Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota battle it out at The Bend. Image: InSyde Media
Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton has flagged his team is pushing to “get the aero situation reviewed” ahead of next month’s Bathurst 1000.
Ford teams were left furious that Supercars permitted a change to the splitter skids on the Camaro ahead of The Bend that aided downforce and put the car outside of the ‘parity box’.
Each Ford team issued Supercars with a legal letter on Friday evening, formally notify their belief the change had been made in breach of the Teams Racing Charter.
A subsequent reduction of the Camaro’s wing angle on Saturday morning was somewhat of a band-aid fix to put the car back inside the box.
There is still a belief, however, that the Camaro has jumped ahead of the Mustang and Toyota Supra on aerodynamic capabilities.
While fresh parity reviews cannot be launched following the start of the Enduro Cup, Supercars can still review and revise changes made within the last two events.
It can also make changes based on previously identified issues, including Centre of Gravity that is being evaluated this week in Melbourne.
“It was a very hectic weekend, both on and off the track with a fight going on over parity in Supercars,” surmised Dutton in a weekend summary issued by Ford.
“We’ll be pushing hard to get the category to ensure it is a level playing field with technical parity as we head to Bathurst.
“We’ll be doing some centre-of-gravity testing on the three models and also pushing to get the aero situation reviewed.
“We never look to get an advantage but we’ve got a lot of work to ensure the technical parity is respected.”
Interestingly, Dutton made no mention of barometric pressure testing, which Triple Eight has declared a non-issue despite the belief of other Ford squads.
Triple Eight endured a shocker on track at The Bend, with co-drivers Nick Percat and Scott Pye both caught up in early incidents.
Will Brown ultimately dragged the #888 entry home in fourth, despite Pye having earned a pair of 15 second penalties.
Broc Feeney was 23rd after Percat had been the incident victim in multiple incidents, including a hit from Zak Best that left the #88 Mustang several laps down.
“On the track, if it had been a clean race, with the pace we had, we would have been challenging for the top spot,” said Dutton.
“Everyone responded well to the challenges of minimising the effect of the carnage.
“We need to work harder to ensure we minimise the chances of getting into the sort of situations that hurt us at this time.”