BTCC Regulations
Sporting Regulations
General
The BTCC has International status and is operated in accordance with the general regulations of the RAC Motor Sports Association and the series own sporting and commercial regulations, which incorporate the FIA Super Touring technical regulations.
In 1992, the administration of the series was passed from the RACMSA and into the hands of a private organisation. TOCA Ltd was formed by the top team managers of the time (Andy Rouse, Dave Cooke, Vic Lee, Dave Richards) with Alan Gow as managing director. It’s responsibilities include not only the day to day running of the race meetings, but also all contracts relating to the media, event promotion and series sponsorship. TOCA also oversees the application of the sporting and technical regulations and is responsible for driver discipline.
Race Formats
A number of difference race formats have been used: –
Single: One race covering between 60km and 70km depending upon track size. Single races were slowly phased out over the decade and replaced by the other multi-race types, giving the fans 26 individual races in 1999, compared to 13 in 1990. The last single BTCC race was in 1995 at the GP support meeting at Silverstone.
Double: Introduced in 1991, these are two races of 50km – 60km separated by a 10 minute gap. Between the races, the pit crews can work on the cars and make any adjustments required, including fitting new tyres and refueling. Cars stopped on the circuit can also be recovered and repaired, but only within the allocated 10 minutes. Failure to take grid position at the allocated time will result in the car starting from the back of the grid for the second race.
Twin: Used from 1995, these are two races of equal length with a gap of at least 90 minutes between them. The first race starting between noon and 12:30, with the second race between 15:00 and 15:30. Similar rules to the Double race apply, but with teams having more opportunity to repair or make adjustments to their cars. It is common for support events to be run between the two races.
Sprint/Feature: Introduced in 1998 and applied to all rounds of the championship. Two races, with a minimum of 90 minutes between the two. The first race being the Sprint covering between 50km and 60km. The second race being the much longer Feature event of between 100km and 140km which has a mandatory pit-stop that has to be taken between 15% and 70% of the race distance, during which at least two wheels and tyres must be changed.
Qualifying: The are two 30 minute qualifying sessions per race meeting, separated where possible by at least 2 hours.
From 1991, both sessions counted towards the grid position for the first (or only) race of the day, with the driver’s best time from either session being used. Grid position for the second race of the day (Double or Twin races) would be the finishing position in the first race.
From 1995 to 1997, each qualifying session counted towards only one of the races, the first qualifying session determined grid position for the first race, and the second session for the second race.
From 1998, the first qualifying session counted towards the longer Feature race, while the second session became a One-Shot Showdown, with each driver allowed only a single lap to determine their grid position for the Sprint race.
Points System: Points are awarded to competitors depending upon their finishing position in each race, and these points count towards the relevant championship totals in accordance with the rules of each championship.
At the end of each season, the totals accumulated for each championship determines the finishing order of that specific championship, but where a tie exists between two or more competitors, the outcome will be decided by taking into account the number of race wins by each. If a tie still exists, then the number of second places will decide the title, and so on until a winner is found.
Between 1991 and 1993, the Driver and Team points were awarded to the first 10 finishers as follows : 24-18-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1, with half points being awarded to the first 8 finishers of either event in a Double race. Manufacturers points were awarded in 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 sequence depending upon finishing position.
From 1994 to 1995, all championships adopted the same points system (24-18-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1) for all rounds, regardless of race type.
From 1996 onwards, a single points system was retained but the number of points available per event was reduced to 15-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.
Drivers Championship: The Drivers title is awarded to the competitor who has accumulated the highest number of points throughout the season based on the points system above. From 1996 onwards, drivers are awarded a single point for claiming pole position, and from 1997 an additional point for leading the feature race at an event. Initially all race results counted, but from 1997 each driver counted only their best 22 results, which would have to include any rounds in which they were disqualified due to breech of regulations.
Drivers are eligible to score points with different cars, but may make only one change of drive train format in the season. They may change again, but would not continue to score points.
Financial Bonuses for drivers were introduced by TOCA in 1998, with £1 million available to any driver winning all 26 rounds, £900,000 for 23 victories, down to £700,000 for 19 wins. This was changed the following season to £250,000 for any driver taking four consecutive race wins at two meetings.
Manufacturers Championship: Points are awarded to the manufacturers highest placed car in each race, based on the point system above. As with the drivers championship, dropped scores were introduced in 1997 making only the top 22 scores count.
Teams Championship: Teams must nominate a maximum of two cars per season, which are awarded points based on their finishing position. From 1998, only results from a Feature style race count towards the championship.
Independents (TOCA/Total/Autosport) Cup: Points awarded as above, except where five or less drivers take the start, in which case the points will be awarded for the top three places : 15-10-5. Additional points were introduced in 1999 for top independent qualifier for each race, fastest lap for each race and any driver leading the independents division during a Feature race.
Independents: An independent is classified as any driver who does not receive substantial manufacturer or importer assistance above that freely available to any other independent competing in the same marque.
They score points for the Independents Cup and receive substantial incentives by the cup sponsor to enable them to compete in the BTCC. Any driver entering all rounds of the series receive a bonus, which is paid in two installments during the season. This bonus started at £8,000 in 1993, quickly rising to £10,000 in 1994, and to £20,000 in 1997. Additional payments of £30,000 £15,000 and £10,000 were paid to the overall top three finishers, these bonuses being doubled in 1997, making the series the richest in the UK.
In 1998 TOCA introduced an additional bonus of £100,000 for any independent driver winning a race overall. This was doubled to £250,000 the following year.
Fuel: All cars must use a standard, TOCA supplied, unleaded fuel throughout the race weekend. TOCA has the ability to undertake detailed analysis on-site and may take random samples from participating cars. No refueling is permitted during practice or qualification sessions, during the race itself, or before post-race scrutineering has been completed.
Scrutineering: All competing cars for a race meeting must be subjected to routine scrutineering checks at the start of the meeting, and may also be liable to random checks during the course of the race weekend. The chief scrutineer and technical commissioner will select cars for checks after each qualifying session and after each race. These checks can include the cars weight, ride height and exhaust noise. Failure of the checks could result in loss of a qualifying time or disqualification from the race altogether.
In addition, any car may be impound following a race to enable more detailed checks to be performed, which could include detailed analysis of the cars electronic devices by suitable experts.
Driver Discipline: All drivers are answerable to the Clerk of The Course and the TOCA administrator with regards to their behaviour during a race meeting, both on and off the track. Fines, time penalties, license endorsements, points deductions or even disqualifications can be applied in the event a driver being judged to be in breach of the regulations.
TOCA also introduced a Driving Standards Advisor (ex-Vauxhall driver Jeff Allam) in 1995 to help promote the quality of driving in the series.
Testing: TOCA organises official test days at each circuit prior to each race meeting. Once the championship season has started, no other testing is permitted at a track until all races for the specific track have taken place.
Race Numbers: The numbers displayed on the race cars are allocated at the discretion of the championship co-ordinators. Race numbers 1 thru 10 are reserved for the drivers who finished in the top ten the previous season, while other numbers are allocated as required.
Sponsorship: The advertising of tobacco or tobacco related products is not permitted in any form. Also, any products not permitted to be advertised on UK television are also prohibited, and TOCA reserve the right to censor or ban any advertising deemed unsuitable for the series.
Technical Regulations
Eligible Cars
The series is open to four door family saloon cars that have an overall length of no less than 4.2m. This removes the eligibility of small hot hatches or sports coupes, which could have an unfair advantage.
There is a required production run of at least 25,000 identical cars before any car can be homologated with the FIA, which was increased from the initial 2,500 units in 1995 in an attempt to remove the new breed of ‘homologation specials’ that were appearing, such as the Alfa Romeo 155 Silverstone.
Body Shell
All racecars must be built from a production body shell, with all panels being of the same shape and material as the homologated car. The shell must not have a sunroof (or it must have the opening sealed) and can be stripped of all unnecessary items such as soundproofing, non-essential brackets and external items such as mud flaps and number plate holders. The cars external lighting must still function correctly, and all must have at least one windscreen wiper.
Teams are allowed to strengthen the shell using seam welding to replace any existing spot welds and by adding a full roll-cage. This is designed not only to provide driver safety in the event of an accident, but it also helps stiffen the body to allow it to handle the extreme forces generated by the tyres and suspension.
Additional wheel clearance can be provided, by either changing the inner wheel arches to accommodate the wheels and tyres, or by cutting away a certain proportion of the wheel arch itself.
Minimum Weights
To equalise performance between the front, rear and four-wheel drive cars a series of minimum weights are imposed. These weights can be adjusted if one car is seen to be too dominant in the series. The technical scrutineers check these weights frequently and, since this is often done with the driver on board, an allowance of at least 80kg is made for the driver and his kit. This means additional ballast is required in cars with lightweight drivers to bring the weight up to the allowable limit.
These are the weight limits imposed from 1991 – 2000:
03-1991 – FWD 950kg RWD 1050kg 4X4 1050kg
07-1992 – FWD 950kg RWD 1025kg 4X4 1050kg
03-1993 – FWD 950kg RWD 1050kg 4X4 1050kg
03-1994 – FWD 975kg RWD 1025kg 4X4 1040kg
07-1995 – FWD 975kg RWD 1000kg 4X4 1040kg
05-1996 – FWD 975kg RWD 1000kg 4X4 1070kg
05-1997 – FWD 975kg RWD 1000kg 4X4 1040kg
03-1998 – FWD 975kg RWD 1000kg 4X4 Banned
For the 2000 championship, ‘success ballast’ was introduced which meant any driver achieving a podium finish was given an additional weight penalty. The top three finishers in each race would receive an additional 40kg, 30kg and 20kg, which had to be carried in the car at the following race meeting. A maximum of 40kg was given to any driver achieving a podium finish in both races.
Engines
A Super Touring racecar must be equipped with a normally aspirated two-litre engine with no more than 6 cylinders. Manufacturers are allowed to select any engine from its range, not necessarily from the homologated car, as long as over 2,500 units have been produced in a 12-month period. The engine bore and stroke can be adjusted to meet the 2,000cc limit if required, meaning a smaller or larger engine can be selected as a starting point. When fitted to the car, the engine must be located in the same relative position as in the production model (i.e. transverse or longitudinal) however it can be moved within the engine bay as long as no modifications to the engine bay are made.
To limit engine performance and development costs all engines are limited to 8,500rpm, which until 1997 was controlled via a mandatory FIA approved electronic rev-limiter. From 1997, the rev-limiter became optional and a newly introduced ‘black-box’ data recorder became mandatory. The recorder enabled the scrutineers to record the engine revs over a longer period of time and thus check for any anomalies which a simple re-limiter would not pick-up.
In a similar way to F1 teams, the BTCC teams must also submit any Engine Control Units (ECU) to allow the scrutineers (or electronics specialists on behalf of the scrutineers) to check for illegal driver aids. This process was introduced in 1995 following rumours that some teams had introduced ‘software driven’ traction control within these units thus gaining an advantage.
Other restrictions on engine tuning and components are few, with the exception that the original cylinder block and head must be used, the number and position of cam-shafts must remain the same, and that the crankshaft and con-rods must be made of a ferrous material (i.e. no exotic titanium).
Each car can run a custom made exhaust, but the exit point must be at the rear of the car and the exhaust note must not exceed 110db at 6300rpm. All cars must run on a specific TOCA ‘control’ unleaded fuel and therefore must also be fitted with an FIA approved catalytic converter.
Transmission
The rules allow for both front or rear wheel drive, with the racecar having to retain the same drive-train layout as the production car. Four-wheel drive cars were also permitted, but a rule change at the end of 1997 banned them from competing.
All cars can use purpose built racing gearboxes, which must have a maximum of 6 forward gears plus a mandatory reverse gear. No electronically assisted control of the clutch or gearboxes is allowed and the driver, via a mechanical linkage, must make all gear selections.
Sequential gearboxes are allowed, which are smaller and lighter than traditional H pattern units, and also have the added advantage of allowing the engine to be mounted lower in the car.
A mechanical limited slip differential can be situated between the two driven wheels, but no electronic anti slip devices are allowed.
Suspension
As with the other significant components on the racecar, the suspension type and configuration must remain true to the original specification found on the production vehicle. This being said, the teams have a lot of scope to enhance the suspension and improve the handing of the car via the use of pure racing components.
Although the suspension type must remain the same, the positioning of the components is variable within certain tolerances specified within the rules. Items such as springs must also remain the same type, but additional springs can be added so long as they can be fitted without significant modification to the suspension configuration. The same applies to shock absorbers, with the rules requiring that the same number of dampers are fitted, but can be replaced by combination spring/damper units if desired.
No ‘active’ suspension mechanisms were allowed, but the drivers are allowed the ability to adjust the front and rear anti-roll bars from within the cockpit during the race.
The only other restriction on the suspension wa that no composite material could be used within any of the suspension components.
Wheels and Tyres
This is another area where the rules have been designed to try and equalise performance between the various cars participating. This is achieved by restricting the tyre width to 9 inches and the overall diameter to 650mm, thus limiting the level of grip available to all cars.
Another restriction is in the number of tyres available to each car for qualifying and racing. When the rules were initially written, a maximum of six slick un-treaded tyres per car were allowed for each race event (or wet tyres if it was declared a wet race). This meant that two of the tyres used for qualifying would have to be used (and last) the race itself, thus limiting the use of sticky qualifying tyres. At the newly introduced ‘double’ and ‘twin’ race meetings, the teams were allowed to use a completely new set of tyres for the second race.
In 1995, all rounds (excluding the British GP support race) became two race events, with a qualifying session for each race. Tyres were now restricted to 6 slicks per qualifying session and associated race.
Then in 1998, the two races became a short ‘sprint’ race followed by a longer ‘feature’ race. Although the six-tyre rule continued to apply to the sprint race, the qualifying was now reduced to a one-shot lap per driver to decide grid position. The longer feature race now required a mandatory pit stop and tyre change; however only two tyres could be changed per car, and these could be new tyres.
The physical wheel diameter is only restricted in so far as the complete wheel and tyre unit must fit within the proscribed tyre size rules, and that the wheel itself must not be made of a composite material.
Initially, the use of tyre warmers was not permitted, but this rule also changed in 1998 to allow the teams to use them in the pits but not on the grid before the race.
Aerodynamics
The use of aerodynamics is one area where the rules have changed significantly since their first drafting in 1989. Following attempts by some manufacturers to use loopholes in the rules to gain an unfair advantage over the remainder of the field, the FIA changed the rules in attempt to re-introduce a level playing field.
The original rules kept the racecars silhouette identical to that of the production model by stipulating that any aerodynamic device used on the racecar must also appear on the homologated car. This not only gave the cars an easily recognisable ‘showroom’ look, but also limited the aerodynamics of the cars to produce closer racing. However, in 1995 the rules were changed and all teams were allowed to develop and use non-production aerodynamic kits on their racecars. Each aerodynamic package can consist of a front spoiler and splitter plus a rear wing.
The front dam must not project further forward than the original bodywork and must also be at least 45mm off the ground. Also, no part of the car should touch the ground when both tyres on one side of the car are deflated.
The rear wing must fit within an imaginary box with a cross-section of 150mm x 150mm and must not be adjustable. It must be fitted no nearer than 100mm from the rear of the car and should be no wider that the car itself, to the extent that it must not be visible when viewed from the front of the car.
All aerodynamic packages must be registered with the FIA before the beginning of the season and then cannot be changed during that season.
Brakes
The limitations on brakes are few, and mainly concern the use of composite materials within the disk and calliper mechanism. All disks must be made of a ferrous material but there is no restriction on their size other than the limits imposed by the size of the wheel within which they must fit. The callipers must be made from aluminium materials, but the number of callipers per wheel is not restricted neither is the number of pads per calliper.
The brake pads themselves can be made of any material and can only be cooled by air ducted from the front spoiler or from the rear of the car. The callipers can be cooled via a closed loop liquid system with the fluid reservoir being carried on-board the car.
Although seen initially on a number of cars in 1992, anti-lock brakes were quickly banned and no form of pneumatic, electric or electronic brake adjustment is allowed. The exception is the cockpit mounted brake balance mechanism, which can be adjusted manually by the driver during the race.
Cockpit Safety
Driver safety is one of the most crucial features of a Super Touring car. Since their introduction, the rules have changed often to ensure that the drivers are not take unnecessary risks when racing.
The most obvious safety device is the roll-cage, which also acts as a second chassis for the cars. The design of these cages has improved quite dramatically over recent times with more focus being given to the area containing the driver. The drivers seat has been moved more towards the centre of the car and is surrounded by the roll cage and new door bars. Additional energy-absorbing carbon fibre composite panelling must be fitted to the doors and the roll cage and the seating must provide lateral protection for the drivers’ head in the event of a side impact. The usual 6-point safety harness is required to keep the driver safely in his seat.
Window glass must be exchanged for lightweight polycarbonate shatterproof plastic, with the drivers widow having to be fitted with a safety net. New rules regarding the drivers’ ability to exit the car quickly have also seen the introduction of Formula 1 style removable steering wheels.
All cars must be fitted with a fire extinguisher that can be operated by the driver or by a marshal from outside the car. Engine cutout switches are also required inside and outside the car.
All drivers must wear FIA approved crash helmets and suits made from flame-resistant material, with underwear, socks, gloves and a balaclava-type helmet lining of a similar material.