LAST night, Chaz Mostert cut a far more settled figure three weeks on from his previous Saturday podium at the Townsville 500.
Despite placing third in the opening leg in north Queensland earlier this month, Mostert was clearly agitated with Ford’s continuing woes.
Having raced his way through to second under lights at Sydney Motorsport Park, Mostert observed progress – even if the story is not over yet.
“There’s definitely different changes to the last event. The throttle body change is definitely more of a notice on the cracked throttle pick-up and I’d say the lag that there was slightly there, so I’d say the driveability is a bit nicer,” he said.
“But I’d say the hardest thing for me to manage is the engine brake.
“It’s one of those things I’m really struggling to get my head around.
“I’m not sure if that’s just the Mustang, the way it is at the moment or our car.
“We seem to be trucking along pretty good but then later in the stints it’s really hard to drive so when we come to these higher degradation places we’re struggling a little bit more.”
Aero balance has also been problematic.
“The high-speed balance I feel with my car for whatever reason was being a struggle, even in qualifying,” added the Walkinshaw Andretti United driver.
“Turn 1, I just can’t seem to quite get through there, a lot of understeer there.
“We definitely made some changes from the test day that made it a little bit better set-up wise and be able to look after the tyres a little bit better as well, but just anything we tried through practice really could not change that aero balance.”
Overall on Gen3, Mostert noted the efforts going on to achieve parity.
“The racing is close, there’s no doubt about it, we have got different winners this year,” he said.
“Yeah, the Ford side has been a little bit less and we’re working through that.
“Supercars has been really proactive, you have seen more changes.
“Whether they are the right things or wrong things, things are changing. It’s a very hard thing to try to get right.
“This is probably the biggest technical changes in the category’s history for a long time, so I think everyone is trying their hardest.”
Sunday qualifying at SMP starts 12:35pm.
