Supercars and the Blanchard Racing Team will now take stock of what they learnt from the latter’s historic Gen3 shakedown.
BRT became the first competitor to run a Gen3 race car, as opposed to one of the prototypes, on a track when it yesterday took to Winton Motor Raceway on its own.
Between primary driver Todd Hazelwood and Co-Team Principal Tim Blanchard, the #3 Ford Mustang notched up approximately 60 laps of the 3.00km circuit during the day, including four for filming purposes.
Hazelwood stopped on-track just over 30 laps into his longest run when the car ran out of fuel, although that is believed to have been at least somewhat of a planned exercise to test pumps and systems.
The lip piece on the back of the Mustang’s bootlid flew off during an earlier run, midway along Winton’s main straight, after which tape was seen applied to the front edge, while additional heat shielding was also inserted in the engine bay.
“[We learnt] Lots of little stuff, as you always get with a new car,” Supercars Head of Motorsport Adrian Burgess told Speedcafe.com.
“I think it’s just fantastic to see a team-built car in existence. We’ve lived with two prototypes for 16 months and the guys have done a fantastic job to be here.
“There’s always lots of little bits; they’ll have a big list of stuff, I’ve got a list of stuff that we’ll share with the teams and just help everybody else’s builds.
“To be honest, just small stuff. The worst bit when it run out of fuel; you’re like, ‘Shit, is it something big?’ No, they just didn’t tip enough fuel in it.
“So, that’s encouraging, but it’s early days, it’s very early days. There’s no point sitting there thinking we’ve all done a great job because there will be problems.
“But, this is what happens when you build a new car; a total new car. It’s not just a copy of the current car; it’s new from the ground up, so I think it’s an encouraging first day, to be fair.”
Blanchard told Speedcafe.com, “We’ll have to go through all the data and have a look but there’s nothing major; just a few little niggling things.
“We obviously learnt a lot set-up-wise and Todd learnt a lot driving-wise, because the cars are quite different, and I think the way you’ve got to drive them over a stint’s quite different.”
BRT is likely to test again at some point next week, when some of the other southern-based Supercars teams are tentatively scheduled to roll out their Gen3 race cars for the first time.
“We’ll sit down first thing [this] morning and have a bit of a discussion about how today went, what we learnt, and what we want to do next,” explained Blanchard.
“The intention is probably to come back next week, but we’ll just decide on what the best strategic way is to manage the workload from here on in to Newcastle.”
The next confirmed Gen3 shakedowns are those of Ford homologation outfit Shell V-Power Racing Team (Dick Johnson Racing) and Chevrolet squad Truck Assist Racing (Matt Stone Racing) at Queensland Raceway on Tuesday, February 7.
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