SUPERCARS has made a mid-event gearshift cut change to the Ford Mustangs at the Sandown 500.
Parity has been a hot topic after Chevrolet Camaros dominated Friday practice.
Top-end speed is at the crux of the issue, with Ford teams declaring they were bleeding time along Sandown’s two long straights.
The ledger has been much more even today – in fact, six Mustang drivers qualified for this afternoon’s Top 10 Shootout.
V8 Sleuth has learnt that a shift cut change has been applied today, helping Ford at least improve in one-lap pace.
Specifically, the Mustang shift cut was changed to 30 milliseconds for gears three to six, with the cut remaining at 50ms on the change from first gear to second.
50ms had been used through all gears yesterday on the Ford side.
The Camaros, meanwhile, are still on a 105ms cut.
Shift cut changes are considered a quick and easy band-aid fix and can be implemented at any time, with aero/drag likely to be the bigger picture matter at hand.
The tweak has appeared to help at Sandown, but the feeling from the Blue Oval camp is that shortening the shift cut might have a negative impact in race trim, in that it may create more wheelspin and thus increased tyre degradation.
The Ford preference, as far as shift cuts go, appears to be lengthening the Camaro’s beyond 105ms and keeping the Mustang at 50ms.
The Top 10 Shootout is scheduled to start at 5:20pm.
V8 Sleuth’s coverage of the 2023 Penrite Oil Sandown 500 is proudly presented by Biante – Fuel your passion with winning model cars. Visit Biante here to check out their range of model cars in a range of scales from 1:64 to 1:10.
