Former Supercars team owner Lucas Dumbrell holds significant concerns around the tightening timelines to bring Gen3 to life next year.
The man behind Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport, which competed in Supercars from 2010 to 2017, says he would not return to the championship based on what he’s heard about Gen3.
The incoming ruleset, involving the debut of the Chevrolet Camaro alongside the new and improved Ford Mustang, has already been pushed back on several occasions.
While there’s no suggestions that it will be further delayed, Dumbrell is far from the first person in recent times to query the feasibility of building a full grid’s worth of cars in the time that remains.
“Personally I don’t agree with the way that’s been going about, and just the way that’s been organised, or from what I hear not been organised, truthfully, with the teams that are out there,” Dumbrell said on the Parked Up podcast.
“I have had a lot of people express to me concern over how late everything is getting done with that and how all it’s going to do is lead to a shitfight when they try to roll it out for next year.
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“Just as an idea, when we went to Car of the Future in 2013, they actually had two Car of the Future prototype cars running around at the finale at Homebush in 2011.
“And racing in ’13, like we were still up at Triple Eight, I was there with the crew… building our two cars at 4am on the day before the first test day at Queensland Raceway when I had Dean Fiore and Scott Pye driving for me.
“That’s how late everything was, and that was Triple Eight as well, everyone was there trying to finish their cars off.
“So if that was how late we were doing it that time, the fact they’ve had two cars rolling around now for a couple of test days and whatever… the maths just don’t add up to me that they’re going to be able to do it.
“And if they do, do it, in what condition everyone is at.
“They’re going to burn a lot more crew out than just the normal racing does to people because you’re not doing it for money, a lot of these guys, clearly, the amount of hours they do just to go racing, and then to ask these guys ‘you’re working 20 hours a day but I expect the last four hours of each day you work on the Gen3 car’.
“It’s not going to work. Unless they’re going to become twice as efficient and pack it all into six months’ work, which I think is impossible.”
Dumbrell has remained connected to the industry by virtue of establishing his Motorsport Parts Australia business.
The brother of Bathurst 1000 winner Paul, Dumbrell does admit he misses being in the Supercars paddock, but doesn’t miss the financial pressures attached to being a team owner.
LDM famously won a race at the 2016 Adelaide 500 with Nick Percat at the wheel.
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