Erebus Motorsport is trialling new windscreen and number markings for Supercars at this weekend’s Betr Darwin Triple Crown.
The Coca-Cola Camaros of championship leader Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown, who is second in the drivers’ standings, will sport their respective competition numbers on the rooves of Cars #99 and #9.
Those numbers are located just above their former position, near the top passenger side corner of the windscreen, which is taken up now by the LED panels which were introduced two events ago at Wanneroo.
As per usual, those number stickers are orange for Kostecki owing to his status as championship leader and high-vis yellow for Brown.
However, Kostecki’s windscreen name is now coloured orange also, whereas it had been standard practice for all driver names to be white regardless of championship position.
It is understood that Anton De Pasquale’s #11 Dick Johnson Racing Mustang will also be used to trial alternate markings for Supercars during practice at Hidden Valley, although it was spotted with its standard markings in the team’s garage this afternoon.
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UPDATE: Car #11 subsequently seen with driver surname and competition number adjacent to LED panel on windscreen
Erebus and DJR, the latter known commercially as the Shell V-Power Racing Team, are among the six squads making up almost half of the grid which typically field identically liveried pairs of race cars and hence the usefulness of using those cars for trials.
Erebus CEO Barry Ryan told Speedcafe, “It was just something that we talked about at the Commission of identifying the cars because of the digital number, and we said we’d try a couple of things.
“So, we’ve got a number on the roof as well and we changed the colour of one of the names, just to see if it’s going to help us identify it and then help the marshals identify them.
“We just said we were happy to try it,” he added.
“It was our idea; ‘Change it back if you don’t like it.’ Just evolving things.”
In other regulatory matters, Supercars will introduce a new tool to measure steering castor this weekend.
The tool, developed by Craig Hasted, will enable the category to precisely police the 17-degree limit which applies to Gen3.
It is understood the initiative has been in development for around six months and is not necessarily a response to a specific indiscretion on the part of any competitor.
Markings, on the other hand, have been evolving throughout the season.
Gen3 race cars initially rolled out with markings in the same size and position as last year, save for the absence of the driver’s surname from the side windows.
After the official pre-season test, Supercars decided to move the driver’s surname from driver’s side to adjacent to the competition number on the passenger side, and reduce the font size, in order to improve visibility from cars which have a smaller ‘greenhouse’ than their predecessors.
Some teams have also adopted perforated number stickers, although that practice had been in use prior to Gen3.
Come the third event of the present season, LED number panels finally arrived.
They were trialled as far back as a Super2 round in 2015, then again in 2019 with an intended rollout initially in 2020 before supply chain disruptions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic put paid to the idea at the time.
Orange numbers were introduced midway through the 2017 season, after Supercars initially trialled purple number stickers to identify the championship leader, and are now something of a signature feature of the category.
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