The first Gen3 race car has hit the track for testing, namely the Blanchard Racing Team Ford Mustang.
After an initial engine fire-up at 09:37 local time/AEDT, Tim Blanchard himself has just gone out for the #3 CoolDrive Supercars’ first run at Winton Motor Raceway, at 10:07.
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Blanchard has completed an out-and-in lap so far while Todd Hazelwood, who has joined the squad this year as primary driver, is expected to do the bulk of the running today.
Car #3 is now back in the garage on its incompressible jacks while Blanchard talks to Race Engineer Mirko De Rosa.
“It’s just an installation lap; we’ll download and go from there; all good,” Hazelwood told Speedcafe.com.
While the prototype Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro have been running since the latter half of 2021, today represents the first occasion for a race car to turn a wheel in anger.
In addition to the BRT crew, Supercars Head of Motorsport Adrian Burgess and the category’s engine expert Craig Hasted are among those present.
Officially, today is the shakedown day for southern-based teams, although the 60km limit has been scrapped with unlimited mileage now allowed under Supercars’ “flexible testing program”.
As reported by Speedcafe.com, the plans of the other Victorian and New South Wales teams remain somewhat fluid, although some are tentatively scheduled to cut their first Gen3 laps early next week also.
Images courtesy of Ross Gibb & Daniel Kalisz
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