A technical ‘godsend’ and a Supercars legend have been credited as key to ending a lengthy stalemate over aerodynamic parity and getting Gen3 on track in Newcastle.
Supercars’ new era blasted into life in spectacular fashion at the Newcastle 500 on Friday, as the 25-car field tackled three practice sessions without a single red flag interruption.
The day ended with the top 10 split between five Chevrolet Camaros and five Ford Mustangs and just 0.0760s between the fastest cars from the two marques.
Although Newcastle is not an overly aero sensitive circuit, it was a remarkable start given a troubled build-up in which homologation of the two cars was not signed off until Wednesday of race week.
Ford had refused to green light its new car following a VCAT (aerodynamic test) at Wellcamp in November.
That led to months of robust discussions between the manufacturer and the category and eventually an emergency second straightline run at Temora last week.
The Temora test resulted in a small change to the Camaro, revealed by Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup as a 5kg increase to its front downforce, ahead of Newcastle.
Among the factors responsible for the successful second VCAT was an innocuous looking set of flat patch scales that sit in the scrutineering garage in Newcastle.
The flat patch was purchased from Europe by Supercars late last year and used at the Temora test ahead of its introduction to the event scrutineering process.
“Our previous scales were a few years old, they’re expensive bits of kit,” explained Supercars’ Head of Motorsport Adrian Burgess.
“(With the previous patch) we put a couple of lasers in, but they were out on beams, it wasn’t a nice flat table like that is. It just allows us to do a better job.
“It was a great addition to our VCAT process when we re-VCATed. It was a godsend. It was a very important part of our process last week.”
More specifically, the new patch gave greater confidence in the accuracy of readings from laser ride height sensors used at VCAT.
Supercars fits the prototype cars with an active suspension system for VCAT, where it measures downforce at a series of pre-determined ride heights.
Other improvements at VCAT 2 included new sensors used elsewhere in the process, which Burgess says “gave a finer detail, a more consistent sensor than we were running at the last one.
“It still produced the same number, but it just gave you more confidence in the number. The numbers were the same, but it was more repeatable.”
Not all improvements at VCAT 2 were purely technical.
Champion driver turned Supercars powerbroker Mark Skaife, Commission chairman Michael Masi and contract engineer Dave Swenson were key in adding transparency and neutrality.
They worked alongside Supercars’ own technical department and the respective homologation teams, Triple Eight (Chevrolet) and Dick Johnson Racing (Ford) at Temora.
“Ford were happy seeing that we had the level of people that we had there and the neutrality of all the people… it’s about doing a thorough job,” Burgess said.
“We could not do the process any more thoroughly.”
Although the fact a change was made to the Camaro following VCAT 2 suggests the earlier testing produced an inaccurate result, Burgess denies that is the case.
Describing the nature of the change made as ‘miniscule’ given the cars weigh 1335kg and produce around 170kg of downforce, he insists VCAT 2 was about providing increased confidence.
“If you look at the size of the change that was put onto the Camaro and nothing changed on the Mustang, for me that backs up what we did at Wellcamp,” he said.
“It’s nearly impossible to take two cars from one venue to another, three or four months apart and expect them to be within 8kg of where they were before.
“It’s exactly the same as a team having a set-up at Queensland Raceway in the middle of June and then going back in October and expecting to have the same lap time out of the same set of tyres. It just doesn’t happen.
“Life isn’t that repeatable. But the tolerance that it repeated to gives us a lot of confidence in the numbers that we’ve got now.”
Burgess acknowledged that technical issues encountered during the initial Wellcamp test had undermined confidence in the data.
“No one disputed the numbers from Wellcamp, the problem we had in Wellcamp was that it was a very interrupted test,” he continued.
“We had a couple of little sensor issues. They were giving us the right number, but there was just noise around the sensor. It didn’t give you the confidence you ideally wanted.
“What we did at Temora was basically generating that confidence around the numbers. The number hasn’t really changed, the size of the change on the Camaro, it’s miniscule.
“But we did 2,200km (on the runway at VCAT 2). That just goes to show how well the cars are built and were prepared by the two HTs (homologation teams).
“The cars were outstanding and it allowed us to run and run. The more running you get, the more confidence you get in all the process and the number it’s delivering.
“It wasn’t that anything was wrong with the first one, we just struggled with… we had clutches go in the first one, we were running a high drop gear, so we had bits of unreliability creep into the car which didn’t allow us to leave that test with a level of confidence that everyone wanted.
“(VCAT 2) was a really constructive and well run and well executed week and that’s what everyone wanted to see out of it, not just Ford, but Supercars want that.
“We want parity as much as they do, if not more.”
Parity will continue to be monitored closely by Supercars as the first Gen3 season unfolds, including ongoing analysis of engine performance.
