Supercars Championship teams are preparing for a mixed conditions Repco Bathurst 1000 with a number of clever tricks in pit lane.
Rain has fallen on every day of the Mount Panorama event, cancelling yesterday’s Top 10 Shootout, with 5-10mm expected today, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
The Great Race could see a mixture of dry and wet running, making set-up direction difficult.
One way Triple Eight Race Engineering is combating that is a method of changing the rear wing angle in the pit stops.
Adjusting the rear wing angle alters the rear downforce, with trade-offs in either direction.
It is a particularly critical set-up item, where one would usually run more wing angle in wet conditions and taper it out in the dry.
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Typically, teams would not change the rear wing angle in a race given the lengthy process to do so manually.
However, Triple Eight was seen in Saturday practice utilising a battery-powered drill to adjust the wing position rather than the usual manual tool.
It means the team will be more adaptable to the weather conditions in the 1000km enduro, with the strategic possibility of quickly changing the wing angle on #88 and #97 in a pit stop.
Speedcafe.com understands this is a method the squad has employed for years and is not against the regulations.
“It might not sound like a lot…it’s seconds quicker,” Team Manager Mark Dutton explained to Speedcafe.com.
“When you want to do a change, you want to make sure you’re doing it well within the refuelling time, which is generally around 30 seconds.
“If you can do it in under 30 seconds you’re doing well.
“Doing it manually, sometimes you can, but then it’s not as consistent and not as reliable for doing it in a short amount of time.
“[It is] the same reason people use power tools for any reason, just to speed things up.
“The ability to be able to change settings in a race with changeable conditions gives the engineer and the drivers the freedom to have a car more suited to wet conditions.
“Then [they can] switch to a car more suited to dry conditions, or vice versa, instead of running the middle ground and compromising one of those.”
Dick Johnson Racing Team Principal, Ben Croke, explained his squad will also be utilising ways to adapt between the wet and dry conditions.
“There’s a fair bit you can do; ride height changes, roll bars are obviously adjustable in the car,” he told Speedcafe.com.
“If you really want to risk it you can probably try and chance a wing change or something.
“I don’t think you’re going to have long enough to do that; there are some tuning tools you can do during the pit stops.”
Per the regulations, teams will have to undertake a mandatory brake rotor and pad change during the 161-lap race.
While some – including Triple Eight – leave the brake calliper on, others employ a method where the callipers, rotors, and pads are changed at once.
It is believed at least DJR and Grove Racing use this plug-and-play system.
“We’ve been doing it like that for five years now,” added Croke of DJR.
“Other teams clear the pads out and the calliper stays on the upright.
“We’ve developed our process of changing the calliper, disc and pads all in one go with the use of electric tools that have been allowed for a few years now.
“We actually think there’s less risk because for us you’re only undoing two bolts, you don’t have the pistons exposed when the driver is getting in and they can hit the pedal and stuff like that.
“That’s our version and our opinion of it and others have got their way.
“For us, it’s been something that we’ve used for many years now, we’re comfortable with and it works well for us.”
Supercars will be on track for the Warm Up at 08:00 local time/AEDT ahead of the Great Race at 11:15.
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