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The General Motors brand fell on the right side of the parity for the majority of the season, the Camaro proving to be a highly-competitive package while the Ford teams struggled.
It was only after the Bathurst 1000, when a second aero changes was made, that the Mustang became a genuine contender, Cam Waters, David Reynolds and Matt Payne sharing the last four race wins between them.
Despite largely being advantaged through the disparity, having the spotlight on the issue throughout the season proved to be a source of frustration for Chevrolet – particularly as there were no efforts to unfairly gain that advantage.
“It has been somewhat frustrating and I feel for the teams involved, because there’s been so much work and effort applied,” Payne told the KTM Summer Grill.
“If you roll back to Newcastle when the cars first hit the track, and the anticipation and the work that had gone into getting the cars on track – we all watched nervously as they made their first laps in practice. To get through the season the way that we have, on both the Ford and the GM side, with such reliability from the cars has been sensational.
“Anybody in the sport wants to win on a level playing field, and that’s Supercars’ responsibility to execute that. On our side, the homologation and the work done by Triple Eight and KRE engines has been outstanding and they’ll continue to represent us in that space as we go to the next stage of the testing to really paritise the cars with the world-best practice that’s going on right now in North Carolina at Windshear.”
Aero work has recently wound up at the Windshear wind tunnel, with hopes that the aero parity debate can be put to bed for this 2024 season.
While Chevrolet was able to work in the background for most of 2023, leaving Ford and its motorsport department at the forefront of the parity fight, Payne says his team is still closely connected to the parity work – and will be ensuring the balance doesn’t tip the other way next season.
“We may not be as vocal and visible [as Ford], but when you’re on the winning side, if I can say that, you don’t necessarily have to be,” he said.
“But as we’ve seen in the last few rounds of the [2023] season, that very, very fine line between the parity of the two cars is there. And like everybody in the sport, we’re very below average when it comes to losing.
“So we’ll keep a close eye on that going into the 2024 season as well.”
For more from Chris Payne watch the full episode of the KTM Summer Grill.
