The seven-time Supercars champion was spotted taking part in a Time Attack event at Queensland Raceway on Thursday in a brand new Gen3 Mustang.
It is the car that was built for the wind tunnel testing in the United States, which means it hadn’t completed any on-track running before its unusual appearance in Ipswich.
The genesis for Whincup’s Time Attack appearance was Triple Eight being tasked by Red Bull to prepare a car for a promotional activity in Melbourne this week in the lead-up to the Australian Grand Prix.
That is likely to be an F1 driver, either former or current, taking the wheel of the Mustang.
The last-minute nature of the Red Bull request meant Triple Eight had to take whatever track time was available to shake down what is effectively its fourth Mustang – and that meant running at the Time Attack event on a shortened version of QR.
The running still had to conform to the shakedown rules of a 60-kilometre limit and was overseen by a Supercars technical staff member.
With prep on the three Triple Eight race cars in full swing, the shakedown took place with just two Triple Eight staff on hand – Whincup and long-time mechanic Ty Freele.
Whincup even drove the team transporter from T8’s Banyo workshop to Ipswich and back himself.
“It was me and Ty, we got it out on track, she feels great and it’s ready to go for next Wednesday,” Whincup told Speedcafe.
“I drove a truck and the car. ‘Tybo’ was the mechanic, data engineer, assistant, the whole lot. It was a two-man band to get this thing running.
“Normally you would have eight people at the track on a day like that. But we were PR, we were catering, truck driver, race car driver. We were eight people between the two of us.”
Now shaken down, the car will become T8’s official spare Mustang once next week’s promotional activity is done.
Having also taken part in Monday’s ride day at Sydney Motorsport Park, Whincup now has first-hand experience of the Mustang package following T8’s off-season switch from GM to Ford.
“At Queensland Raceway it was only the short track, so I didn’t actually really get a feel for the car,” said Whincup.
“But on the ride day, I was actually… I’d heard a lot about the throttle response and the lack of driveability out of the Ford engine, but I’m actually really impressed with it.
“I expected it to be not that nice and it was a big area where we’re going to have to work on, but it’s actually much better than what has been perceived.
“There’s still a dozen things we want to do for reliability inside the engine, some niceties, but the package is pretty good.”
While happy to log some laps during the week, Whincup was adamant that he is comfortable with his decision to step away from co-driving and hand over the reins to Broc Feeney’s new enduro partner Nick Percat.
“It’s great to get behind the wheel every now and again, but my era is done,” he said.
“It’s a young man’s game.”
Whincup will next week be formally inducted into the Motorsport Australia Hall of Fame.
Discussion about this post