Richie Stanaway suffered a spectacular exit from Sunday’s Sandown 500 when a catastrophic crankshaft failure seized the rear wheels on his Grove Racing Mustang while at high-speed.
A further three Ford Mustangs have subsequently endured engine failures during a full-field ride day at the Sandown venue today.
The Blanchard Racing Team was forced to revert to a spare car after its #7 Snowy River Caravans Mustang dropped a cylinder on just its third passenger ride.
Dick Johnson Racing’s #11 and Walkinshaw Andretti United’s #2 then stopped on track with terminal engine issues in the early afternoon.
Although unconfirmed, those cars are suspected to have suffered crankshaft failures.
WAU is also known to have broken crankshafts at the post-Wanneroo and post-Sydney Motorsport Park ride days earlier this year.
Ford drivers were today instructed not to use the pit lane speed limiter during rides in order to reduce the load on the engines.
Disaster for car #26 again at Sandown!
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— Supercars (@supercars) September 15, 2024
Alarmingly, Stanaway’s Sunday failure came with a recently refreshed engine just 24 laps into Sunday’s 161-lap race.
“What I know so far is the crank is broken and it was a brand new crank,” Grove Racing team principal David Cauchi told Speedcafe today at Sandown.
“It’d had a major rebuild that engine, so the crank was brand new for this round. It’s pretty disappointing.
“There was nothing abnormal [prior], it was a catastrophic failure with no indication. It just happened very suddenly.
“We’re not too sure exactly all the information, but there are some decisions to be made for Bathurst to work out which direction we need to go in to guarantee reliability.”
A Ford spokesperson confirmed an investigation is taking place.
“We know the failures can be attributed to a supplied part, and our team is working to understand the issue so we can be prepared for the Bathurst 1000,” they said.
“Damaged engines will be torn down and inspected to discover the magnitude of the issue, and how to repair it.”
All Ford Supercars teams receive their engines from Motorsport Powertrains under the single-supplier model introduced for the Gen3 era.
Chevrolet supplier KRE had a reliability scare midway through this season, forced to rapidly service a batch of motors that had been fitted with a troublesome new specification of thrust bearing.
The relative performance of the Ford and the Chevrolet engine continues to be a major talking point, with Supercars yet to enact any changes following AVL dyno testing in the United States.
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