Ford Supercars teams set for further Gen3 parity meeting

Ford Supercars teams are set to meet today over the subject of Gen3 parity, for the second time in a matter of days.

As revealed by Speedcafe, the Blue Oval squads held talks on the Saturday of the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix weekend.

By then, two races had been won by Chevrolet Camaros and the Bowties would go on to sweep the four sprints, with the one bright spot for Ford being Anton De Pasquale’s pole position in the first qualifying session at Albert Park.

While variable conditions and mixed tyre compounds clouded the picture somewhat, Ford drivers did not achieve a single podium finish out of the 12 on offer, although two Mustangs lost top three finishes due to time penalties.

The Ford camp’s concerns primarily relate to powertrains, with the Camaro said to have an advantage in fourth, fifth, and sixth gear.

Aerodynamics had seemingly been a more serious bone of contention during pre-season but, even after the Camaro was given a small increase in front downforce following parity work at Temora just a week out from the Thrifty Newcastle 500, there are no signs of gripes on that front.

How the engine/powertrain issue might be resolved, if indeed there is deemed to be a disparity, remains to be seen.

The two packages were tested on a chassis dyno in mid-February, with the Camaro’s shift cut elongated for the official pre-season test at Sydney Motorsport Park, a setting which has applied thereafter.

Despite that, the Ford side believes it is still on the wrong end of a technical disparity, a point which was obvious in the marque’s post-Albert Park press release.

It included a quip from Tickford Racing’s Tim Edwards, who was quoted as follows: “We did pretty well in the Mustang cup. But we’ve got a bit of work to do.”

His counterpart at homologation team Dick Johnson Racing, Ben Croke, said, “We were reasonable on the soft compound tyre, but not quite quick enough on the hard tyre – at least compared to the Camaro.”

The Stapylton outfit’s Team Principal added, “We had moments of being the best we could be, in terms of the Fords, including the last race where both cars ran strongly.”

DJR driver Will Davison indicated that he expects parity changes, while team CEO David Noble said, “there’s probably some more discussions to be had around the engine.”

Today’s Ford meeting comes after two days of centre of gravity testing among a sample of cars from up and down pit lane at Tickford’s Campbellfield workshop, in Melbourne’s north.

CoG is sure to be a key agenda item in this week’s Gen3 Technical Working Group meeting, which was supposed to be held today but has now been pushed back to tomorrow, after the Ford meeting, Speedcafe understands.

The Technical Working Group will, of course, also be discussing causes of and solutions to the fires which took hold in two Mustangs at Albert Park.

Needless to say, the aim will be a resolution before the next event of the season, the Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint at Wanneroo Raceway on April 28-30.