WSR not expecting boost from rules

Bennett's WSR squad ran Colin Turkington to the 2009 BTCC crown in a BMW, but the rear-wheel-drive cars have struggled this season against the influx of turbo machines.

Series organiser TOCA has reduced the BMW's minimum weight by 10kg (to 1140kg) ahead of this weekend's Oulton Park round. They will also be allowed to run a free first gear: previously RWD cars had been forced to use a mandatory longer first ratio, which was designed to reduce the layout's inherent startline advantage.

But Bennetts does not believe the changes go far enough.

"We'll have difficulty getting down to the weight and they shouldn't have taken our first gear away in the first place," he said.

"We've spent a lot of money to get it down to 1150kg. Why should we spend more when we are supposed to be cutting costs. We may get 5kg off before Oulton, there's no way we'll get 10kg."

Bennetts, who has not ruled out switching to turbo units in future, believes a further reduction of the turbo boost would be a better measure. TOCA has introduced a suspended 0.05 bar reduction ahead of Oulton.

"The turbos have got 40-50bhp more and 40 per cent more torque," he added. "Why not take 0.3 bar off? You can always put it back up for Croft - that's one meeting [at a disadvantage], we've had three.

"It's a tough job to get parity, but the best way would be to slow them down on the straights."