Tim Edwards has confirmed that a loose fuel fitting was the cause of the fire in Cameron Waters’ Tickford Racing Ford Mustang Supercar at the Betr Darwin Triple Crown.
The #6 Monster Energy Mustang went up in flames as Waters led the field to the completion of Lap 4 of Race 13 of the Repco Supercars Championship at Hidden Valley, in scenes reminiscent of the two fires at Albert Park.
In each of the three instances to date, fire took hold in the front passenger corner of Mustangs, another Tickford entry (James Courtney) and one from Walkinshaw Andretti United.
However, the cause then was catch can design, whereas Supercars initially announced that a loose fuel fitting was the suspect cause this time around.
When that was put to Tickford Racing Team Principal Edwards, he responded, “Correct. It’s different to what happened at the Grand Prix where they were [also] fuel fires, but they were induced by a different cause.
“This was a fitting on the engine, and it just came loose.”
Edwards confirmed there was no part failure, but did suggest that the design was not optimal.
“There’s plenty of hindsight going on in the pit lane, on maybe it should have been laid out a bit differently,” he stated.
“But, we’re all masters of hindsight. Obviously, all the Fords have the same fuel connection there on the engine and with the benefit of hindsight, it probably could have been laid out a little bit differently, but you live and learn.
“But, it’s unfortunate that it’s caused so much damage.”
On the prospect of a redesign prior to the next event, the NTI Townsville 500, he remarked, “I imagine it will be, but obviously that’s not part of our side. It’s the sort of the engine side of the fuel circuit.”
There are 11 Ford Mustangs in the field, including the four entered by Tickford, and the other 10 are said to have been checked already by Supercars’ category engine expert, Craig Hasted.
“Well, they’ve already gone along; Hasted went along and checked all of the Fords up and down the lane,” reported Edwards.
“They can talk about what they found there.”
While Courtney’s #5 Mustang was sidelined from the remainder of the Australian Grand Prix event after its fire, there is hope that Car #6 will be back on-track tomorrow at Hidden Valley.
“We’re going to have a crack at fixing it,” advised the Tickford boss.
“It’s interesting; it’s probably less than JC’s fire from the Grand Prix. It’s a different type of fire.
“Even though you saw flames come through the firewall, it doesn’t look like it’s done much internal damage, where JC’s has had a lot of internal damage as well as external.
“It’s still a huge amount and obviously wiring harnesses and all those sort of things. Fortunately, the category carry one for the pit lane, so we’ve got our hands on that and we’ll swap all that.”
Qualifying for Race 14 starts tomorrow at 09:30 local time/10:00 AEST.
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