BoP - Yay or Nay?

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JohnsonCapote
So I'm aware this is quite a hot potato in the motorsport world right now, and it's the bandwagon EVERYONE is jumping on. Balance of Performance.

It's nothing new in motorsport - Super GT and BTCC has been using success ballast for many years, for e.g. - but at the moment we are seeing it more aggressively metered out especially in sportscar racing (TUSCC, Blancpain Endurance/Sprint Series etc). On the one hand, it's great if it works because we as fans see a great variety of cars racing close and head-to-head with driver skill coming to the fore.

On the other, though, we have a) controversial situations arising if the BoP isn't applied correctly, as we saw at the start of the TUSCC season where DP cars clearly had been over-compensated versus the P2 cars, and last year at Le Mans where the ALMS GTE teams were suddenly 2-3 seconds per lap off the pace compared to the WEC Astons/Porsches.

We also have an interesting alternative - some of the P2 teams (I believe Scott Sharp proposed this after Daytona) have called for the rulebook to be opened out, and emphasis be placed not on conforming everyone to one box with penalties/restrictors, but letting people do things their own way and innovation become a natural equaliser. It seems to be WEC is going this way too, making very minimal BoP changes and focusing instead of equalising fuel types, rather than individual cars. And it seems to be working as we have a fascinating LMP1 duel shaping up across the season between Toyota, Audi and Porsche. Sharp proposed that this would actually help teams keep costs down by not constantly having to tweak parts/setups to conform to BoP.

Personally, I think BoP is a very slippery slope, and in many cases allowing teams to do things differently actually becomes a natural equaliser. I like the idea of cars having certain strengths and weaknesses and that provides interest - as we saw yesterday in TUSCC, the DPs still had more power and weight on the P2s, but the P2s being lighter and better under braking kept them fairly evenly matched.

What are you guys' thoughts?
 
I'm all for a well maintained BoP, it makes for the best racing. It HAS to stay neutral however. In the last few Years, GT3 has become my favorite race class with close races and huge variety in winning manufacturers. The cars are balanced very well, yet in a manner that different cars can still maintain their individual traits and strengths.

The fiasco of LeMans 2013 was politics and lobbyism influencing the BoP. Both Porsche and Aston were celebrating anniversaries, so they got performance gifts. Such things should never happen and go against the very nature of what a balance of performance should be. I've also seen some national series push the BoP in favor of domestic car companies to push sales, which is also a big no go in my opinion.

In my opinion a series without proper limitations and balancing of the competition hurts the sport more than it helps. A regulation free environment pushes the series into an armament war, resulting in those with the biggest purse to be the only ones successful.

The other extreme of spec racing kills the diversity and limits the fan's passion. Best example is Moto2 vs Moto GP. Moto2 has very good racing but a large amount of spec parts, all Honda. There are a few different chassis manufacturers with which I can not identify myself. At Moto GP you have the heated Honda vs Yamaha battles which gets the fan's blood boiling a bit. But since there is no balancing occurring in Moto GP, you end up with seasons where a single manufacturer dominates the entire season. Watching wonder-kid Marquez blast off and obliterating the competition by 20secs every race is hardly any fun...A BoP there would do magic for the competition aspect, allowing Ducati to regain a presence up front and diversify the top ranks. I would enjoy F1 a lot more as well if there was balancing involved. Getting more cars to a level where a broad variety of competitors can win would make for much more exciting championships. RBR winning the last few championships and MGP almost definitely running away with the title this year are much too predictable.

I guess one's stance to BoP is largely determined by ones expectations from the Motorsport. If you want cutting edge tech and new development, BoP are counterproductive, but if its for the racing passion and excitement, BoPs are a great tool to ensure this.
 
Couldn't agree with you more Third Reign. The Blancpain (or Backpain series as I call them) Series have hit the balance just right, allowing a huge amount of cars to be competitive and race hard against each other. Seeing a monsterous Bentley Continental battling with nimble 458 Ferraris and McLaren MP4-12Cs was just wonderful at Monza a few weeks ago! There was talk of Ratel trying to BoP further and take away individual cars' advantages and disadvantages - I disagree with this. It makes things more interesting when you know certain cars will be stronger at certain tracks. And much like the RWD debate in BTCC of late, it's not like any car has THAT much more of an advantage that they will just run away and hide at a certain race.

I think it entirely depends on being neutral - balance has to be balance equal to all. As you said, Le Mans 2013 was a farce for the GTE class, and as much as I love Aston Martin I was utterly furious that Corvette were completely off the pace, the SRT Vipers (which had shown great pace in ALMS) were nowhere, and BMW withdrew altogether.

I think there is a way to balance it so technical innovation can still be encouraged - look at how the DeltaWing is being slotted into TUSCC competition. And the LMP1 class currently in WEC is BoP-ed but still allows a huge amount of technical innovation, and as pointed out at Spa, we had 3 different types of powerplant - 3.6L N/A V8, 2.0L 4-cylinder turbo, and 4.0L TDI Diesel turbo - and three different types of ERS, all fighting for glory. I love that kind of variety in racing. I would love to see a way for the BTCC for e.g. to incorporate different engine types rather than 2.0L four-cylinder engines - imagine one of the smaller Jaguar V8s, or a straight-six up against turbo-fours?
 
I basically agree with @Third Reign on the matter. A series gets a little boring after a while if you have the same car at the top not because of the driver's skill but because he is in a clearly superior car (F1 for instance). I am mostly watching GT racing and DTM nowadays as they provide fantastic and close racing because of well balanced cars.

The only thing that might be a problem is if a racing series is a prestige project for a manufacturer to shine. When that manufacturer is limited in its ability to show of its technical skills it might put it off. This in the end could be problematic for some series (again probably F1 and maybe WEC if overdone).

But generally: Yay! Well done BoP provides close racing and fans have a feeling that it's actually worth watching a race as the results are not foreseeable easily. It also does away with the discounting of drivers' performance because they happened to be in the strongest car that season.
 
Nay. BoP annoys me.

I can live with very broadly designed "equivalency rules". Like when Renault entered their Turbo cars in Formula 1. Back then there was already a rule in place and it was 3.0L is aspirated vs 1.5L if turbocharged. With this in mind, no manufacturer thought turbos would stand a chance ... but Renault proved them wrong. End result? A massive jump in technology. And new amazing engines from Germany and Japan, ending the traditional English / Italian engine domination in F1.


Also, I'm glad BoP wasn't around when Audi introduced 4WD into rallying. Same story ... 4WD could work, but it was too heavy and too complicated for thoroughbred racing machines so it wasn't suited for rallying at the highest level. And Audi proved this all wrong. I can already see XXIst century Fiat/Lancia, Ford and Opel crying for BoP if this had happened only today.


... or when Jaguar used disc brakes at Le Mans.

... or when race cars placed their engines behind the driver ... I don't think Jim Clark and Graham Hill would have crossed the pond to contest the Indy 500 as easily these days. Or that by 1965 the indianapolis entire field would be (as it happened) already dominated by rear engined cars. It is my firm belief that BoP would've kept front engined cars alive and competitive for many more years.
 
Hun200kmh
Nay. BoP annoys me.

I can live with very broadly designed "equivalency rules". Like when Renault entered their Turbo cars in Formula 1. Back then there was already a rule in place and it was 3.0L is aspirated vs 1.5L if turbocharged. With this in mind, no manufacturer thought turbos would stand a chance ... but Renault proved them wrong. End result? A massive jump in technology. And new amazing engines from Germany and Japan, ending the traditional English / Italian engine domination in F1.


Also, I'm glad BoP wasn't around when Audi introduced 4WD into rallying. Same story ... 4WD could work, but it was too heavy and too complicated for thoroughbred racing machines so it wasn't suited for rallying at the highest level. And Audi proved this all wrong. I can already see XXIst century Fiat/Lancia, Ford and Opel crying for BoP if this had happened only today.


... or when Jaguar used disc brakes at Le Mans.

... or when race cars placed their engines behind the driver ... I don't think Jim Clark and Graham Hill would have crossed the pond to contest the Indy 500 as easily these days. Or that by 1965 the indianapolis entire field would be (as it happened) already dominated by rear engined cars. It is my firm belief that BoP would've kept front engined cars alive and competitive for many more years.
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I think the view on BoP depends highly on what you are most interested in in motorsports. If it's the technical side you will tend against BoP. If it's the drivers side you will tend towards it.
 
Racing is about finding the fastest or the one with the greatest endurance not how close you can make the racing.

Technical regulation to work within a category is all that has ever been required.

If you want close racing watch a one make series.
 
I'll just drop in and say that I watch racing to see the boys duke it out as they fiercely battle for victory all the way to the chequered flag. Not to see which manufacturer has built the dominant car.
 
BoP is a necessary evil in the world of touring cars and GT racing. Simply put, without BoP, races would either have homogeneous grids or lack much of the close racing that many GT categories currently enjoy. The poor teams with the wrong car would struggle and fold quickly and you'd never see the giant grids we saw in BES and Super GT these past few years. The inter-manufacturer battles would disappear in all categories that use GT3 regulations (or actually GT3 would have never existed without BoP, so that's a bit of a moot point). Ferrari/AF Corse would dominate GTE in WEC, Porsche and Aston would never stand a chance as a clear hierarchy would emerge.

A lot of good racing around the world, mostly in GT categories, would basically turn into something resembling the current WTCC without BoP. That doesn't sound all that appealing to me.
 
I believe different types of racing suit BoP better.


Almost no one would watch NASCAR if it had a car which is 30 mph faster around the track.
But, everyone watches endurance racing, even though LMP1 hasn't really ever had BoP.

On a case by case basis, it's excellent.
 
ITCC_Andrew
I believe different types of racing suit BoP better.


Almost no one would watch NASCAR if it had a car which is 30 mph faster around the track.
But, everyone watches endurance racing, even though LMP1 hasn't really ever had BoP.

On a case by case basis, it's excellent.
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LMP1 has balancing of performance in fuel loads. The diesels are permitted much less fuel than the petrol engines. I haven't caught up on the 2014 regulations, but it was quite obvious last year, where Toyota could fuel 18L (72 to 54 if i recall correctly) more and had a larger refueling flow.
 
Third Reign
LMP1 has balancing of performance in fuel loads. The diesels are permitted much less fuel than the petrol engines. I haven't caught up on the 2014 regulations, but it was quite obvious last year, where Toyota could fuel 18L (72 to 54 if i recall correctly) more and had a larger refueling flow.
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I don't recall any kind of BoP between LMP1s fighting with the same technical solutions. Specifically I don't recall Peugeot and Audi being BoPed towards each other.

So, although serving a similar purpose, the difference in rules regarding LMP1 cars aren't about specific cars, they are about different technical solutions. In the case you mentioned, it was Petrol (Hybrid) vs Diesel (Hybrid and non Hybrid).

A bit like the old "displacement equivalency rule" in F1 about Turbos and non Turbos.
 

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