Homologation (motorsport)

In motorsport, homologation is a testing and certification process for vehicles, circuits, and related equipment for conformance to technical standards, usually known as type approval in English-language jurisdictions.

In racing series that are "production-based", meaning that the vehicles entered in the series are based on production vehicles for sale to the public, homologation not only requires compliance with a racing series' technical guidelines (for example engine displacement, chassis construction, suspension design and such), but often includes minimum levels of sales of that model to the public, to ensure that no vehicles in the competition have been designed and produced solely for racing.

Since such vehicles are primarily intended for the race track, practical use on public roads is generally a secondary design consideration, so long as government regulations are met.

Since most production-based racing series allow some level of modification, including the removal of exhaust systems that reduce emissions at the cost of engine performance, vehicles that were produced and sold primarily to meet the homologation guidelines of a particular series are often designed for easy modification of such components.

[citation needed] Such components could include exhaust systems and engine internals, and are generally within the homologation guidelines of the racing series in which the vehicles are to be used.

In such cases, numbers manufactured are often just enough to meet the minimum requirement for homologation by the racing series for which the vehicle was designed.