Walkinshaw Andretti United Team Principal Bruce Stewart has identified drag as a parity concern for the Ford Supercars teams at The Bend and the Bathurst 1000.
This weekend’s OTR SuperSprint at The Bend will be the third race meeting for the revised Mustang aerodynamic package which was introduced at the NTI Townsville 500.
While that suite of changes was intended to address a loss of downforce when the car pitches under brakes, there have been suggestions following the Sydney Motorsport Park event that it has also increased drag across the board.
That would be an issue not just at The Bend, but also when the field heads to Sandown and Bathurst for this year’s enduros, given both of those circuits have two very long straights.
“I think drag is a thing that the Ford teams will be looking at, and straight line speed, and I think we’ll get a bit of a sample of that here,” said Stewart.
“So, certainly when you’re looking forward at Conrod Straight and going up Mountain Straight [at Bathurst’s Mount Panorama], you want to have straight-line speed [because] it’s pretty difficult to pass across the top.
“So, certainly it’s something, I think, anyone in a Mustang will be wary of.”
While a new engine map was apparently trialled on a handful of Mustangs at the post-SMP ride day, no changes for The Bend have been confirmed or suggested on that front.
Worth noting is that Supercars conducted an official parity review following the Hidden Valley event and, with only four races having passed since then, there has not yet been time for the ‘trigger’, if indeed it is still a formal part of Supercars’ contractual obligations to teams, to be hit again.
That did not prevent a string of Ford engine map changes earlier in the year, although the move to an 80mm throttle body ahead of the Sydney event represented a physical change within the Engine Specification Document.
Ford teams thus only have that much data, and whatever knowledge they have gleaned from testing (and potentially the ride day) since it was implemented.
However, at the conclusion of the Sydney event, the Shell V-Power Racing Team’s Ben Croke claimed the vehicle has a narrow set-up window, and suggested that state of affairs even pre-dates the Townsville changes.
“I think the take on our cars is that it’s such a really narrow working window,” explained the Ford homologation outfit’s Team Principal then.
“It’s the smallest working window that we’ve probably ever seen, where the Mustang is at the moment.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to hit on it a couple of times over the last few rounds, with Will [Davison] in Darwin, Anton [De Pasquale] in Townsville, and then Anton again [at SMP].
“But, it can go wrong so quickly for us at the moment, so it’s such a small window for us to get the Mustang right at the moment.”
Tellingly, Stewart is focused on WAU beating the other Ford teams this weekend, through Chaz Mostert in the #25 Mobil 1 Optus Mustang and/or Nick Percat in the #2 Mobil 1 NTI Mustang.
“I think our focus will be firstly to be the front-running Mustang in the championship and at this event,” he remarked.
“We’ve had some ups and downs here as well in the past – had some reasonable results – but that’s our focus as a team.
“That’s what we can control; where we are versus the other Mustangs.
“Then, what will be, will be.”
Mostert is indeed the best Ford driver in the championship at present, occupying fifth position, behind the Erebus Motorsport and Triple Eight Race Engineering duos.
Practice for the Repco Supercars Championship field starts tomorrow at 09:45 local time/10:15 AEST.
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