Gow shrugs off critics who point out that the World Rally Championship launched a strain of hybrid cars and has since binned them.
“That was completely different,” he says shortly. “Those cars had big batteries – we don’t – so they were heavy. There were potential safety issues, too, and all the tackle cost £150k per car. That’s not us. Our cars have small, low-voltage batteries. Besides, we have never learned anything for touring cars from rallying…”
Gow says there’s an option to increase the boost again for next year, but he doubts they will do it. “You don’t want the guy in front to be a sitting duck,” he says. “A driver needs a chance to defend. We have done a lot of testing with top drivers, and they came away seeing the potential and saying it was great.”
Another big change for this year is the way qualifying is organised, using an idea pinched from the Indycar series, which Gow loves. “We will have a half-hour knock-out quali, divided into three 10-minute sessions,” he says.
“Half the field will do the first 10 minutes – a mix of the fast and slow cars – then the rest will do the second session. Everyone will have to get stuck in straight away; there will be no chance to drone around trying to improve the car. Then the top half dozen – the Quick Six, we’re calling them – will run off in the third 10-minute session. It will all make a great spectacle. Some drivers might lose out, but I don’t care. That’s racing.”