Close observers of the Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford are aware that series officials have been experimenting with the Power-To-Pass function that gives drivers an extra burst of - well, that's pretty self- explanatory. source: champcarworldseries.com It's a timely jolt of turbo boost worth 50 horsepower that's activated by pushing a button on the steering wheel that helps propel a driver past the car in front. Last year, Champ Car deviated from the norm by adding extra Power-To- Pass time from its baseline of 60 seconds. At Mexico City, for example, with its superlong pit straight, the drivers were granted 90 seconds of P2P rather than the usual 60. This year the experimentation has gone in a different direction. The Power-To-Pass boost was increased to 75 horsepower for the races at Houston and Monterrey, Mexico, and a 100-horsepower jolt is being considered for races later this summer. Racing drivers always want more power, but there's one catch to the extra P2P: The maximum output during overboost is still 800 horsepower. But during normal running, the Ford-Cosworth XFE engine is pumping out 725 horsepower instead of 750. Yet despite running 25 fewer horsepower than last year, Sebastien Bourdais established new lap records in qualifying and the race. Some of that must be credited to Bridgestone's grippy red alternate Potenzas - about 0.6 second a lap, according to RuSPORT Racing's Jeremy Dale. But drivers may have found better drivability around Monterrey's slick curves with 25 fewer ponies under the engine cowling. At the season-opening Long Beach Grand Prix, Cosworth engineers noticed that even a full, 10-second shot of 50-horsepower P2P wasn't really giving drivers much of a run down the Shoreline straight. They consulted with Champ Car officials and the first runs with 75 horsepower worth of P2P were done at the Portland open test immediately after Long Beach.
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