FORD team principals Bruce Stewart and Tim Edwards have opened up on their frustration regarding Supercars’ ongoing parity saga.
The Friday and somewhat Saturday of the Darwin Triple Crown appeared to show closer competition between the Mustang and Camaro.
But any such optimism was well and truly extinguished by the end of a Sunday utterly dominated by Chevrolet drivers and teams.
Stewart (Walkinshaw Andretti United), Edwards (Tickford Racing) and David Cauchi (Grove Racing team principal), plus WAU technical director Carl Faux, were spotted having a long discussion post-race in the Hidden Valley pitlane.
“There certainly seems to be a lot more yellow (Chevrolet) on the timing screen at the top versus blue (Ford) on the timing screen,” Edwards said.
“I think the last time I checked there was only five cars that were 1:07s in that race and none of them had a blue box next to their name.”
Aero is increasingly being discussed as a cause of disparity once more, but the lack of data transparency repeatedly called out by Ford Performance global boss Mark Rushbrook means Edwards only has hunches to work with.
“Who would know? We don’t know,” he said.
“All we have got is results and lap time information.
“We don’t have access to aero data, we don’t have access to dyno data to do overlays, we don’t have access to any of that stuff, so you’re asking the wrong people.
“We can have opinions and obviously we’re sitting there as bemused as you are about why all of this yellow and why all of this blue down here but we don’t actually know why.
“We’d love to have access to (data) because then we’d be able to dissect it ourselves and actually have a better idea.
“All we know is, why aren’t we up there? We have got teams that finished second, third, fourth and fifth in the teams’ championship last year that are just being smashed at the moment.
“So the top teams in the championship all bar one are P-nowhere.
“We honestly don’t know why and we’re as frustrated and bemused as the public are at the moment because we don’t know why we’re not more competitive.”
The usually reserved Stewart doubled down on his counterpart’s sentiments.
“I think the numbers speak for themselves,” he said.
“Every Ford team can have outliers of someone who jags a great lap and sits at the top but I think the real story is the quantity of quality drivers that you see floating into mediocrity which is not where their talent lies.”
When asked how they plan to tackle the problem, Stewart noted the level to which Ford teams are working together in the circumstances.
“We discuss our thoughts and we share more than we would normally because I think there is a level of frustration,” said Stewart.
“So in that respect, any plans or anything we’re going to do, that’s our own business at the moment.”
