GENERAL Motors competitors have raised a different kind of parity matter to monitor heading into the Repco Bathurst 1000.
While Ford soared to a Tailem Bend 1-2-3 comprising of three different teams in the first event since a Mustang aero update was approved, outright pace wasn’t necessarily the element on the tip of tongues.
Rather, that was fuel consumption.
“The Fords are somehow getting four laps’ extra fuel range than the Chevs,” Erebus Motorsport driver Cooper Murray, who finished a strong seventh, observed to V8 Sleuth.
“So that’s a little bit of a talking point going into Bathurst because that could be race-ending stuff if it’s like that there.”
Team 18 owner Charlie Schwerkolt, whose outfit is now on homologation duties for GM, also broadly flagged fuel matters as something to review in what was an otherwise reserved answer to V8 Sleuth on his level of comfort on parity.
“I think there’s a bit to look at,” he said cagily.
Fuel burn hadn’t previously seemed to be on the agenda; it isn’t clear whether the raft of comments post-500 are related to any particular technical change over the course of this season.
Three-and-a-half weeks remain until Supercars practice kicks off at Mount Panorama on Thursday October 9.