Re: Touring Class Races

[Dave Eaton <dave.eaton@minedu.govt.nz>]

there were no m3's in the touring car support races to the melbourne grand prix.

fia class 2 is for n/a 2 litre touring cars.  rev limited to 8,500 rpm, suspension limited to stock (+/1 1 cm from production pick-up points), but not shocks etc.  gearboxes are free, as is engine location etc.

approximately 300hp, usually fwd.  the bmw's are called 318's, but are 2 litres. 4 cylinders (originally a sleved down version of the 2.3 m3 n/a motor - which never made it to the usa).  the audi's are by far the best looking cars on the grid.  absolutely georgeous.  the audis are a4 quattros running with 2 litre power plants.  rumours of computer controlled diffs have been officially denied by audi (they're illegal now anyway).

i'd say that the aussi quattros are a little down on power to the bmws, but look very good on the slow corners.  this is not expected to be a problem with the cars for the british and german touring car series.

the british touring car series will kick off on april the 7th and include 2 works a4 quattro sports.  as the btcc championship is the toughest in the world (8 works teams, and 10 semi-works teams), it will be very intersting to see how the audi's do.

in the btcc, the front runners are the renaults (last years champions), the gm vectra's, and the volvo's.  this year the bmws, audi's and renaults are all expected to be up there.

btw, the formula 1 teams: williams (with renault), mclaren (with bmw), and twr (volvo) are running the works efforts for these teams.  this is serious racing business !

british autosport magazine carries full coverage of the series...

-dave.

ps. i vote for the results service !