{"id":569510,"date":"2026-03-28T07:32:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T07:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/569510\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T07:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T07:32:19","slug":"mustang-cup-responds-to-phillip-island-bonnet-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/569510\/","title":{"rendered":"Mustang Cup responds to Phillip Island bonnet drama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/MH6_1410-copy.jpg\" alt=\"Mustang Cup responds to Phillip Island bonnet drama\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJosh Anderson&#8217;s damaged Ford Mustang Dark Horse R during practice at Phillip Island. Image: Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n<p>Josh Anderson was the unlucky driver to have a gust of wind grab the bonnet of his Ford Mustang Dark Horse R and shear it from its pins during Practice 1.<\/p>\n<p>The bonnet smashed the front window before flying over the top of the car and breaking the back window.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson was forced into the category\u2019s spare car for the second practice and qualifying on Friday before repairs were made for Saturday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n<p>The Ford Mustang Dark Horse R uses factory glass, front and rear \u2013 as opposed to perspex rear windows in the GT4 variant.<\/p>\n<p>Ford Australia sent a Transit van from Melbourne to Phillip Island with four windscreens and two rear windscreens to facilitate repairs and give the series some onsite spares.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of Practice 2, teams increased the preload on the bonnet pins and created a seal by taping the panel gaps.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/cameron-takes-historic-first-mustang-cup-win-in-photo-finish\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cameron takes historic first Mustang Cup win in photo finish<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>There were no repeat incidents on Friday or Saturday, and a permanent solution will be found between events.<\/p>\n<p>Series organisers were aware that the bonnets were a weak point of the car having experienced similar buffeting issues during the Mustang Challenge Le Mans Invitational.<\/p>\n<p>However, particularly blustering conditions on Friday resulted in an unexpected failure.<\/p>\n<p>Ford Racing global one-make series manager Chris Ward declined to discuss the issue, but was happy with how the first race went.<\/p>\n<p>That was won by Aaron Cameron, who won by a meagre 0.006s over his Garry Rogers Motorsport teammate James Golding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think from the outside, the fingers will point at us and say we couldn\u2019t have scripted it any better. I can assure you it wasn\u2019t scripted,\u201d said Ward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe weather gods played in our hands. I think everyone, fans included, love a wet race, and the guys out front just put on a clinic there, spectacular racing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the driver meeting, we use the word respect and I think the ultimate respect was shown between all the drivers on track today and put on a great show for the fans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCouldn\u2019t have asked for a better start to Mustang Cup Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jack Perkins was the sole DNF in Race 1 due to a suspected clutch issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c It\u2019s a shame to see that one car drop out,\u201d said Ward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll obviously go and work with the team and see what the issue was and help them resolve it for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mustang Cup Australia continues on Sunday at 9:10am AEDT with the second qualifying session before Race 2 at 12:30pm.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/294243\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/294243.gif\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Anderson&#8217;s damaged Ford Mustang Dark Horse R during practice at Phillip Island. Image: Mark Horsburgh Josh Anderson&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-569510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}