One engine = six places

FIA ORC President puts forward engine use limitation proposal.

In a statement that underlines the seriousness of the FIA Off-Road Commission’s intention to do something to limit or reduce the use of engines in the the European Rallycross Championship, the commission’s president Andy Lasure has circulated a proposal to teams in the championship today.

The issue was first raised at last month’s French round of the championship (see Engines under discussion and the longer story in Rallycross World magazine #89) when the ORC asked competitors to make suggestions about how the use of engines may best be limited. Reminding everyone again that the move is designed to help control the cost of competing, Lasure has now put forward a proposal and given interested parties a deadline by which to offer their own suggestions. In the written proposal distributed today, Lasure suggests that an engine change during the course of an event will bring with a penalised by placing the driver of the car concerned six places lower in the order after the qualifying heats. Under such a rule a driver who had qualified fourth would be placed tenth (last in the B final) with those between fourth and tenth each moving up one place. Lasure has also made it clear that the ORC intends any such limitation or restriction to apply to all classes in the ERC.

The move to impose a restriction has come about because of increasingly regular use of ‘spare’ engines and the effect this has on budgets when teams feel compelled to run more extreme engine strategies in order to remain competitive.

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