Supercars continues to find itself in an intriguing parity battle with its Gen3 cars, which share more control components across brands than ever.
Significant gains were made between the 2023 and 2024 seasons with the Ford teams undoubtedly more competitive across this season compared to last.
However an anomaly remains – Bathurst.
The Camaro has consistently been the car to have at Mount Panorama, which, given the importance of the Bathurst 1000, is a headache for the technical department at Supercars.
According to Ryan Story, head of both Ford’s homologation team Dick Johnson Racing and Ford’s control engine supplier Motorsport Powertrains, the equations is simple.
“My personal opinion, and that of our organisation, is that a Ford can win the championship, but can’t win Bathurst,” Story told the KTM Summer Grill.
“Now, that’s not the view of Supercars. Supercars is quite firm that if a Ford had track position a couple of months ago, it likely would have taken the chequered flag first. And maybe there’s some merit in that argument, but I think we need to do better.
“[Supercars is] investing heavily in effectively exploring what we believe is the critical factor that prohibits the Ford from being as competitive as it needs to be at Bathurst.”
That factor is elevation and the effect it has on the quad cam Ford V8 compared to the more traditional pushrod Chevrolet motor.
According to Story, the solution could be a Bathurst-only engine spec to help level the playing field.
“In terms of Bathurst itself, you just need to think about where the place is – the elevation,” he said.
“There’s some rudimentary ways in which we can effectively invalidate or validate our theories. We believe beinge able to demonstrate that there is merit in the argument that we have that with the barometric pressure at Bathurst that has an impact on our motor, and it may lead to having a different spec about at Bathurst.
“But for us, we have to work with Supercars to validate or invalidate that theory and then work out what to do about it next.”
The elevation theory has been explored by other Ford teams as well, with Walkinshaw Andretti United understood to have contributed to the analysis process.
“We’ve been very open with the Ford teams,” added Story.
“Particularly as we took over the engine program, we just opened the kimono and we shared with them what we were doing, what we believed to be strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Because there’s a lot of talent in these other teams, and it’s not just about sharing information with your customers, it’s giving folks who have a significant amount of experience the opportunity to give something back to that as well.
“And full credit to Supercars. Whilst they don’t believe… they believe there’s merit in what we’re saying, but they don’t necessarily believe that we’re going to find the smoking gun.”
