Jamie Whincup believes Supercars will carry out ‘high quality’ aero testing in the coming months to ensure parity among the Ford, Holden and Nissan models on the grid.
The championship has been forced to conduct in depth investigations of the cars following the successful arrival of the Ford Mustang which has triggered unrest in the paddock from rival teams.
It has been claimed that the Mustang has a centre of gravity and aerodynamic advantage, the former of which has been proved according to Supercars after a two-day test, resulting in ballast being repositioned to the roof of the Mustang (28kg) and ZB Commodore (6.7kg) for this weekend’s visit to Symmons Plains.
However, teams have still questioned the Mustang’s aero package which was approved by Supercars during homologation testing last December.
As revealed earlier this week, the series was working on a plan to carry out tests of the cars at the Monash University wind tunnel next week before the project was hastily abandoned.
However, Whincup, who played down the impact of the CoG adjustments, expects that Supercars will continue to analyse the aero on the cars for the sake of ensuring parity.
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“There’s going to be a lot more testing that goes on over the next three or four months from Supercars, some proper, high-quality stuff,” said Whincup.
“They’re going to spend a fair bit of money to guarantee that all three models are exactly the same, which is welcomed by everyone because then we stop talking about it and then just whoever’s standing on the top step of the podium is genuinely the best team.
“So I think we’ve just got to hang in there, yep, mistakes have been made, you know what I mean, they’re getting rectified and we’re up and down, but give it three or four more months and it will be as perfect as it can be, and you just go back to good old-fashioned racing, which we’re all looking forward to.”
Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton was unable to disclose any information when asked for a response to Whincup’s comments but admitted that Supercars will be busy in the coming weeks.
“For us, literally we’re just focusing on nailing this weekend,” Dutton told Speedcafe.com.
“Roland’s not here this week, he’s over at the Asian GT so trust me, there is so much pressure on getting this weekend right when he’s not here that we won’t even worry about the P-word. We’ll focus on Symmons.
“I think they’re (Supercars) really motivated right now to go through it and the job was quite large, so the fact that they’re looking at all different things they can do then yeah, I think they’ll be busy.”
Meanwhile, Erebus Motorsport CEO Barry Ryan added: “It’s hard to say (if everything is equal now).
“We’ve got our opinion, as most people have on the aero of the Mustang, but it’s not an educated opinion, it’s just a ‘Look at that, that’s something we didn’t know you were allowed to have,’ but we’ll let Supercars deal with that and they’ve got the right people in place now, so they’ll make the right decisions hopefully.”
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