GROVE Racing team principal David Cauchi is excited by the way Gen3 will eliminate excuses in the pursuit of victory.
The Braeside squad will stick with Ford into next year, when its engineering department will be bolstered by Grant McPherson joining from Walkinshaw Andretti United as technical director.
Grove Racing is set to find itself further up the pit lane in 2023, given it finished eighth in last year’s teams’ championship and is this season battling with WAU and Erebus Motorsport for fourth.
With resources and personnel falling into place, the Groves are well positioned to keep their upward trajectory going once more control parts are in play with Gen3.
“For me, Gen3 effectively just eliminates excuses,” Cauchi told V8 Sleuth.
“You’ve got the same engine as, for us, every other Ford team; we’ll have the same chassis, same suspension as every other team and then it’s down to how good a job we do with that equipment.
“Assuming that the parity between the Chev and the Ford is all what it should be – and I have full faith in Supercars that that’s what they will achieve – it’s purely down to us.
“It’s down to the team, it’s down to the people, everyone from the drivers, the mechanics, the engineers, the commercial team; there’s no hiding.
“So for me, it’s perfect because there’s just absolutely no excuses.
“Not that I feel like we’re making excuses this year but there’s only so much we can do with the car that we have in the amount of time that we have, but (Gen3) just resets all of those things.”
Be that as it may, Cauchi doesn’t expect the championship’s top teams to suddenly become easybeats.
“It’s not to say it’s going to get any easier because it will still expose other weaknesses that teams may or may not have, and as always in motorsport, the cream will still rise to the top no matter what,” he added.
“We still know what we need to work on internally within the team, and we know that there’s a lot of things that aren’t at the level they need to be, so we just have to continue to work away at those things and then we’ll see where we land next year.”
David Reynolds and Lee Holdsworth enter this weekend’s Auckland SuperSprint seventh and 14th in the drivers’ standings.
Holdsworth will retire at season’s end, with his #10 Penrite Mustang tipped to be filled by Super2 star Matt Payne.
