FORD has celebrated some long-awaited success after an aerodynamic upgrade led to a Mustang sweep of the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.
The Blue Oval’s only two wins in the year’s first 24 races both had an element of circumstance about them, Cam Waters elevated to top spot in Newcastle after a Triple Eight double disqualification, and Anton De Pasquale capitalising on a tyre advantage in Townsville.
There was no such asterisk of sorts this time, as Waters and David Reynolds shared the spoils at Surfers Paradise.
Both drivers credited a pre-event parity change as being pivotal to their form spike, and Ford Australia product communications and motorsport manager Ben Nightingale lauded the resurgence.
“What an awesome weekend for us, obviously taking both wins,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“That’s something we haven’t done in a really long time, so fantastic to have Tickford and Grove have wins. It’s great to see David Reynolds back on the top step of the podium too.
“I think it’s an indicator of showing what our teams and our drivers are capable of when given the tools to do the job.”
Nightingale lauded the “unparalleled” grit, determination and resilience of the various Ford squads, which also covers Dick Johnson Racing, Walkinshaw Andretti United and the Blanchard Racing Team.
“The emotion in the Tickford garage (on Saturday) and the same again in Groves (on Sunday), it was so great to see,” he said.
“Obviously everyone is excited about a win but there’s also a really massive sense of relief too after what has been such a hard slog.”
Notable across the Gold Coast event were the countless paddock meetings between several Ford team bosses, with an engine/straight-line disparity still a hot topic.
“There’s still work to do, and kudos to Supercars, they’re recognising that and they have announced the off-season testing that we’re going to do with the transient dynos for engines and wind tunnel for aero,” said Nightingale.
“That’s exactly what we need to be doing. As Australia’s leading motorsport category, we need to be using world’s best practice and we’re going to be.
“So that will certainly be a massive step up in our process and procedure and hopefully we can walk into the 2024 season and go racing.
“Supercars have been engaging with us on a very regular basis in recent times to keep us across everything that they have planned. They’re engaging with the relevant independent experts.
“If they roll out the testing as they have described to us, then it should give us the results and the answers that we need (to ensure confidence in parity being achieved).”
