Rising V8 Supercars star David Reynolds says that the new generation Car of the Future V8s will require a re-think on driving styles.
Reynolds received 50 laps in Ford Performance Racing’s COTF Ford Falcon at Winton today, making him just the fifth driver to get laps in a team-built COTF chassis (behind Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes, plus his FPR team-mates Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison).
Compared to the current cars, the new COTFs feature a completely new rear-end, including an independent suspension set-up (replacing the current live-axle) and a transaxle gearbox.
These items, among other changes, means that the drivers will need to change some of the habits they have developed over the years, according to Reynolds.
“It is different, though I did like it,” the Bottle-O Racing driver said.
“You need to re-think how you drive, where you position the car and use every input a bit differently.
“I don’t have much to go on but for a first up drive it was great.”
The test was one of two manufacturer test days allocated to the team to be used this year and came after the team’s shakedown last Monday and Tuesday.
The car was driven by all three drivers, covering more than 120 laps today.
FPR Team Principal Tim Edwards said the test was another positive step for the factory Ford team’s preparations for next season.
“To have run the 2013 package twice within a week and complete more than 200 laps without any issues is a real credit to the team and allows us to push on with building the rest of our cars as we know what we have works,” Edwards said.
“We have put good kilometres on the mechanical package we’ll be racing next season and now have a large amount of data to go through before our next test day after Bathurst.”
FPR will be on track again this weekend for the Sandown 500, the first of the 2012 endurance races.
