That’s the view of Grove Racing team principal David Cauchi following another Camaro crush at Mount Panorama.
Chevrolets swept the podium and maintained a perfect four-from-four win record in Gen3 Bathurst races, including last year’s 1000 and the twin 250km sprints in February.
Supercars has invested millions to end the parity squabbles over that time, undertaking wind tunnel testing during the off-season and transient dyno evaluations midway through 2024.
Despite those efforts there were again numerous comments by Ford drivers at Bathurst about a straightline speed deficit, most notably by Cam Waters on team radio.
Chasing the #31 PremiAir Racing Camaro on Conrod Straight on lap 102, the broadcast captured a frustrated Waters telling his Tickford team: “Fuck, this thing’s got some motor in front of me. Jesus.”
Waters came home as the top Ford runner in fourth place following a late-race battle with Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert, who never had the pace to contend.
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“Little bit of car speed not there,” surmised Mostert post-race. “Straight line was pretty crazy out there to watch, some cars [were] super-fast. [Fifth] was probably about the best we could hope for.”
Grove Racing spearhead Matt Payne – who had topped Friday qualifying – sat eighth when he crashed out of the race on lap 131, triggering the day’s only Safety Car period.
At that stage of the race the top Ford driver, fifth-placed Waters, was almost 80 seconds adrift of the leading Camaro.
“It looks like there’s still some things that we need to address,” Cauchi told Speedcafe when asked for his take on the parity equation post-race.
“It was evident at the first race of the year and nothing’s changed, so nothing’s changed.”
Supercars did make changes to the engine mapping of both the Camaro and Mustang on the eve of the Bathurst 1000 following the transient dyno testing in the US and follow-up studies in Australia.
“I don’t think that’s the solution,” added Cauchi. “There’s a lot more to it than that. It’s not just a little bit of engine mapping.”
Despite the wind tunnel and dyno testing, the on-track disparity at Bathurst has again raised questions over both the Ford engine and the possibility that its aero package has more drag at high speeds.
Camaros have won 13 races this year versus seven for the Mustangs in a much more even season than 2023. However, only at one circuit – Symmons Plains – did both marques win on the same weekend.
Supercars has pointed to setup factors between teams as the reason for the circuit-to-circuit swings, downplaying any suggestions that the models are suiting some tracks more than others.
That fits with the category’s goal of achieving technical parity, but not controlling ‘sporting parity’ between teams.
WAU team principal Carl Faux told Speedcafe that more analysis of the race is required, but agreed that the Fords appeared uncompetitive on Sunday.
“It certainly looks like it when you looked at the totem pole during the race,” Faux told Speedcafe.
“I think we need to go away and do some analysis and see where it was. At the start of the year, we were exceptional across the top [of the Mountain] and up and down was a bit poor.
“But we’ve just finished the race. I need to go and pull apart what happened, see who was in tows and wasn’t in tows and understand if it’s the same as it was then or not.”
The Mustangs were competitive across practice and qualifying, but their chances on Sunday were not helped by a series of own goals.
Waters and Garth Tander (co-driver to Payne) both made errors early in the race that proved particularly costly given the long green flag spell without a Safety Car intervention.
Richie Stanaway’s Grove entry ran out of fuel on the last lap, dropping from sixth to ninth, while Dick Johnson Racing’s #11 and #17 lost time with a poor brake change and strategy miscue respectively.
Regardless, Cauchi is convinced that a disparity between brands was a key part of why the 2024 Bathurst 1000 failed to live up to the Great Race’s usual drama and excitement.
“There was only one Safety Car,” he said when asked why the race was mundane. “That [was the reason], fundamentally.
“But there’s big disparity between models so there’s less cars in the race [for the win], so therefore it’s a boring race. Until Supercars address that it’ll probably be a boring race.”
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