The collection has made the transfer for its third season of hybrid use “to proceed its improvement with an additional deal with total efficiency”, with “reliability now at some 97.3% – comparable with some other main elements that make up a modern-day touring automotive”.
It additionally comes amid claims that the racing has turn into extra processional because the {old} system of success ballast was dropped when hybrid was launched in 2022.
The usage of hybrid-turbo enhance throughout 2022 and 2023 is known to have supplied an extra 30bhp, that means this can improve to roughly 60bhp on engines which might be estimated to supply roughly 375bhp – beneath the 2024 guidelines, energy will due to this fact be boosted by 16% when hybrid is used.
The tweaks to the enhance rules come following last week’s announcement of a new format for qualifying.
It’s understood that there’ll doubtless be no important adjustments to the 2023 guidelines on variety of seconds’ utilization of hybrid per qualifying lap and variety of laps within the race.
In qualifying, this ranges from one second per lap for the championship chief to 15s for these outdoors the highest seven. In races, these outdoors the highest seven within the championship or previous races can use hybrid on half the laps, reducing in increments of 1 lap.
Throughout 2023, champion Ash Sutton set pole place on 5 events whereas working the minimal 1s hybrid. The brand new guidelines ought to make it harder to take action and will even put the championship chief right into a battle to make Q2 or Q3 beneath the revised qualifying format.
Picture by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Ashley Sutton, NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST
Alliance Racing Ford driver Sutton was one in all three drivers to trial the brand new enhance guidelines, together with Tom Ingram (Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai) and Colin Turkington (West Surrey Racing BMW), at Snetterton in September.
4-time champion Sutton mentioned: “[It] will certainly add some spice to the racing.
“It will likely be a lot tougher to defend from because the delta between a automotive with and with out hybrid-turbo enhance will likely be a lot higher.
“You will note vehicles with the ability to pull alongside one another through the system and possibly even make overtakes at corners we historically haven’t been capable of earlier than.”
BTCC chief Alan Gow added: “With the hybrid system now confirmed to be extraordinarily dependable, the time is correct to additional develop its total efficiency.
“As we mentioned final week with the introduction of ‘Fast Six’ qualifying, we’re all the time trying to carry additional vitality to the championship and this newest improvement fairly actually does simply that.”
The brand new enhance guidelines are understood to come back with the blessing of BTCC tyre provider Goodyear and different technical suppliers to the collection.