Originally Posted by
Knestis
FWIW, a slightly informed opinion having watched pretty carefully - and participated - for a season...
STU's challenge is NOT the turbos. It's the fact that it's STU, with all that the rule set proposes in terms of budget required to run a pointy-end effort.
I know the effort we've put into this year and have some idea what would be required to do it right - particularly in terms of braking and getting down to weight. An NA car COULD be competitive but it would take cubic dollars to make it happen. Right now, given the state-of-art and spending in the class, the returns on a forced induction engine are better at, say, 90% of an "all in" budget than for an unblown engine at the same level of spending...
...and at some point, diminishing returns means that (1) $1000 improves lap times less than it did earlier in the R&D process, and (2) the gains are made in areas other than the engine - gear ratios, for example - because those low-hanging turbo fruit have been picked. What kind of gear clusters are those uncompetitive NA cars running? Have they taken full advantage of brake system allowances? Etc.
The rules for ST - much like IT - have got to be made presuming that eventually someone will do a 100% version of every option, and "equity" among those options has to be estimated at that build level. Right now, a less-than-full-tilt build can make more horsepower, so a BIGGER DIFFERENCE, with a turbo than can be made with an atmospheric engine for the same dough.
I'd argue that accounts for a lot of the "overdog" anecdotal observations.
K
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