Dunlop Endurance Championship

INGSport are very excited to return to Britcar this year, entering our BMW Z4 GT3 into the Dunlop Endurance Championship. The team have enjoyed getting back into the car and is relishing the opportunity to race against some highly regarded teams. As for the rest of the INGSport team, we will be giving 110% as always to achieve what we like doing best – winning. 

The following is Britcar's explanation of the new format and classification:

Format

For 2019, after extensive consultation with drivers and teams, we switch our format to a single championship, split into classes, running two 60-minute races (with 1 x 20 min qualifying session) on a single day, and closing out the season with our traditional 2-hours into-the-night race (with 1 x 20 min day and 1 x 30 min night qualifying sessions) hosted at Brands Hatch.

The format of our weekends will also stay the same: most will be single-day, representing an immediate saving on costs. However, we will continue to offer both TV coverage and VIP Hospitality for drivers and teams at each round.

An overview of Britcar Classification

The majority of multiclass championship categorise their cars based on a basic power to weight ratio or restrict the entrants on what they can do to their race car. The power to weight method does not take into account the additional technology fitted to a car such as 4 way adjustable dampers, Venturi Tunnels etc. This can ultimately lead to a car classified in a lower class due to engine power lapping quicker than a car in a higher class due to trick suspension or other improvements. This can lead to cars being moved to different classes mid-season, added weight etc. to balance out the cars but one guarantee is that it will lead to frustrated teams and drivers.

Not one to follow the crowd, here at Britcar Endurance we have created an all new and unique method of race car classification. Firstly we start with the standard peak BHP that most Championships use, but we also add the mid range BHP and the peak and mid range torque. This gives us a more complete engine performance indicator and covers all the engine formats such as normally aspirated, turbo, diesel etc that all have their own advantages. This engine figure is then divided by the weight of the car giving a power to weight indicator. Now this would be an acceptable place to stop with classification but we wanted to create a fair and stable platform for multi class endurance racing. To achieve this we created the modifier list which includes categories such as Aerodynamics, Suspension, electronic aids etc. Each of these categories are split into sub items such as Front Splitter, Traction Control. Each of these sub items have a number of options to select i.e. Front Splitter - None, Moulded, Fixed or Adjustable. Each of these options have a numerical value depending on their performance advantage and can be negative as well as positive. Using the Front Splitter example, the numeric values are : None (-2), Moulded (0), Fixed (1), Adjustable (2). By adding the Power to Weight indicator together with the Modifier indicator creates the Overall Performance Indicator. The Performance Indicator (PI) is what is used to position the car within the class structure and ensure that you are racing against other cars of a similar speed round a lap not just the same engine power.

Another advantage of the Britcar Endurance Performance Indicator system is that it will be hosted on our website. This will allow Teams to adjust the setting such as weight, power, fitted items to adjust the PI figure to ensure their race car is as competitive as possible but still within their chosen class.

The Britcar Endurance Performance Indicator system will be used across both the Endurance and the Sports & Touring Championships ensuring that all entered cars are judged and classified exactly the same. With our new classification system we are breaking new ground in multi class racing.