How Tickford’s massive Gen3 shakedown haul compares

Ahead of today’s Triple Eight and PremiAir Gen3 Supercars shakedowns, it is Tickford Racing which leads the lap charts so far after a massive haul at Winton.

Thus far, five cars have been shaken down, starting with the Blanchard Racing Team’s sole Ford Mustang last week at Winton, then a car each from Dick Johnson Racing and Matt Stone Racing at Queensland Raceway, and subsequently a car each from Tickford Racing and Grove Racing at Winton.

Those five teams have taken almost as many different approaches so far, making for some interesting comparisons in terms of lap counts and how that mileage was achieved.

BRT gave Co-Team Principal Tim Blanchard the honours of the very first laps in its BRT001 but primary driver Todd Hazelwood completed the bulk of the approximately 60 laps.

That included a run of around 30 laps of the 3.00km circuit before Car #3 ran out of fuel in what was said to be something of a systems check.

DJR and MSR, on the other hand, went for only short to medium-length runs of the Queensland Raceway.

Rarely did either the former’s #17 Mustang or the latter’s first Chevrolet Camaro notch up more than five laps of the 3.12km circuit at a time, although MSR did accumulate significantly more mileage.

Between rookie Cameron Hill and incumbent Jack Le Brocq, the Truck Assist-backed team amassed around 80 laps across almost 20 runs, whereas DJR’s Will Davison and Anton De Pasquale collectively notched up about 60 at about the same rate (Both figures include out laps, in laps, and any slower circulating midway-through runs, while it is notable that three timing beacons were set up around the track).

Interestingly, yesterday’s Winton activity saw Tickford and Grove take divergent approaches with their respective first Gen3 Mustangs.

Cameron Waters was the only man to steer the #6 Tickford machine and is reported by his team to have racked up 104 laps, a figure which amounts to almost the total race distance of a SuperSprint event, and did indeed include a race run.

Grove gave laps to all three of its confirmed drivers for the 2023 Repco Supercars Championship campaign, namely incumbent David Reynolds, rookie Matt Payne, and prized enduro signing Garth Tander.

Their combined efforts were 77 laps in Car #19, on a day interrupted when a wheel parted company from the vehicle and an off-track excursion caused another delay.

Today, Triple Eight Race Engineering becomes the first team to shake down multiple cars, either concurrently or at all.

PremiAir Racing will have one of its Camaros, which are being built in Triple Eight facilities in Banyo, at the track, although it is likely that both James Golding and Tim Slade will get laps.

The pit lane opens at Queensland Raceway at 08:30 local time/09:30 AEDT.