Lada, Honda, Chevrolet get ballast increase for Portugal
Lada have paid the price for its fast pace in the wet at their home race in Moscow Raceway, with the Russian manufacturer acquiring an additional 50kg of compensation weight as a result.
Hugo Valente, LADA Sport Rosneft, Lada Vesta
FIA WTCC
This puts Lada on the maximum ever base weight of 1,170kg for the next round of the World Touring Car Championship in Vila Real.
Nicky Catsburg's pole lap was 1.4 seconds faster than that of the next placed car, which was his own team-mate Gabriele Tarquini in Russia, meaning in qualifying they were actually 3.5 seconds clear of the next fastest model, the Chevrolet Cruze of James Thompson.
With the team's race laps taken into consideration, as well as their performances in Morocco and Germany, the three Vesta WTCCs of Catsburg, Tarquini and Hugo Valente were judged to be just 0.1 seconds away from the Citroens over the three races, and so will be just 10kg lighter than the championship leaders in Portugal.
Honda have also had an increase, with the Japanese manufacturer gaining an extra 30kg from Moscow, with the Civic WTCCs assessed as just 0.2 seconds a lap slower than the pace-setting Citroen C-Elysee WTCCs.
Chevrolet also gain 10kg of compensation weight, their first performance ballast allocation all season, thanks to impressive pace in Germany from ROAL Motorsport's Tom Coronel, and from Munnich Motorsport's James Thompson in Russia.
Only the Volvo S60s of Polestar Cyan Racing will run ballast free in Portugal.
Portugal compensation weights:
Car | Gap | Ballast |
Citroen C-Elysee WTCC | 80kg | |
Lada Vesta WTCC | +0.1s | 70kg |
Honda Civic WTCC | +0.2s | 60kg |
Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 | +0.7s | 10kg |
Volvo S60 Polestar | +1.1s | 0kg |
Neil Hudson / TouringCarTimes
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments