Tata T1 Prima championship rolls round again this weekend
11. March 2015One week short of a full year after the inaugural T1 Prima truck race challenge, 12 Tata Prima 4038.S semitrailer tractors will be back at the Budh Formula One circuit in Greater Noida near New Delhi tearing up tarmac — figuratively speaking, of course.
Possibly the only truck race event anywhere in the world conceived and promoted by a manufacturer as a marketing device for its flagship product series – Tata Motors insisted on calling it a “championship” even before its future was decided, – the T1 Prima challenge will now be an annual fixture at the Budh International.
The 2015 event will consist of two free practice sessions of 30 minutes each on Saturday morning, followed in the afternoon by a qualifying window of 5 laps/15 minutes that will determine the grid for a “Super Qualifying Heat”, an 8-lap sprint race at noon Sunday that will effectively be the first “championship” race on the programme. The drivers will line up on the grid for the “Championship Finale” two hours later in the order in which they finished the heat. The top three in this 16-lap race, and their teams, will be awarded on the podium.
The driver pool this year consists of the top seven in the 2014 British championship standings from each of the BTRA divisions. This means the top three from the inaugural T1 Prima race – champion Stuart Oliver, runner-up Mat Summerfield (the reigning thrice Division 1 champ), and Dave Jenkins – are going to be back in action at the Budh circuit this weekend.
Chris Levett, the most notable addition to the 2015 slate, completes a trio of drivers that have also raced in the FIA ETRC. Stuart Oliver, the 2004 European champion, is the most experienced, having raced in six seasons of the ETRC. Levett has five ETRC seasons behind him, finishing as high as fifth in 2009. Both competed together in 2008 and 2009, and were joined by Mat Summerfield in 2011, the last season any of them raced in Europe.
What the scrappy Brits will doubtless relish most is the prospect of competing – the second time, for 11 of them – in identical machinery. And the trucks are now significantly lighter, lower, and quicker, having been rebuilt completely “from the ladder [-frame] up”, according to Vicky Chandhok, chairman of the T1 Prima Championship and the man who brought Formula 1 to India in his capacity as president of the FMSCI (Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India, the FIA-recognised national sporting association or ASN).
The chassis has been lowered by 55mm with the removal of all except two leaves from the spring stacks at the four corners — which, together with the deletion of sundry brackets on the chassis also resulted in a whopping 700kg reduction in weight. The caster angle on the front axle has reportedly been increased from 2.4° to 6.5° for better handling at speed.
Crucially, Cummins has enhanced the air handling and fuelling capabilities of the 9 litre ISLe engine to both, enhance response at the lower end for quicker acceleration out of the corners, and boost top-end power for a higher top speed, Cummins India’s chief technical officer Paul Sowerby told to the correspondent of “truckracing.de / truckrace.info”. Assisted by a “faster” drive axle ratio, the trucks will attain their regulated top speed of 135 km/h (they’ve been clocked at up to 141 km/h in testing) less than halfway down the main straight, he explained.
This is vital ingredient for more exciting action on this section of the circuit considering the spectators – invitees all of Tata Motors and its sponsors, or members of the public who have won tickets in promotional contests, – are going to be allowed to watch only from the hospitality areas above the pits and the grandstand across the track. Last year the drivers had to accelerate all the way down the straight and then brake for the first corner when they had just about reached the trucks’ (then) top whack of 110 km/h.
Towards the same objective the trucks have also been fitted with a pair of pressurised 70 litre water tanks that will spray the stock drum brakes at a takt of 1.8s when the brakes are applied to minimise fading, allowing the drivers to brake later and with more confidence, Chandhok pointed out to the correspondent of “truckracing.de / truckrace.info”.
An air-deflecting lip behind the cabin and deeper side panels make for a beefier visual presence, rather necessary given the sparse field (by ETRC standards at any rate). At the speeds that the T1 Primas will run, these aerodynamic mods aren’t going to make any difference to performance, Chandhok admitted, but they have yielded one significant benefit for the drivers — discernibly reduced cabin noise.
Day temperatures of around 25°C on both Saturday and Sunday are a pleasant prospect, but showers forecast for Saturday and a thunderstorm for Sunday afternoon promise to make the outcome of qualifying an imponderable — and that of the Championship Finale a real surprise. Regardless of the rain situation, permanently locked differentials will do their bit to improve traction and ABS (banned in the ETRC) should help keep the trucks from getting out of hand.
Report & Photos: Eliot Lobo
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