and also gets new lap record. i hope the regulation creators change the rules for next year, as otherwise soon all manufacturers will switch to diesel with it turbocharged performance advantage. my suggestion would be to allow all cars to be turbocharged. the petrols having a 1.6 engine and the diesels stay at 2.0. at the moment the diesels have a power advantage on the straights, they are not so good around corners due to the heavier engines though.
........ The Dude, The Duder His Dudeness, El Duderino.
Originally posted by barky: diesel beating high revving petrol in btcc - luvvin it they even comment on how quiet the tdi's are in comparison to the other cars
Yeah, which is the whole point of racing cars, isn't it Barky? Totally missing the point as usual. Enjoying the London Mayor outcome I hope?
Look, it's pretty simple. You have a race between two cars. One is allowed to use large, high pressure turbochargers, and the other is not. It's not tough to work out what will happen, is it!
I think it's a testament to the total supremacy of the petrol engine that it's able to be competitive at all with that kind of a disadvantage.
1980's/early 90's. 500bhp RWD Sierra Cosworths flying around sideways with Murray Walker commentating.
Late 90's/00's........... A Diesel MPV from the Skoda family, and a bumbling oath commentating.
the diesel cars are not enjoyable to drive, the race drivers say publicly that it ok because they dont want to upset their sponsors, but the weight balance is not so good and with the engine so quiet and with such a low rev range they dont know when to change gear, they have to have repositioned shift lights to help them,and even then its a distraction as they have to look at them consistently. obviously the diesels are quick with their big power, but its not motorsport.
........ The Dude, The Duder His Dudeness, El Duderino.
Originally posted by Knockside: Enjoying the London Mayor outcome I hope?
I honestly don't care what happens in london - too far away to be relevant to me, & that blonde mop haired american immigrant might be good for comedy value (stumble, did anyone notice that?) but he is unlikely to be any better than ken
why is it when I stand on my head that sometimes, just sometimes ......?
Petrol is, of course, a more powerful fuel. Nobody with any motoring knowledge will argue against that. But derv has it's place, too Murray Walker was prone to the most absurd cock-ups, but yes, the 500 bhp Cosworths were awesome for their day. My current Cosworth has 'only' 380 bhp, but is perhaps the finest engine i have had. Other than some lag at low rpm, it's as willing to work as any Lancer Evo engine i've witnessed. Plus, it's blindingly fast, when presented, as it is, with less weight to move than a Smart Car!
petrols a different kind of fuel, spark ignition rather than relying on compression to ignite like the diesel engine .... depends on whether you like lots of torque or lots of revs that you'll rarely use
why is it when I stand on my head that sometimes, just sometimes ......?
I'm a tad baffled at what V.A.G are trying to prove with this diesel racer thing.
It's not as if they've come up with anything revolutionary; simply because if you had the same capacity petrol engine with a turbo slapped on, it would wipe out the diesel equivalent.
The Audi R8 TDI is a classic example: the hacks have waxed lyrical about how it's faster than than the petrol version, but they conveniently forget to mention that the diesel has a turbo, 4 more cylinders & a significantly larger capacity.
The only advantages are fuel ecomony; but people who buy such cars are not worried about things like that & torque, but even the torque figures are overrated, as they are only available through a short rev band & too much torque puts too much stress on the components, as AMG Mercedes prove by the fact that they limit the torque on their V12 twin turbo engines.
I just don't get it at all.
____________________________ We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first Bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better....stronger..faster.....cue the cheesy 70's music!!!
Originally posted by Six Million Dollar Man: I'm a tad baffled at what V.A.G are trying to prove with this diesel racer thing.
It's not as if they've come up with anything revolutionary; simply because if you had the same capacity petrol engine with a turbo slapped on, it would wipe out the diesel equivalent.
The Audi R8 TDI is a classic example: the hacks have waxed lyrical about how it's faster than than the petrol version, but they conveniently forget to mention that the diesel has a turbo, 4 more cylinders & a significantly larger capacity.
The only advantages are fuel ecomony; but people who buy such cars are not worried about things like that & torque, but even the torque figures are overrated, as they are only available through a short rev band & too much torque puts too much stress on the components, as AMG Mercedes prove by the fact that they limit the torque on their V12 twin turbo engines.
I just don't get it at all.
Very well put. This is exactly how I feel and several others I've spoken too have said the same. I have a feeling that people are wising up to Diesels now.
Another point..... I was a young lad while watching those 500bhp RWD Cosworths slide it out around the track, against BMW M3's, tuned up Astra GTE's and the like. It was so exciting and over whelming and the sounds and smells at Brands Hatch made a huge impression on me at that time. I'd go as far as to say, they bred my passion for cars and got me in to them.
I think I can honestly, hand on heart, that if I went along today and watched a modern race - with all the third rate MPV's, and silly Diesel Skoda's - I would never have got in to cars.
Well VAG have decided that with the ongoing credit crunch, hairdressers (sorry hair designers),posers and estate agents need to save the environment as well as count the pennies, so now a diesel TT. Makes sense really 170bhp and 53 mpg just to pose. Personally I would be prefer the 2.0 TFSI with DSG box.
Originally posted by assettt: Well VAG have decided that with the ongoing credit crunch, hairdressers (sorry hair designers),posers and estate agents need to save the environment as well as count the pennies, so now a diesel TT. Makes sense really 170bhp and 53 mpg just to pose. Personally I would be prefer the 2.0 TFSI with DSG box.
They pose until 50% of people laugh at them for owning a TT, and then they stop at some traffic lights and 100% of people laugh at them for having a Diesel!
The BTCC series needs to attract two things in order to be successful; a decent audience, and a decent set of participants. For Touring Cars, the formula has always been to race cars that at least appear close to the kind of cars the viewers drive about in and these days, many of those cars are powered by diesel engines.
So allowing diesels to participate keeps the track cars a closer reflection of whats being driven to the circuit by the fans and allows the manufacturers a chance to showcase their diesels (which they all rely on heavily these days). It encourages their continued participation and keeps the fans interested. It all makes perfect sense.
I remember a similar debate on here a while back, allowing diesels is not a new rule. It's been in place for years but the engine technology has never been there to make it worthwhile exploiting. Now it is, and SEAT are using it to good effect (and why not? Brabham did exactly this in F1 30-odd years ago and ran a car that effectively had a jet engine ... if it werent for the faceful of gravel it kept depositing on the following drivers [and they were all following], Lewis might well be driving in a McLaren SNECMA today).
The BTCC rule (originally there to help compensate for the different characteristics of a diesel engine) is clearly now giving the dervs a disproportionate advantage; the new tech motors provide enough grunt to outdrag the petrol cars by more than the petrols can make up in the twisty bits with better balance, lighter blocks etc.
This type of thing happens all the time in motorsport, some innovation or other gives certain teams a big advantage that, if the others cant catch up with usually gets banned or restricted. It's exactly this that led to the air restrictors on turbocharged LM cars some years ago and is probably what will happen here to level the playing field if SEAT begin wiping the floor with everybody else regularly.
So I wouldn't be unduly concerned. There are all sorts of interests at play that caused this, but as long as the organisers are sensible, it won't spoil the show in the long run for the petrol fans.
_________________________ "Forward", he cried, from the rear, and the front rank died. And the General sat, and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
Originally posted by beach: , the race drivers say publicly that it ok because they dont want to upset their sponsors, but the weight balance is not so good and with the engine so quiet and with such a low rev range they dont know when to change gear, .
Any racing driver worth his salt is able to adapt to any car, no matter what its charateristics... case of poor workman blaming his tools in the above case...
Look at Moss's record, could win with virtually any car, from big lazy V8s, revvy bike engines and even some really odd stuff!
BTW Nox, why are you contantly refering to Skodas, as far as I'm aware the only Skodas raced thus far in motorsport have been petrol, rather pathetic comments, if you ask me....
you may have missed my point, they are not blaming the tools as they are winning the races, the diesel is a faster race car than the petrol version under current regs. the point is that they are boring, uninspiring, monotonous, dynamically grey and given the choice no driver would ever wish to sit in one. they would if it meant winning but thats as mentioned because of the regs.
........ The Dude, The Duder His Dudeness, El Duderino.
No, they are different, obviously they are petrolheads like you and Nox, perhaps we need a new bread of racing drivers who have not got their head so firmly stuck in the sand.....
Originally posted by b308: BTW Nox, why are you constantly referring to Skodas, as far as I'm aware the only Skodas raced thus far in motorsport have been petrol, rather pathetic comments, if you ask me....
once a petrolhead it can some times be impossible to make the mental switch .... fair enough, everyone's entitled to their view just to clear things up leon is a diesel hatchback from the audi family
why is it when I stand on my head that sometimes, just sometimes ......?
If diesel and petrol are to be raced together they should be on a level playing field. Same regulations, same restrictions, same engine capacities. I suspect the results may be somewhat different.....
Air Medic - Mobile Automotive Air Conditioning Service
Why? There are plenty of motorsports where regulations differ from car to car - if you want that, PB, then watch the "one make" series racing. To be fair, though, racing diesels against petrols is a very new thing, so we should give it time for things to settle...
The only problem there is that the racing teams will always find ways to make their cars better, so a regulation introduced one season to make things more "equal" can be made out of date by closed season developments - if I remember rightly that has dogged touring cars for the last few decades... really the only fair racing we will see is one make stuff, but even then cars can differ considerably dependant on how rich the teams are....
Looking back at my original reply, I feel I was a little unfair on the two Seat drivers, I also watched the racing and to be fair to them they did not slag off the engine, but said it was totally different to racing petrol and were still learing how to get the best out of them, as were the engineers.
I don't mean that I want all cars to be the same. Of course some cars will have different characteristics and different cars will excel in different areas, that's what makes racing interesting. I still think it's unfair to increase the engine capacity for diesels and if they are allowed turbos i think petrols should be allowed turbos too. Ok I can understand a diesel needing a turbo to match the petrol engine's horsepower but then the petrol suffers the same fate in having a torque deficit, so therefore they should be allowed turbos to match the diesels torque.
Out of interest what motorsports allow different regulations from car to car?
Air Medic - Mobile Automotive Air Conditioning Service
