WIND tunnel testing has surfaced as a discussion point in Supercars following displeasure over the effectiveness of an aero parity adjustment.
Despite finishing third, Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert was outspoken in his post-race television interview about the Camaro being in another league.
He doubled down on that sentiment in the subsequent press conference, saying the rear-end tweak has made no difference, describing his lack of confidence under braking, and declaring “I’ve had a TCR car that has a wing that actually works more than this one.”
Asked what the next step now is, Mostert pointed to the potential use of a wind tunnel.
“I just think it’s about doing stuff properly,” he said.
“Every other category around the world uses wind tunnels and does homologation processes to the best that they can.
“I don’t know any other category that still runs cars up and down a runway to work out what’s going on, to be completely honest.
“In the previous history of Supercars it’s been pretty good, but this year it’s been pretty light on the Ford side.”
Other means of “doing stuff properly” is already in the works with efforts to go transient dyno engine testing.
Access to a wind tunnel might not be straightforward, given the need to send race cars to a facility overseas (most likely in the United States).
Tickford Racing CEO Tim Edwards praised Supercars’ rapidly evolving parity process but admitted things were trending in the wind tunnel direction.
“I’m sure every team in pit lane would support wind tunnel testing,” Edwards said.
“It’s off the back of everything we’ve learnt this year and everything we learnt over the last three or four years when the Mustang came in.
“The category is constantly evolving and they are needing to dig deeper in the paritising of the cars than they ever had to in the past.
“It was Supercars that went and did the study and found that in braking and yaw there was a deficit between the Mustang and the Camaro. They discovered it, not us. We felt it, and they substantiated what we ‘d been saying.
“They’d never had to do that in the past. And I’m sure wind tunnels will be the next extension, as will transient dynos.
“We’re in a funnel and we’re getting into the smaller and smaller part of it, so the tools they need to paritise cars that are 0.02s apart need to be better.
“Every single team in pit lane would support wind tunnel testing.”
Edwards though reiterated it’s still too early to write off the pre-Townsville changes, given they’re now back to square one
“We’ve had two 30-minute practice sessions to try and replicate what our opponents have had for five or six months,” he said.
“At the moment we need to trust the CFD has been done right and the tools put forward by Ford have fixed the issue that Supercars found in CFD. But we’ve now got to adapt our car to different aero.
“We’ve been dealing with issues under braking that potentially are no longer their because of the changes they’ve made. We’ve got to back track and take a different tangent, and we’ve had two 30-minute practice sessions to do it.”
