Cooling systems are once again in the spotlight following the Darwin Triple Crown, where two drivers were forced to withdraw from the Sunday action.
Thomas Randle was medically ruled out amid the after affects of a cool suit failure in the Saturday race, while Brodie Kostecki pulled the pin having entered the event with a virus.
Supercars revised its heat rules ahead of Darwin, requiring chilled helmet air and cool suits to both be working – rather than just one – if the predicted temperature is above 32.9 degrees.
While that threshold wasn’t reached across the weekend, teams had moved to beef-up their various systems in the lead-up.
“What we should be working towards is a homologated cooling system for the category,” Dutton told Speedcafe in the wake of the event.
“Whether it’s aircon, whether it’s cool suit, I don’t have shares in whichever way we go, but I think a controlled system would be the smartest thing to do, not developing 10 different systems.”
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There are essentially two types of cool suit systems currently being used by teams – the traditional dry ice-fuelled method and the electric ‘ChillOut’ option.
Triple Eight is among those to use ChillOut, although it reintroduced a dry ice box to its cars in Darwin to add the chilled helmet air that was not previously mandated.
It’s believed Supercars initially looked at making the ChillOut compulsory for Gen3, but elected against it on the basis that it is not strong enough to power both the helmet air and cool suit.
The bulky dry ice boxes are required to sit on the passenger side of the cars, directly above the muffler.
Triple Eight was famously stripped of a 1-2 finish in the very first Gen3 race at Newcastle in 2023 after installing dry ice boxes on the drivers’ side.
“If it’s a completely controlled system, you can do things like say, ‘okay, guys, here’s the bracket, and the bracket is going to lift [the cool box] higher up off the floor,” said Dutton.
“All the engineers and drivers will scream, ‘you’re raising the centre of gravity’. But if it’s the same for everyone, you don’t care.
“Raising it up in the car means that a bigger distance from the heat source of the muffler that’s underneath, so that’s straight away doing a better job.”
Supercars also tweaked its heat policy prior to Darwin to state that the cooling systems have to chill to 25 degrees or below, rather than simply undercut the ambient temperature.
Dutton said that level of cooling presents a huge challenge, particularly if faced with a repeat of the 40 degree days experienced in Adelaide previously.
While there are freedoms in the choice and implementation of cooling systems and internal ducting, the level of insulation permitted – particularly around the exhaust and mufflers – is tightly controlled.
“We need to look at even more insulation for the cars. Keeping the heat out should be more of a priority,” Dutton added.
“They’ve now allowed us to [ceramic coat] the headers, that’s been a fight for years, but it was only the cross.
“If you keep the heat out, we can more easily satisfy the rule.
“We’re not just trying to hit 25 degrees. We’re trying to get much, much lower than that to get a margin. So there’s a lot of work to be done.”
Supercars has warned that, should the heat policy be enacted, cars will be black-flagged if their systems aren’t working to the requirements.
Motorsport boss Tim Edwards defended Supercars’ heat rules following Darwin, noting different preferences between drivers means cooling systems are “not one size fits all”.
The championship has made a minor amendment to its rules since Darwin, declaring cool suits must be fitted with a device that can flush the fluid out in the event of a failure.
Cool suit failures often result in the system retaining increasingly warm liquid within the suit, providing the opposite impact on the driver to that intended.
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