The touring car regulations which defined the last ten years

As we close off the year 2020, I thought it’d be worth reflecting on the last ten years of touring car technical regulations. It’s not like there’s anything else to do this New Year’s Eve?

It’s been ten years of intense change, with some new regulations coming in. We started the decade with almost every championship in Europe using the FIA Super 2000 TC2 and TC2T ruleset, but these were now ageing fast and overdue for replacement.

So, we saw many new rules come in across the world’s major touring car championships - some successful, some did well but then burned out, while some proved to be well-intentioned, but somewhat destructive.

Let’s have a look at what happened.

#8 - Solution-F – BTCS 2010-2011, TTA/STCC 2012-2016

The low-cost championship killer

Solution-F is less a regulation set than it is a car builder. The French firm developed the Renault Mégane Trophy car (not to be confused with the road car) which was used by the Eurocup category of the World Series by Renault in the late ‘00s to early ‘10s – and these regulations were adopted by two European championships in the 2010s.

Utilising a glass fibre body, a Sadev six-speed gearbox, and a Renault-Nissan VQ series 3.5-litre V6 engine, the Solution-F cars cost in the low 100k EUR region, and were at this point the most cost-effective touring car formula around.

The first championship to adopt with them was the relatively new Belgian Touring Car Series. The multi-class championship used Solution-F as its main class (S1), with older Super 2000, Supercopa, and Production class cars making up the remainder of its field, as it really only had around half a dozen of these S1 cars to run.

The Renault Mégane Trophy car itself was represented, as were bespoke cars built to the shapes of the Volvo S60, the Kia Pro_Cee’d (blame Kia for the character abuse), and the BMW 3 series.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, the STCC, which by 2011 was now challenging the BTCC as the strongest national series - with an international driver line-up, and a strong commitment of national importers (some might say it had crept ahead of the UK series), was debating where to go next with its regulations, to replace Super 2000.

Eyeing up the UK’s regulations as one option, Solution-F was considered as the preferred option of many of the STCC’s teams, including Polestar Racing (as it was then known, now called Cyan Racing), Flash Engineering, and WestCoast Racing.

Sadly, there was no consensus, which led to a destructive split, with the STCC continuing on with Super 2000 TC2, also incorporating TC2T, and a partial shift towards the BTCC’s emerging Next Generation Touring Car formula.

Flash, WestCoast Racing, and Polestar launched their own championship called the TTA – Racing Elite Series, using the Solution-F rules. The divide lasted for just a year, with the two series merging under the STCC name and with the Solution-F regulations from 2013, but by then significant damage had been done to the championship, from which it is still fighting to recover from.

The spec-silhouette Solution-F formula was certainly attractive as a low-cost, low labour option for any championship, but not a good proposition for manufacturers who would want to promote their own products and technology, and therefore always seemed like an ill-fit for a championship such as the STCC, which to this point had the interest of many manufacturer dealers.

It was an oddity that Volvo were happy for its brand to be represented by a car which for all intents and purposes was a reskinned Renault for five years.

As the years went on, with aerodynamics the key to success (given everything else about the cars were identical) the later years of Solution-F saw some manufacturer shapes forced into the three-box format which didn’t seem to fit.

While the Volvo S60, Saab 9-3, and BMW 3 series looked great in Solution-F form, later cars by SEAT, Honda, Dacia, and Ford looked far less appealing, and the championship had begun to look a lot more stock car-esque by 2016 – the final year of the regulations in Sweden.

With grids also struggling to reach double figures, STCC ditched Solution-F at the end of the year, with the Belgian series already having folded many years earlier, though this was down to the promoter’s fallout with the country’s sporting authority, rather than due to the technical regulations, and with that was the end of the Solution-F touring car era.

#7 - Class One – DTM 2019-2020

The high-cost championship killer

It’s harsh (but true) to say that DTM’s Class One regulations spent more years being talked about, than being in existence - with the high-cost new formula seeing two manufacturers sadly walk away in quick succession (though neither blamed the regulations themselves), with the DTM championship having to find another direction after just two years.

The rules, which saw the DTM downsize to two-litre inline four-cylinder engines, were also adopted by the Super GT series, and Class One was briefly considered by the FIA World Touring Car Championship to replace its Super 2000 TC1 formula near the end of 2017, before it was deemed the manufacturer interest wasn’t there to make the switch.

It seemed the interest would wane pretty quickly in the DTM too, with Mercedes-AMG not even making the move across and leaving the DTM before 2019, while Audi Sport left after two years of domination, with its second year even stronger than the first, winning 16 of 18 races.

The Class One experiment has at least forced the DTM to re-assess itself and break away from the manufacturer stranglehold it has endured for two decades, with a switch to GT3 regulations confirming the DTM as a sports car category for at least the new few years, before the championship looks set to reinvent itself as a more manufacturer-friendly electric series in the future.

#6 - Gen2 Supercar – Supercars Championship 2017+

The new rules designed to end V8s in Australia, but then didn’t

In 2017, the Australian Supercars Championship introduced its new Gen2 formula, at least partially.

The new formula is a modification on its previous regulations, allowing two-door coupes and new six-cylinder or four-cylinder engine configurations, which also led to the change in name of the championship – dropping its famous V8 Supercars moniker to showcase it was now opening up the category to smaller engines - as is the developing trend in the internal combustion engine market globally.

That said, the title change proved somewhat premature, as with the dwindling interest of manufacturers, the appetite to develop and race a new engine hasn’t been there either. Triple Eight Race Engineering briefly experimented with a replacement unit for its Holden Commodores, but with Holden first pulling the plug on the Commodore model, soon followed by the exit of the brand from the nation entirely, the Commodore has continued to be V8 powered, as has its new rival, the Ford Mustang GT.

Unfortunately, the regulations have forced the Mustang into a Ford Falcon shape, and so we’ve not been able to see that low-slung Mustang gait we’d like to.

With Holden gone, there’s just one more year left of the mismatch between the Opel Insignia-based family saloon versus Ford’s pony car, before new tweaks to the rules in 2022 will see the Supercars complete its transformation, with the Mustang facing off its more traditional rival, the Chevrolet Camaro.

#5 - DTM – 2012 to 2018

The rules which saw the DTM at its best

The DTM’s longstanding regulations received a tweak in 2012, and while the engine formula was unchanged, continuing with 4.0-litre V8 engines, the series reverted to two-door coupes, with BMW, having left the WTCC just over a year earlier, now joining Audi and Mercedes, bringing its M3 to race against Audi’s A5 and Mercedes-AMG’s C-Coupe models – with the brands switching to the M4, the RS 5, and the C63 over the next few years.

The three premium German brands fought in what was a second, or third coming of the DTM, with customer racing teams and privateer operations sidelined for fully-manufacturer supported grids and professional driver line-ups.

It was a high point for the championship, but ultimately, they were racing technology which was beginning to date and they needed to find a new direction to keep the manufacturers engaged; sadly Class One wasn’t quite it.

#4 - Super 2000 TC1 – WTCC 2014-2017

The high-cost championship killer – wait, I’ve already used that one

Replacing the retrospectively named Super 2000 TC2T cars, came the WTCC’s Super 2000 TC1 regulations. Not for customer racing, not for privateers - these new regulations were about turning the WTCC into the world’s premier touring car championship, with the best technology, and full manufacturer commitment, driving costs per car north of 1m EUR for a factory entry; though you could pick up RML’s customer offering for a little under 800k EUR.

It was the WTCC’s steal of Citroen from the World Rally Championship which brought the rules in early, but with the headstart that offered Citroen, it’s arguable the new rules never had the chance they should have had, as it gave Citroen the opportunity to dominate, barely challenged for three years, while Honda, Lada, and later Volvo played catch up.

It wasn’t until 2017 we saw a real close season, after Citroen had become bored and left, with Honda and Volvo duking it out as the last remaining manufacturers in one of the decade’s most epic racing seasons, but unfortunately three years of Citroen domination had decimated spectator interest, and TC1 disappeared at the end of the year, with WTCC forging a partnership with TCR for its rebirth as the WTCR in 2018.

You’ll struggle to find a driver or engineer who wouldn’t say that TC1 weren’t the best touring cars on the planet however. The 1.6-litre turbocharged, aerodynamically superior cars were probably the best looking, and most incredible sounding tin tops around during their short four-year lifespan, but ultimately without manufacturers behind them, they were doomed at the end as they were in no way economically viable for independent teams.

#3 - New Generation V8 Supercar – V8 Supercars Championship 2013-2016

Ford and Holden have to put up with some variety

Introduced in 2013, the New Generation V8 Supercar saw a revitalisation in the Australian championship, with new brands Volvo, Nissan and Mercedes (the latter in an unofficial capacity) joining Ford and Holden – a multi-manufacturer battle that most championships around the world would welcome, though funnily enough in Australia, most fans were pretty happy with the two marque rivalry.

While Volvo’s short-lived factory effort got close to breaking up the Ford-Holden duopoly, and also attracted itself a lot of fans, working with the energetic and offbeat Garry Rogers Motorsport team, the Nissan programme never quite got to where it needed to be, and the privateer Mercedes effectively held back the once almighty Stone Brothers Racing, now Erebus Motorsport team.

Regardless, five manufacturers, with plenty of Aussie heritage Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores still in the mix, saw the championship still hold its head as one of the most entertaining and raucous touring car series in the world, with its traditional V8 snarl still intact.

#2 - BTCC – British Touring Car Championship 2011+

The UK stands alone with its highly successful two-litre formula

With Super 2000 now ageing, and the direction the FIA was going with its TC2T and TC1 engine formula not appropriate for national series looking for cost-effective solutions, the BTCC needed to find its own path. Particularly with manufacturer interest in the BTCC dropping off, with the SEAT and Vauxhall programmes the last fully-manufacturer run projects gone by the end of 2009.

Series director Alan Gow, who as a member (and soon the chairman) of the FIA Touring Car Commission, able to assess what would work - and in the new BTCC regulations was introduced a spec sub-frame from GPRM (later RML), electronics from Cosworth, and gearboxes from Xtrac, titled the Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC) platform at its inception.

The regulations favoured the larger cars from the start, though manufacturer interest did start to drive a shift to smaller cars in the interim, with the Ford Focus, Toyota Corolla, BMW 125i, and Honda Civic, but again more recently larger models have become the trend again, despite the fact they’re not the trend on the road, with the rear-wheel drive BMW 330i M Sport, Subaru Legacy GT, and Infiniti Q50 ….

The NGTC name that has stuck despite the moniker being officially retired some years ago, the UK has shown that despite being surrounded by different regulations in Europe, it has been able to find a path that works for itself.

The BTCC has no plans to change any time soon, and is looking to merge its regulations with a hybrid component from 2022, which is also expected to reinvigorate manufacturer interest in the championship, especially with the UK moving fast towards an all-electric future.

#1 - TCR – All TCR series 2015+, STCC 2017+, WTCR 2018+

From zero to hero in three years, the world’s new touring car standard

Born out of the SEAT Leon Cup Racer, a car which was shown off at the Salzburgring way back in 2013 at a round of the WTCC.

The WTCC had already committed to its 1m EUR-per-car TC1 platform by this point, while SEAT was showing off what it saw as the future of touring car racing, a development on its Supercopa platform with its new third-generation Leon model.

Marcello Lotti left the WTCC at the end of 2013 and pursued this new path, developing the Cup Racer concept further, and announced his TC3 championship to the world (soon renamed with some encouragement by the FIA to TCR, to differentiate itself from the FIA regulation suite).

In 2015, a fledgling grid of SEAT Leon Cup Racers, the new Honda Civic TCR, and a mix of various other cup-type cars joined the grid of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship race in Malaysia, and at this point whether the format would last, or die quickly wasn’t immediately clear. But manufacturers soon flocked to the format, and with strong teams and professional drivers quickly coming onboard, the new format took off exponentially.

The format allowed new championships to start up out of nowhere, some becoming very successful, while a few others may have had short lifespans, but at least through TCR they had the chance to exist and see if they could make it work, without having to develop a set of viable technical regulations alongside creating a commercial package.

The German series was initially one of those success stories, especially with strong support from the Volkswagen Group brands, with the TCR Germany championship breaking through the frankly unmanageable 40-car grid figure in 2017.

The struggling Swedish championship gave up its Solution-F direction in 2017 and embraced TCR, as did the FIA world championship a year later.

While there’s now a rotation in manufacturers in effect, with Volkswagen and Audi having closed down its programmes in recent years; with Lynk & Co, Honda, Hyundai, Lada, Peugeot, MG, and Cupra – there’s still a healthy number of manufacturers producing cars, with factory support proving to be key, with the Romeo Ferraris-developed Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR emerging as the only viable independent car, where attempts to produce racing Subarus, Kias, Opels, and Fords having had limited success.

Using existing high-performance road cars as its base, with controlled balance of performance and compensation weight systems required to be used by all championships, the cars are all equalised, and cost-controlled, with a cap of just under 150k EUR per car.

In just six years, the number of TCR cars in the world is creeping close to 1,000, with championships across every continent using the format; unquestionably one of motorsport’s biggest success stories of the decade, with the FIA touring car promoter signing a 20-year agreement to work with TCR’s owners earlier this year.