FORD finally has a first-across-the-line Gen3 Supercars race win but it appears there’s more testing to come on the parity front.
Stephen Grove revealed as much in a Ford Australia media release issued tonight, the Grove Racing owner having described his team’s NTI Townsville 500 as “extremely frustrating”.
“We think we’ve got a fast car over one lap, and the changes have made an impact, but the car still doesn’t look after the rear tyres,” he said.
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“We had good one-lap pace but overall the deterioration of the tyres was a problem for us. It’s just the race pace that is not there.
“Until we can get the tyres to last, that’s the way it is. We started second on Saturday and fifth on Sunday, but finished a long way back.”
“There is some more testing on parity coming this week, so we’ve got to see what happens with that before we head to Sydney Motorsport Park.”
There are no further details yet as to when, where and what such testing might entail.
Either way, fellow Ford team boss Tim Blanchard agreed that the pre-Townsville aero tweak has not completely closed the gap to the Camaros.
“It’s still pretty hard for us. There is no tyre life compared to the Camaros. It’s hard to hang onto the tyres compared to the other cars,” he said.
“Sydney will be another tough one, but it will be interesting to see how we go.
“Tyre life is always critical around SMP and we still haven’t been able to achieve the tyre life of the Camaros.”
Adding to the Blanchard Racing Team’s tough Townsville 500 was a mechanical DNF for Todd Hazelwood in Race 2.
“We had an upright failure in the last race, so it’s pretty frustrating to have all these component failures and troubles,” said Blanchard.
“It’s part of the teething problems with the new car but it’s very frustrating.”
Round 7 of the Repco Supercars Championship at SMP will be held across July 28-30.
