Shop
Zak Brown says it’s disappointing that Supercars didn’t reach out to him and McLaren regarding its parity woes and off-season wind tunnel testing plans.
The testing is taking place at the Windshear facility in North Carolina with technical staff from Supercars and the homologation teams (Triple Eight and Dick Johnson Racing) in attendance.
Brown, a part owner of the Walkinshaw Andretti United squad, is no stranger to wind tunnel testing given he is also the CEO of F1 team McLaren.
The British squad opened it own wind tunnel this year, having previously used the Toyota facility in Cologne, Germany.
However, despite having that experience at McLaren HQ, Brown says that Supercars never came to him for advice on more detailed aero testing – something that left him feeling disappointed.
“Nope, not a word, which I think is a bit disappointing,” he said during filming for the upcoming KTM Summer Grill.
“These issues are sometimes hard to tackle and you should reach out to people.
“Of course, anytime you’re on the receiving end of not being the beneficiary, it always appears that you moan. But I think the results kind of speak for them themselves, right?
“You can go down to the win list by manufacturer, and I don’t think you need to be around motorsports very long to go, oh, that seems pretty lopsided.
“So unfortunately, no, no one reached out to us. I’ve got great friends at Ford, they were frustrated, we spoke about it. And I know Ryan [Walkinshaw] and Bruce [Stewart], they’re not shy, and they worked on it.
“We just didn’t get to where we needed to this year. But let’s hope next year is a new year and we can get a right.”
Brown’s comments follow a warning from Indy 500-winning engineer Luke Mason that wind tunnel testing may not be the silver bullet expected by many in the Supercars paddock in the battle for parity.
