The 2022 British Touring Car Championship is no longer using success ballast, instead its balance performance comes from using incremental power from a new Cosworth hybrid system.
A 48-volt battery is located on the floor of the car in place of the ballast box. An inverter, Motor Generator Unit (MGU) and two cooling systems comprise the Hybrid element, which is powered by the car’s Electronic Control Unit (ECU).
A driver can choose to deploy the energy via a button on the steering wheel, providing up to 30+ extra horsepower for a maximum of 15 seconds per lap during races. Energy created by braking is fed back to the battery, recharging it for the next use.
Deployment is only allowed at speeds of 75mph or higher and cannot be used on either the first lap of a race or on the first lap after a safety-car restart. An attempt to use the system in either of these scenarios will result in a two-second lockout.
Qualifying
In place of success ballast, the top 10 drivers in the championship points will have their hybrid use reduced on a sliding scale of 1.5 seconds per lap, from 10th down to first.
This means that while drivers in 11th place and lower will have access to the full 15s per lap, the driver in 10th will have 13.5s, the driver in ninth will have 12s and the number will continue to fall all the way to the series leader, who will have none.
This did not apply at the opening Donington round, at which everybody started the weekend with zero points.
Races
Rather than reducing the amount of hybrid energy available to each driver, the races will instead decrease the number of laps on which the top drivers can use it.
The winner of the first Donington race, last weekend, was not able to use hybrid power for 10 of the 16 laps in Race Two. The second-place finisher had to withstand nine laps without it, and the number was reduced for each of the top-10 finishers on a sliding scale. Drivers who finished 11th and lower had use of hybrid on every lap.
For the first race of each subsequent weekend – the restrictions will be based the championship order.
When races are of more than 17 laps, the number of hybrid-less laps completed by the top drivers will increase.
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