SUPERCARS General Manager of Motorsport Tim Edwards has rejected reports that different shift cuts will be utilised at next weekend’s Repco Supercars Championship season-opener, the Thrifty Bathurst 500.
Changes to the shift cut in the Gen3 Supercars were used last year in a bid to try and find parity between the Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustang.
A Red Bull Ampol/Triple Eight Camaro driven by Broc Feeney and Will Brown (the latter drove on Saturday afternoon after the former was busy with 12 Hour qualifying commitments) and a Shell V-Power/DJR Mustang driven by Anton De Pasquale turned laps over the course of Friday and Saturday at the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour to conduct further testing for Supercars.
Edwards confirmed to V8 Sleuth that while different versions of subtly different shift cuts were tried in the Ford during the on-track running at the 12 Hour, there are no plans for them to be implemented for the Mustang teams for next weekend’s season-opening Thrifty Bathurst 500.
“It’s been a very worthwhile test,” said Edwards of the multi-session running at Bathurst.
“It gave us the chance to know exactly what they (the shift cut) do but it’s absolutely not our intention for it to be raced next weekend, contrary to other reports.
“If we have a situation in the future where we need to look at using it, then we have tested it in a controlled environment with the same track conditions etc for both cars. Being here (at Bathurst) is the best time for us to do it.
“It’s all part of us understanding what we’ve got. We’re happy with where we’re at with the rest of the cars and this test gave us the opportunity to see exactly what those changes would do. It would be remiss of us not to be trying it.
“It (the shift cut changes) was nowhere near the magnitude of what we had last year. We’re still navigating the data but on the surface the cars are very close, that’s our assessment from a high-level swipe of the data.”
Edwards said any attempt to analyse sector times and lap times from the sessions run by the Gen3 cars during the 12 Hour weekend was a pointless exercise.
“My instruction to both drivers was that I was only interested in them getting good exits out of Turn 1 (Hell Corner) and the Elbow. I didn’t care about the rest; this test was all about the two bits of straight track (Mountain Straight and Conrod Straight).”
The Repco Supercars Championship season kicks off at Mount Panorama next week for the Thrifty Bathurst 500 with a pair of 250-kilometre races to begin the 24-race championship chase.
