Supercars’ rules state: “The identity of each Homologation Team is decided by simple majority of the Teams in the Championship running a particular make of Car.”
The existing Ford teams must therefore vote Triple Eight into the homologation role that has been held by Dick Johnson Racing since 2018.
Speaking at the Melbourne end of a Friday announcement timed to include Ford Performance’s global season launch in Charlotte, Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton admitted the vote is yet to occur.
“We’ll have to iron all that out, it’s only just been released to teams this morning. So that’s a work in progress, yes,” Dutton told Speedcafe. “We hope they’re all onboard.”
The vote is expected to be a formality with teams set to follow Ford’s wishes. Grove Racing has already publicly thrown its support behind the move while BRT provided a car for the launch.
DJR is yet to provide any comment and is clearly the worst affected.
Somewhat bizarrely, DJR’s founder Johnson was honoured with a ‘Spirit of Ford’ award at the Ford Performance function in Charlotte ahead of the Triple Eight news being announced.
“It’s always tough when you bring in a relationship like that and bring in a new team,” said global Ford Performance boss Mark Rushbrook of the situation for DJR.
“But there is such genuine history with Dick Johnson… he’s part of the racing family and of course we want Dick Johnson Racing winning races and championships as well.
“We think this move completely strengthens the entire Ford line-up by doing it this way.”
The homologation team change is set to be a double blow for DJR, with Triple Eight’s long-time partner KRE taking over the Ford engine program from the DJR-owned Motorsport Powertrains.
Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup confirmed that part of the plan while sitting alongside Rushbrook at the Charlotte event.
“That’s part of the partnership for us to be the homologation team and bring the engine development across to KRE,” he said.
“Of course, we do the aerodynamic stuff in-house, but we’ll be heavily utilising the Ford Performance Centre over here in Charlotte to help us out with that as well.
“It’s a collaboration, it’s a group partnership.”
While Triple Eight will obviously relinquish its Chevrolet homologation team duties, Ken McNamara’s KRE is set to add the Ford deal to its GM engine supply.
“I definitely hope he does both the Ford and the GM engines,” said Dutton of McNamara.
“I think it’s an amazing opportunity for the sport, because he’s the best in the business by far, so that means the racing is better, the processes are better.
“That’s what you want. It’s critical that he’s doing the engines.”
Triple Eight meanwhile has varying levels of customer relationships among the existing Chevrolet teams, which includes data supply to the majority of the Camaro runners.
“This year there’s no change to that,” said Dutton. “Obviously, we had to keep this extremely tight-lipped, so that’s all discussions that need to happen moving forward.”
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