In the BTCC Team Aon who run a pair of Ford Focus have been the talking point in the paddock this year and their incredible straight line advantage to the likes of the Hondas or Chevrolets.
At the start of the year Team Aon confirmed they would be running a pair of LPG run Focuses and by the time they got the the first race back in April the fords were over 4 mph faster than the others. Last year the Lacceti was famed for its straight line advantage but only had about a 2 mph difference to the rest of the pack.
After the first meeting in April the drivers had complained that the Focus had to much straight line speed and that it was unfair to all others. Alan Gow the series director stepped in and forced the focus to have a 37mm restrictor placed to stop it from being quite so fast and cut it from using so much turbo. It wasnt just the Gas that made it fast, it was the turbo!
So by the end of round 5 half way through the fords allready have 3 wins and with Snetterton coming up on 7/8 August the fords are going to fly so expect another couple of wins to them. They were over 1 second faster on the test day and has made even more people take notice that this car is still far to fast for everyone to be equal.
Jason Plato and Matt Neal who are 1 and 2 in the series retrospect has seen the 2 fords close the gap on them dramatically in the last 2 rounds as Tom Onslow - Cole has climbed to 3rd in the standings. Both drivers have been seen making comments that suspect that the fords need more restriction as otherwise the series will be marked by controversy and many drivers will be forced out of the championship and move to other series.
With Snetterton being the fastest track in Britain expect to see more and more drivers complaining about how fast and how much straight line speed they have.
Alan Gow has said that because the LPG hasnt been used in BTCC before everything is new and with all the data they have collected the 37mm restrictor is just a temporary measure until they can get enough data collected to make a accurate measure of how big the restrictor needs to be.
Thats all for my first post here so have a good read and should have something up on this after Snetts