{"id":756081,"date":"2026-06-23T23:58:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/756081\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T23:58:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:58:25","slug":"supercars-news-bathurst-1000-target-for-toyota-engine-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/756081\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Bathurst 1000 target for Toyota engine fix"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Bathurst
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChaz Mostert’s engine expired late in Sunday’s Darwin finale. Image: Fox Sports<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

The latest incident of the valve train-related issue occurred in spectacular fashion in Sunday\u2019s Darwin Triple Crown finale<\/a> when Chaz Mostert\u2019s engine expired with a handful of laps to run.<\/p>\n

Forensic work on the issue started as soon as Mostert\u2019s Supra arrived back in the garage after the race and was swiftly identified as the same issue that cost Ryan Wood the Jason Richards Trophy in New Zealand in April<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andre Heimgartner suffered the same failure during the opening round in Sydney while valve-related reliability issues occurred during development work in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the initial analysis, it looks the same as what we had in Christchurch,\u201d WTWGR team principal Carl Faux told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not unknown, it\u2019s a problem that we\u2019re working on. We\u2019ve got some bits in the works.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a hardware point of view, nothing has changed from the beginning of the year, so it\u2019s a problem we\u2019ve been managing. It\u2019s a top end problem and it\u2019s a known issue.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe solution to it is in the works. The good thing is, it\u2019s not a new problem. We know what it is, and we just need to manage our way through this part of the year until we can get the parts made.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe parts are already in manufacture. We have not found a new problem here, which I don\u2019t want to say is satisfying, but absolutely there is some relief to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a solution well in the works, the challenge now is in its implementation.<\/p>\n

That includes manufacturing parts, installing them in enough power plants to service the five Supras in the field and then having the updated engines undergo the required checks by Supercars in Queensland.<\/p>\n

The entire process is further complicated by the mid-season run of long-haul races, with a staged rollout that Faux is adamant will be completed before the Bathurst 1000.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about getting the new parts through manufacture and then into the fleet of engines up and down the grid,\u201d explained Faux.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the work of a moment. One engine is easy to do, but it\u2019s not one engine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to risk mitigate, the first moment you can do it, you do it. And then you keep rolling it out as quickly as you can. Ideally you\u2019d do it at once, but we don\u2019t have that luxury.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in Darwin, so it\u2019s four or five days until we get everyone back to Melbourne. And then we\u2019ve got a week to get everything turned around to head to Townsville. And then after Townsville we go to Perth.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo logistically, it\u2019s a big challenge. And we are Melbourne-based, and everything we do has to go to Supercars up in Queensland, so we lose time with that as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cLogistics are the biggest problem with this, because the technical issue, we have the solution for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will be done by Bathurst. I\u2019ve got no issues with that. It\u2019s just about how much quicker than that we can get it done with the logistical issues we\u2019re facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the positive side, the Supra package has been competitive across the last two rounds \u2013 Tasmania and Darwin \u2013 which are both power sensitive.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s despite a known hole in the torque curve of the Toyota V8 compared to the more-established Ford and Chevrolet engines.<\/p>\n

Faux, who has been heavily involved in the Toyota engine development, praised Supercars for its recent mapping work based on temperature studies<\/a>, introduced before Tasmania.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really grateful to Supercars for what they did with the temperature correction,\u201d said Faux.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know how that would affect our engine compared to the others, but we\u2019ve been the coldest and the hottest events and it\u2019s looked good.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we achieved that is with the variable valve timing that we introduced to the engine and it allows Supercars to manipulate that into different ranges for different temperatures. That\u2019s a positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still understand there\u2019s sub-optimal torque in an area, which we\u2019re working on.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut always the first priority is reliability. Because we\u2019ve lost a position in the pit lane because of what happened [on Sunday].\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chaz Mostert’s engine expired late in Sunday’s Darwin finale. Image: Fox Sports The latest incident of the valve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,99543,806,805,803,804,12357,85,238451],"class_list":["post-756081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chaz-mostert","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot1","tag-sports","tag-walkinshaw-twg-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756081","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=756081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}