TRIPLE Eight boss Jamie Whincup has launched a scathing attack on Ford over its stance on parity that delayed the homologation of the Gen3 Supercars.
The seven-time champion driver turned team principal also claims a last-minute aerodynamic change on the eve of the Newcastle 500 will benefit the Chevrolet Camaro.
A frantic build-up to the debut of the Camaro and new generation Ford Mustang Supercars this weekend has been clouded by fierce debate over parity.
Homologation of the two cars was only locked in this week, with an alteration to the front bumper of the Camaro ordered following a rushed second aerodynamic test.
Ford had disputed the results of the original straightline aero test (VCAT) last November, leading to more track running in January and then last week’s trip to the Temora Aerodrome.
The Blue Oval’s global racing boss Mark Rushbrook said in Newcastle on Thursday that he’s now satisfied aero parity has been achieved but flagged a need for ongoing monitoring of engine performance.
MORE: Ford boss reacts to Supercars parity fix
“It’s been massively frustrating,” Whincup told V8 Sleuth of the parity process, through which Triple Eight has acted as Chevrolet’s homologation team.
“We prepared, we went to VCAT (last November) and we needed cars signed off at VCAT.
“If you’re sitting in team land, even if you might think your car is not perfect, you get to a point and draw a line in the sand where you’ve just got to build the cars and go racing.
“Unless you do that you just put every team under way too much pressure and jeopardise what we’re all about, which is going racing.
“By the other side dragging it out until the last week, I find that extremely reckless and disrespectful to every mechanic in pitlane.
“For them to sacrifice the last five weekends and do all this work because there’s politics going on in the background, and half of it is going on from the other side of the world that’s potentially not in touch with what’s going on here on the ground….
“Even if we thought our car was insufficient two or three months ago, we needed to sign off on it to get racing.”
Doubling down on his point, Whincup stressed that Supercars has a mechanism to assess and adjust parity in-season should an imbalance between the marques become apparent.
The process, which involves analysis of lap times, was utilised in 2019 when the Gen2 Mustang initially proved superior to the ZB Commodore.
“We paritise, we don’t have Balance of Performance like GT, but there’s a mechanism within the rules that we can make adjustments after two or three rounds,” he said.
“And remember, Newcastle is not a fast track. The numbers we’ve been arguing about over three months to the jeopardy of every single mechanic in pitlane is not justified and it’s reckless.
“It’s been a frustrating and disappointing experience and unfortunately, we’ve been brought along for the ride.
“I can’t apologise enough to our team and the rest of the mechanics. We did everything we could, but the situation was the situation.”
Ford’s point of concern over aerodynamic parity was a difference in the front-to-rear downforce balance of the two cars, complaining its balance was too far forward to the detriment of rear grip.
While it was long thought the Blue Oval wanted to rectify that with a change to its rear wing, Supercars instead tweaked the front of the Camaro.
“No doubt the aero tweak from VCAT will help the Camaro,” he said.
“We were insufficient with front downforce before and now it makes it even. Five kilos more front downforce, two kilos more drag is what the change is.”
The bulk of the Chevrolet teams added the new parts to the front of their cars in the Newcastle pitlane on Thursday.
“It’s a plastic printed part with a bit of bog to smooth it off and sikaflex, the same stuff you stick a front windscreen in on a road car, on the side,” Whincup explained.
“It’s that with our (livery) wrapping over the top to get through this weekend because we signed off on the car two days ago.
“Then we’ll design a new front fascia and it’ll all be incorporated into the front splitter.”
Opening practice for the 2023 Repco Supercars Championship is set to get underway at 11:15am local time.
