Ford’s unlikely ally in Erebus

Ford found an unlikely ally in GM team Erebus Motorsport during the darkest hours of the Supercars parity war.

The season-long debate over parity between the Ford Mustang and the Chevrolet Camaro led to tension between squads on each side of the manufacturer divide, particularly during periods of lobbying to either have changes approved or blocked.

The peak of the war was a bitter build-up to the Bathurst 1000 as Ford tried desperately to introduce new aero parts to the Mustang.

Teams arrived at Bathurst with the parts ready to bolt on the cars, with Ford of the understanding that Supercars could and would push the changes throughout without the support of the GM teams.

However, given the parity threshold hadn’t been triggered, it turned out that approval from all teams was required, which led to the changes being blocked at the 11th hour.

Not all GM teams were opposed to the changes, though, with form team Erebus arguing in Ford’s favour during crisis meetings on the eve of the event.

While that may seem surprising, Ford’s Aussie motorsport boss Ben Nightingale told the KTM Summer Grill that it was consistent with the team’s attitude throughout the season.

“[CEO] Barry [Ryan] and [team owner] Betty [Klimenko] and the team at Erebus, to be fair, it didn’t surprise me at all,” said Nightingale.

“They are racers. They are one of the organisations in our sport that genuinely hold the best intentions for the sport and they want the best for the sport, and they can put aside self interest in order to see the light at the end of the tunnel, or the forest for the trees.

“We’ve been having those kind of conversations with Barry and his team throughout the year and it’s been fantastic.”

Reflecting on that Bathurst week, Nightingale admitted that it was the low-point of the season as far as Ford was concerned.

“That was tough. That was the hardest week of the year, for a variety of reasons,” he said.

“And for the intense amount of hard work that had been happening behind the scenes in the lead-up to that week, for it to fall at the final hurdle was difficult to take. No question.

“But it’s motorsport. People look to protect an advantage that they have. So we didn’t have any false ideas about what might occur at Bathurst.

“As soon as it became apparent that Supercars was stating there was a requirement that the Chev teams needed to approve the changes, we knew it was essentially dead in the water. Which was a shame.”

For more from Ben Nightingale, check out the full episode of the KTM Summer Grill.