Hybrid rules tweaked for BTCC Brands Indy round

Series organiser TOCA has reduced the amount of time of hybrid use allowed for each lap during the races from 15 seconds to 10.

The change has been made because the Brands Indy Circuit is short, with most of the competitors circulating in the 48s bracket during Saturday’s opening free practice session.

TOCA has added that the same ruling will likely apply for the rounds at Knockhill and the Silverstone National Circuit, which are the other tracks with laptimes of below one minute.

PLUS: How the BTCC's new hybrid era aced its first test

But the hybrid deployment has not changed for qualifying, with the drivers placed 11th and below in the championship theoretically allowed 15s of usage per lap.

The rulechange appears to benefit the top 10 in the championship following the opening round.

As championship leader, Tom Ingram has a 15-lap reduction on when he can use the Cosworth-developed hybrid system during the opening race on his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N.

But Ingram played down the effect.

When asked whether the change would benefit him, he replied: “Not really. We know in qualifying we’ll all struggle with it, because it’s a success penalty. But basically we can’t get enough regen to deploy the full 15 seconds anyway.”

Tom Ingram, Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com Hyundai i30N

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Ingram led the way in the opening free practice session, 0.028 seconds ahead of the Ciceley Motorsport BMW 330i M Sport of Adam Morgan, who lies equal third in the championship following the opening round at Donington Park.

But the rules for hybrid deployment in free practice as a success penalty are different to the old ballast regulations.

With ballast, drivers were forced to run the weight they would run in qualifying and race one during free practice, but with hybrid they are theoretically free to use the system when required, allowing competitors to validate when they can deploy it to their benefit in races.

But it became a moot point in the opening free practice session at Brands, because a timing beacon failure on the start-finish line meant that the hybrid reset function was not available to anyone and no one could use it.