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WSR says 2015 British Touring Car rule changes 'will hurt' its BMW

WSR boss Dick Bennetts is concerned the British Touring Car Championship regulation changes for rear-wheel drive cars will have an unfair impact on his title-winning team's performance in 2015

The engines in the WSR BMW 125i M Sports and Rob Austin Racing Audis are positioned further back than their FWD counterparts due to the different drivetrains, which makes them lighter over the front axle.

Last October, TOCA announced it had tweaked the regulations so RWD cars carry the championship's mandatory ballast box as far forward as possible in 2015.

Bennetts is concerned about how much this will peg back the BMWs, and believes the change is based entirely on Colin Turkington's results in 2014 rather than the actual performance of the rear-wheel-drive machines.

"The weight distribution will hurt us compared to what we've had before - especially with the increased ballast," said Bennetts, whose team announced on Monday that it has replaced former title sponsor eBay with backing from driver Sam Tordoff's father's company JCT600 and GardX.

"We're expecting a tough battle.

"It's never going to be easy, if it was more people would do it.

"But to us they've never changed the rules when people have won, even when Honda won three consecutive championships."

The championship's only official pre-season test takes place at Donington Park on Tuesday, but Bennetts does not expect it to project an accurate image of the 2015 pecking order.

"You don't know who is running with no weight and who is running with all of it," he added.

"It's difficult to gauge. Even tomorrow you won't get an accurate answer."

BALLAST INCREASE FOR 2015

The success ballast applied to frontrunners has been increased significantly ahead of the 2015 season.

Previously, the ballast amounts were the same as in the series' S2000 era, but organisers believed the previous figure was not representative of the NGTC's higher base weight.

This year the championship leader will have to start each race weekend with the maximum ballast of 75kg, up 30kg from 2014, while the handicap now extends to the top 10 instead of the top five.

It will be awarded as follows: 75kgs; 66kgs; 57kgs; 48kgs; 39kgs; 33kgs; 27kgs; 21kgs; 15kgs; 9kgs.

The change in success ballast is part of a raft of regulation tweaks initially announced last October, which included revisions to how Dunlop's soft tyre is used, how the grid is set for race two and the introduction of a season-long boost level for each car and engine type.

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