A controversy has been brewing in the FIA GT1 World Championship race team camps recently over botched pre-season testing for the series’ “Balance of Performance” rules. The plan for the testing is that former F1 pilot Heinz-Harald Frentzen would test each of the 6 makes of GT1 car on the track for 10-15 laps and then recommend weight additions or other measures that would balance the cars overall.

It turned out to be quite a farce however as Frentzen took a single flying lap in the GT-R on new tyres before lumping it with the heaviest penalty of 30kgs. Other makes are also questioning the testing and Frentzen’s testing methodology after running some of the cars for too few laps or barely running them at all.

The GT-R teams which finished poorly in round 1 of the series in Abu Dhabi are saying that the cars are not competitive when lumped with this weight penalty. The cars have a higher center of gravity than the competition and higher weight to begin with and the teams believe this was not factored into the penalty.

Due to this, Swiss Racing team has said that they refuse to compete again with the 30kg penalty weight.

“We will not go to Silverstone under these conditions … We cannot be a grid filler.”
– Othmar Welti, Swiss Racing Team Director

So far the FIA is defending the weight penalty system and the testing that got it to the current state. Teams are saying do it properly or they will boycott the next round which is at the new Silverstone circuit, the Sumo Power GT team’s home ground.

Dramatic stuff but I agree, if the championship hinges on fair testing then test properly and test fairly across the board in equal conditions with no excuses.

Source: Autosport via Autoblog