REPAIRABILITY is the hottest topic in the Supercars paddock at Albert Park, amid questions over the robustness of the Gen3 cars.
Improving the ease of repairs was one of the key aims of Gen3, with removable front and rear chassis clips designed to speed up the process at the circuit.
However, James Courtney’s failure to start the Sunday race in Newcastle after a crash in the Top 10 Shootout raised questions over the design.
Melbourne-based Tickford Racing eventually had to send the car to Pace Innovations in Queensland for repairs, as the load had transferred through to the main part of the chassis.
Analysis of the damaged front-end components revealed that chassis rail extension tubes on the car had been of a thicker steel than specified.
Tickford Racing boss Tim Edwards admitted to V8 Sleuth that the error would have contributed to the unwanted load transfer but downplayed its significance.
“There was part of the extension that was slightly different wall thickness, by a small amount,” Edwards told V8 Sleuth.
“That may have had a small impact but the reality is the level of damage to the car wasn’t all going to be absorbed by a rail extension that is 200mm long.”
Edwards explained that the thicker tube came from a laser cutter mislabelled and confirmed the issue was rectified prior to Albert Park.
“There would have been a pack of 20 laser cut parts all taped together, you’ve just got a part number on it, you pull it out, you bend it, you weld it to the bit it goes to and you move on,” he said.
“Somewhere along the line it’s ended up with a slightly different material thickness.
“It turns out we had two batches of the same part,” he continued. “We’ve eliminated all the ones that we found that were of slightly different material.
“We found the error, we found the batch, unfortunately that car had it and that’s given us a little bit of a cloud over our first crash test dummy.
“But if anyone thinks the front clip and everything wasn’t going to be destroyed like it was just because of that small material difference, they’re kidding themselves.
“Effectively the area that got damaged was two metres deep into the car.
“There is a host of things that sit between that two metres; the front bumper, the aluminium beam at the front, the first little rail extension, the next rail extension, the front clip, there’s a multitude of things there, and all of those were crushed all the way through.”
The Courtney crash damage was discussed by the category’s Technical Working Group after Newcastle, with some design changes thought likely as a result.
Interestingly, while Dick Johnson Racing designed the front rail extensions on the Mustang in steel, the corresponding part on the Triple Eight-designed Camaro is aluminium.
They were put to the test during opening Albert Park practice on Thursday when Shane van Gisbergen clouted the concrete with both the front and back of his Red Bull Camaro.
Van Gisbergen’s car missed the second practice session but returned to the track for qualifying.
Although the hit appeared to not be as hard as Courtney’s, Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton said more lessons can be learned from that accident.
“There’s some areas that can be improved, so we’ll just have to look at them and make some steps,” Dutton told V8 Sleuth of the repairability.
“For example, our rail extensions being aluminium on the Camaro did their job.
“If we had steel on them we would have transferred the damage further back into the car a lot more than we did and we wouldn’t have made qualifying if it wasn’t for that.
“Everything is being looked at. The Technical Working Group, they analyse, everyone communicates from all the different teams, we try and work together to move forward.
“You’d have to imagine some of those changes on the Mustang will come through.”
Tim Slade also gave Gen3 an unwanted crash test on Thursday; his PremiAir Camaro only just repaired in time for the race after its left-rear corner was damaged at Turn 5 in the opening session.
