The prospect of Triple Eight giving Ford teams a 2025 boost is the latest revelation in a complex web of movements created by the team’s decision to switch across from GM next season.
Triple Eight is soon expected to hand over its status as GM homologation team to Charlie Schwerkolt’s Team 18, seemingly freeing it up to roll out its first Ford.
There is yet to be a resolution, however, on the transfer of crucial HT information from Dick Johnson Racing to Triple Eight amid a standoff over the engine supply business.
Triple Eight, though, is already well into the build of its first Mustang and wants to have it galloping around Queensland Raceway sooner rather than later.
“Soon, hopefully,” Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton told Speedcafe when asked of the team’s timeline.
“There’s still a lot to do. I can’t give an exact date but in the next few months we’d like to have a shakedown of a Mustang.”
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As Ford is not a new manufacturer, the initial Triple Eight Mustang running would need to fit into existing testing rules – which include the provision for a 60km shakedown for a new chassis.
Triple Eight is building fresh chassis for its upcoming fleet of Mustangs rather than converting any existing Camaros.
Whether Supercars permits further testing under its watch for specifics such as engine evaluations remains to be seen.
“We’ve been speaking to Ford teams, doing our due diligence, and they tell us issues they feel the cars have,” Dutton continued of his team’s desire to have a car on track early.
“So we’d like to understand that feedback and then see, ‘is there something that can help?
“And funnily enough, some of those things if we learn, they might help this year to make it more difficult for us to win races against the other Fords.
“That’s something we’re prepared to do because you need to make sure… if you’re trying to run the first car and take over the HT at the start of next year, you’ve got no chance.
“That’s just not enough time to try and line all your ducks up.”
While Walkinshaw Andretti United is set to deploy Warren Luff for its early Toyota testing rather than its race drivers, Dutton said Will Brown and Broc Feeney will be installed straight away.
“You’d definitely want to do it with Will and Broc to try and understand what we’re dealing with and any differences between the cars,” he said.
“That’s only good for the category, it’s not going to help them go faster this year, it’s going to help us unlock and hopefully dispel any of the dirty P-words if there is anything to do.”
Aside from evaluating improvements to the much-maligned Gen3 Ford engine, there remains the prospect of Triple Eight homologating the Dark Horse model to upgrade the aero package.
“It’s always a possibility. Ford US have told us, if it’s needed, we’ll back it,” said Dutton.
“It’s like anything, if it’s not needed, we don’t want to put any extra expense on any team to go and buy new body work.
“It really has to be warranted and that’s warranted with data and testing.”
A final decision on that would need to be made in advance of the Windshear wind tunnel test program to be undertaken for the Toyota Supra following the Adelaide Grand Final.
While any bodywork updates would be the most visible change, Dutton affirmed Triple Eight’s analysis of the current DJR-homologated Mustang package will be comprehensive.
“Some of it is simple things that are differences between the models and making it easier to work on or crash repair or anything like that versus any reliability issues,” he said.
“We saw for example a failure in an engine in the Ford camp [in Darwin].
“We want to understand that, being the HT and the engine supplier, we want to work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Triple Eight’s build plan for its first three Mustang chassis is being punctuated by the construction of another Gen2 specification ZB Commodore for Super2.
With that almost complete the team will soon switch focus to the second and third chassis destined to become Ford Mustangs.
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