Toca Succes Ballast ?

[delos]

Hi Guys, I'm new to this forum so please excuse me if this subject has come up before, but, there has always been one thing about TOCA I never understood and that is the success ballast rule ... quite simply why?, are winning driver penalised in this way ?..
I know the rules and regs but I have never understood why being good and winning races meant you were penalised ?
I am a motorsport nut, I follow most nearly everything and get to as many live races as I can and in no other series, ( to my knowledge does this handicapping system exist ), can anyone enlighten me as to why and how it came about ?

[cos]

It's been around in the BTCC since 2000 (someone will probably correct me if I'm wrong...) and its intention is to level the field rather than penalise winning drivers. It is currently used in the ETCC, FIA GT series, and other touring car/GT car series around the world.

[Peter]

Yep, it has been around since the 2000 season.

In my mind it should stay. Before TOCA implemented it, Aiello and Nissan had dominated the series in 1999, removing the unpredictability that we expect. It was a similar story with Alain Menu and Renault i 1997. I think it was extremely effective- with all the last 3 seasons being decided at the final race with at least two drivers having a very realistic chance of mounting the crown.

[Les]

It's weird though - you expect people to really struggle with it yet some cars/drivers just continue as if it doesn't affect them at all.

[John]

I prefered the 2000 system with +40, +30 and +20kg and the cars sticking with the ballast all weekend.

2001 wasnt such a problem because it was only really the Astras that had ballast, but 2002 and this year's sytem is just confusing. Especially as the weights arent displayed on the cars anymore and because they are seemingly random amounts of ballast - or the loss of ballast.

I also dont like the change by race rather than by meeting. Its not as bad this year with just 1 qualifying session for the first race, but last year it didnt seem fair that the winner of race two was penalised in both qualifying sessions, whereas someone who won race one and didnt finish the second had no ballast for the following meeting's qualifying.

[The Stig]

delos, go back to the begining of the year, February time I think, just shortly after the forum restarted. There was a longish thread on this subject with loads of interesting points of view.

[delos]

Wow - that was quick, thanx for all the info guys.
I must admit I am still rather confused by this seasons system of seemingly random ammounts and I agree it was better when the cars had stickers showing the ammount of ballast they were carrying. I'm not sure I agree that it levels the playingfield any , it certainly didn't seem to affect muller any last time out

[MG-ZS EX260]

It makes more sense to me to penalisethe drivers 1-2-3-4-5-6 in the championship with ballast from 66kgs downwards, rather than a race by race basis

[John]

why 66kg?

but yeah good idea

[R5CPD]

Originally posted by John
I prefered the 2000 system with +40, +30 and +20kg and the cars sticking with the ballast all weekend...........


Thats another thing I would like to see return. I always thought it was a great idea when they used to display the amount of ballast on the cars's windscreen. That made it easy to see who was running what ballast. I'm not sure why they stopped using those stickers in 2001. Any idea's? :confused:

[Bill]

I think that it was probably due to the accumulation system of 2001 meant that you could have anywhere between 0 and 60KG of ballast, and therefore stickers would be a difficulty.

Have to say, I don't like success ballast. I prefer to see the driver doing the best job winning the race, rather than one with a good combo of race speed and a light car. Having said that, often it doesn't seem to have too much affect, I mean, Muller's run this season has been incredible! :)