He Balance of Performance (BoP) It is part of the technical regulations of sports car racing, but it is not always easy to understand it, since much of the regulations are hidden from the public domain.
The manufacturers of the World Endurance Championship are even prohibited from talking about the BoP, although some data is known.
What is Balance of Performance (BoP)?
The BoP is a set of technical adjustments aimed at ensuring equality across the grid of sports car competitions, whether in the WEC, the DTM or the GT World Challenge. This is achieved by altering the parameters of a car, such as power and weight.while UK championships such as British GT also apply success penalties, including an increase in the minimum pit stop time for the top three finishers in each category from the previous race.
The BoP is assigned by analyzing the recent form of a car, while the organizers of the World Endurance Championship, for example, rely on data measured during homologationwhich is the certification process to ensure that vehicles conform to technical rules.
But each championship is different in its way of applying the BoP. A common part is the ballast, which tries to prevent one car, or a few, from dominating a championship by making them move back in the pecking order when they come from accumulating good results.
This is done by adding weight to said car. In the DTM, for example, the winner of the previous race has 20 extra kilos for the next test, while it is 10 for the one who finished second and 5 for the third. This differs slightly from the LMGT3 category of the WEC, since in the 2024 6 Hours of Imola, the Manthey Pure Rxcing Porsche ran with an extra 30kg for having won the previous race and for leading the general classification at that time.
However, that system was not as popular in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC)., which until 2021 made the top 10 finishers in the championship before the race weekend carry ballast on a sliding scale from 75 to 9 kilos for free practice, qualifying and the first race. The same ballast levels were then given to the Top 10 of Race 1 for the second race of the event, and also of Race 2 for the third and final race.
Therefore, the BoP often causes a lot of controversy. Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen has long expressed his desire to compete at La Sarthe, but previously expressed his doubts about doing so until the Balance of Performance changed.
This occurred after Ferrari won the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it received a more favorable BoP. This is because the then current winner of the test, Toyota, had 36 kilos added to its car, which means it was 13 heavier than the Ferrari.which, according to the driver of the Japanese brand, as well as team director and winner of Le Mans in 2021, Kamui Kobayashi, would cost his GR010 up to 1.2 seconds per lap.
These changes were presented to the teams just four days before the cars took to the track for the previous week’s test, and the promoters of the legendary race They made no attempt to reach a unanimous agreement, which in theory was necessary to make alterations outside the Hypercar class prescriptions. So, inevitably, questions were raised about the extent to which Ferrari’s victory was artificial, especially when it was the only round of the 2023 WEC in which Toyota did not win.. However, despite the dominance of the Japanese in the World Championship, there are still arguments to affirm that the BoP improves the spectacle of the races because, in most cases, it brings the grid much closer together.
If we take the 2023 DTM season as an example, in which 16 races were held, no driver won more than three. Meanwhile, a manufacturer hasn’t won back-to-back Super GT500 titles since Lexus in 2017, while Mercedes was the last to win back-to-back Super GT300 titles in 2018.
This equality is something that many single-seater racing fans fight for, mainly in Formula 1, given that Red Bull won 21 of the 22 grand prix held in 2023, something that probably wouldn’t have happened with BoP. Alpine, for example, might have been able to make up the 30hp deficit it claimed was affecting its performance, Mercedes might have resolved its car’s unstable rear end, while Williams’ aerodynamic problems are unlikely. They would have been so significant.
But, since its birth in 1950, F1 has focused on building the fastest car, making it as much a championship for engineers as it is for drivers.. Just think of some of the team principals: Andrea Stella at McLaren, Mike Krack at Aston Martin and Ayao Komatsu at Haas; All of these bosses are trained engineers.
Therefore, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes that introducing BoP in F1 “should not even be talked about”, because it would be a “catastrophe” for the premier category of motorsport. The Austrian thinks that F1 should remain a meritocracy in which success is rewarded rather than punished. Ferrari’s Fred Vasseur echoed these thoughts: “I’m not a big fan of Balance of Performance or any kind of gimmick like that. It’s not the DNA of Formula 1 at all.”
What is the BoP of the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans?
The 24 Hours of Le Mans Hypercar category BoP uses data from the previous year’s race, which separates it from the rest of the WEC season. The competition director of the French race promoter, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, Thierry Bouvet, has previously explained that this is due to the unique characteristics of the Circuit de la Sarthe, which means that there is not necessarily a direct link between the BoP for this event and for the rest of the calendar.
The BoP is issued jointly by the FIA and the ACO, who have introduced the “power boost” for 2024. It was scheduled to debut at Imola, the second round of the campaign, after some manufacturers tested it during pre-season testing, but no reason was given for the delay, which lasted until the third round at Spa-Francorchamps.
This means that it will debut at Le Mans, where power will be adjusted below and above 250 km/h so that the acceleration and straight line speed of the Hypercars are more similar. However, for the rest of the races, the starting point will be lower, because higher top speeds are usually reached at Le Mans.
Ferrari is one of the manufacturers that has been affected by this for this year’s race, as its maximum power will be reduced by 1.7 percent, approximately 11 hp. Lamborghini (1.6%) and Peugeot (0.7%) are the other two manufacturers that will lose with this measure, while all other cars will have a power increase of 0.9 percent, except Porsche, leader of the championship , which will have the same maximum power of 685 HP above and below.
Porsche has also gained 5 kilos of minimum weight, which contrasts with Peugeot, since it can subtract 18 from its RX8. This means that the French manufacturer no longer has the heaviest car in the category, as it now only has a disadvantage of 5 kg compared to Porsche, when before it was 28.
Peugeot seems to be the big winner of the BoP for Le Mans, since it has also been able to maintain its maximum power of 681 HP, while Toyota has lost 9 HP, but can also reduce 9 kilos, one less than Ferrari.
