Tickford Racing boss Tim Edwards says Supercars has to contain costs when Gen3 arrives in 2022.
Since joining Tickford Racing (then Ford Performance Racing) in the mid-2000s, Edwards has led the team through the Project Blueprint, Car of the Future, and Gen2 regulations.
With Gen3 on the horizon, the Team Principal says Supercars has to ensure that costs do not get out of control.
Edwards believes that since the arrival of Car of the Future, research and development has driven up costs as well as a shift from steel panels to composites parts.
“The costs have just ballooned year after year,” Edwards told Speedcafe.com.
“We always talk about cost-cutting, but the reality is all we’re ever trying to do is contain the cost.
“From the first Car of the Future to the current Car of the Future there’s $250,000 to $300,000 more cost in what is the same car.
“The original car of the future was a steel-bodied, steel doors, steel roof. So, really, when you look at it, the numbers that we’re trying to get back to are where we were only five or six years ago.
“Everybody talks about cost reduction, it’s trying to contain the cost and get them back, because that’s it, the incomes haven’t gone up by that 70 to 80 percent the car costs have gone up by over that same period.
“It’s really just trying to get it back under control because the creative people that we have as engineers in this pit lane, their job is to try and figure out how to make the car go faster, and unfortunately making the car go faster costs money.
“So every now and again you’ve got to rein them in and stop. We want to be in business for a long period of time, and doubling the cost to build your car in a seven- or eight-year period is not good business sense.”
It is estimated a current Supercar costs between $650,000 to $700,000 under the Gen2 regulations.
Edwards said he’s optimistic heading into 2022 that costs will be contained given their learnings since the introduction of Car of the Future.
“We’re always looking ahead and this has sort of been brewing over the last couple of years to the point that okay now we’re ready to talk about it,” said Edwards.
“So we’ve put our roadmap out there of what’s changing. We’ve learned a lot with Car of the Future; it’s been a great success for us, but as the chassis has changed and things like that we need to evolve what we’ve got.
“Even for all the parity stuff that’s gone on over the last couple of years, the category’s learned a huge amount.
“It’s really just putting a lot of that knowledge and experience and obviously things have changed in a decade as well in terms of what we can actually put in the car.
“It’s also a case of trying to keep ourselves as relevant as we can. So I think from a team perspective it’s really exciting for the championship.”
The introduction of Gen3 will see the Ford Mustang go head-to-head with the Chevrolet Camaro.
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