to grips with the boost system.
This year, the drivers will no longer have to carry success ballast, as has been the case in previous campaigns. Instead, the successful racers will be hamstrung by having less hybrid energy to harvest which could put them under threat from a following car which has access to more electrical power.
Speedworks Motorsport has been out running two of its new machines and it is vital to get the early mileage in too. With a refreshed engine installation for 2022 as well, there are plenty of variables to nail down before the championship bursts into life at Donington Park’s National circuit on April 23-24.
Team owner Christian Dick is a man who enjoys the technical challenge of anything new coming into the BTCC, and he has been on the frontline of sorting out all the details ahead of the first hybrid season. Not only that, there is still the traditional legwork to be done on the set-up of the cars to make sure they are at the sharp end of the timesheets.
Dick says that the introduction of the new hybrid systems will mean the engineers, the teams and the drivers will have to have a new approach to their motorsport in 2022.
“The hybrid systems should improve the racing and the show,” he says. “Each driver will have essentially got an extra boost of horsepower for 15 seconds a lap roughly and they can use that when they choose. That is going to make things more exciting.
“There will, or course, be strategy of when is the optimum time to use that boost when you are trying to get a lap time from it. I think that inside a certain period of time, all of the teams will work out what that looks like and when it is.
“Once people have that knowledge, I am not sure qualifying is going to throw up that many surprises. Once you get to the races, it is going to be interesting. I don’t think drivers will be able to come from the back to the front with the boost that is on offer, but it will make the racing within the groups that people are racing in.”
And that will be one of the most intriguing aspects of the new season. The deployment of the extra hybrid boost could be done by a driver to stretch away from those who might be chasing them or, alternatively, it could used as an aid to defend from a rival who might be faster. The options are up to the individuals behind the wheel themselves, and there is unlikely to be any prescribed way to use the boost to make a difference. Each race throws up myriad options and that will be the fascinating part of the revamped category this term.
“The engineers will be working out how to get the most from a lap time and everyone will get to that level relatively quickly,” says Dick. “Maybe towards the end of the year, most people will have a good handle on extracting the most out of it or it might even take an entire season – but the races aren’t just about pure lap times, are they?
“In the racing, it will be two or more drivers going head to head and trying to outsmart each other with when they are using their allocation of boost. Those decisions are going to fall to the drivers – there isn’t a huge amount we can do as engineers in that situation other than to try and make sure they are not using it unnecessarily. We can educate them and that will either be through trial and error or looking back over footage to see how it works best over the opening few races. It is another new addition that will add to the excitement of the BTCC, and it is going to be fascinating to see how it plays out in practice.”
“The options of how to use the systems will be down to the individual drivers themselves in each race”