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Supercars teams were left frustrated by a spate of parts failures in the first NTI Townsville 500 of the Gen3 era.
The Reid Park Street Circuit is typically tough on cars, in no small part due to the need to climb the harsh kerbs of Turns 7 and 8 in order to achieve lap speed.
It made for a large number of unhappy team bosses and drivers, especially considering the nature of Gen3 where teams have no scope to make their own upgrades.
Tickford Racing Team Principal Tim Edwards said, “We had all sorts of mechanical issues over the weekend.
“Mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, and steering … and it’s all control parts, so out of our control.”
Most of those dramas correspond with what Edwards reported with respect to Cameron Waters’ Mustang following the conclusion of Race 17, when he also stated that the #6 Tickford entry had an engine misfire.
Waters had qualified on pole position and maintained the lead all the way until his first pit stop, save for an unsuccessful attempted pass by Jack Le Brocq, but gradually slid to 15th at the chequered flag.
Walkinshaw Andretti United claimed to have gone through four steering racks during the weekend, only one of which could be attributed to Chaz Mostert’s hit with the wall in Sunday’s Top 10 Shootout.
“We’ve gone through four racks this weekend and one of them is because it touched the concrete, but all the other failures were just failures,” said team owner Ryan Walkinshaw on television, post-race.
“So, a control part that just let us down unfortunately, and a multiple of times this weekend.”
Multiple team bosses have opined to Speedcafe that the steering racks in the Gen3 cars are not up to standard.
However, a further issue is that they are now located forward of the front axle centreline, which is said to make steering arms more vulnerable to bending when contact is made with another car.
Steering issues were a theme through the Townsville 500, with Shane van Gisbergen suffering a recurrence of the mysterious handling drama which plagued his Hidden Valley weekend, while Erebus Motorsport changed a rack in Brodie Kostecki’s Camaro after he felt an issue in opening practice.
In Race 17, PremiAir Racing suffered a power steering drama in Tim Slade’s Camaro, which it committed to looking into.
“For Tim it has been a tough weekend with some unexpected steering issues plaguing the #23 which hurt his progress in qualifying and also in race trim unfortunately,” said Geoff Slater, the team’s Director of Engineering.
“We will take the lessons we need to from this one, put in the work to find out what exactly is going on with the #23, and make sure we can do a better job in Sydney in a few weeks’ time.”
The Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight takes place on July 28-30, with the Repco Supercars Championship field on-track from Saturday, July 29.
