Comtoyou Racing Team Manager François Verbist says that the current Balance of Performance is ‘unfairly’ impeding his team’s cars, saying that the current system means he has doubt about which cars to run in 2018.
Only Frédéric Vervisch managed to score points for the team at the Zhejiang International Circuit, and even then the Belgian ultimately retired from race two.
Reigning champion Stefano Comini finished outside the points in race one in 13th, before retiring from race two as a result of damage on his car.
With both cars having also struggled for pace on Saturday, including neither car being in the top ten fastest cars in qualifying, Verbist has called for changes to the way that the BoP is calculated.
“I think obviously everybody sees that the Golf was unbeatable this weekend,” said Verbist to TouringCars.Net. “For me, I am more worried about the time gap to our cars in those conditions.
“It was not the case at the beginning of the season, but now with the experience that we have, and that we are giving 100% of what we can give, we see that Fréd was fighting a lot to keep the car on the track.
“I know that with the BoP it is quite normal that sometimes you have more of a chance, sometimes less chance, but for me here it is clear that we were not playing with the same guns. The war was not fair.
“We feel really disappointed about that, because to finish with two broken cars is because our car was so slow that we couldn’t even keep a normal pace to be competitive.”
Like Craft-Bamboo Racing boss Richard Coleman earlier in the year, Verbist believes that the BoP should be calculated on a circuit-specific basis. The Belgian warned that if not, teams could wait until the calendars are published and base their decision on which car to buy on the characteristics of the circuits included in the calendars.
“If someone tells me now that the BoP is right, then we should stop, but that’s not the case. We believe in the championship, but the way it is now there is clearly no chance.
“Looking at it now, which I don’t like, we should buy cars depending on the calendars. You should wait until the calendar is published, see the layout of the tracks, and know which car to buy. That’s not the way it should be.
“I fully agree with the BoP system, I just want to be able to fight. Here there was clearly no chance to fight. I’m 100% for that [circuit-specific BoP]. It’s working in Blancpain, which is really hard because they also have many manufacturers. You can really see that track variation is really important.
“I think the to say we struggle is not enough, because we really pushed a lot, or maybe too much. That could be the reason why Stefano couldn’t get into the top fifteen, is because he was giving 120% of the car. If he had done a perfect lap, we were aiming to be P10. That’s the only possibility we have, without counting the Hyundai.
“I feel really disappointed about that, because I am OK to get beaten by other teams, cars and drivers but it looks like it’s not fair at the moment.”