Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / NEWS: Camaro parity change fallout + emergency brake fix
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to Full Credit to the News brought to you by Authentic Collectibles. My name is Andrew Van Lewen and I'm joined by Speak FA's managing editor Stefan Bartholomeus. Stefan, it is race week, which means we are actually together in person, which is always very fun. We're in a rather cold Haandorf, ahead of a what I think is going to be a very interesting weekend at the bend. The beautiful German town of Haarndorf. It feels like Germany, because it's that cold. But ⁓ let's start off with Where the hell have you been? Yeah, sorry. I I am a late arrival into ⁓ Adelaide. I was on assignment for our other website, Talk Cafe, for the last few hours. I was out at the Sunrasia Safari rally. Do you know what that is? Sounds like it's gonna be ⁓ motorsport best kept secret kind of territory. It's it was pretty fun. It was a pretty fun thing that I didn't really know a whole lot about, but got to drive a couple of stages out there on an event with Subaru, so ⁓ We'll have something written up about that for Talk Cafe in the next week or so. But yes, as you point out, I'm a very late arrival. I'm yet to actually get out to the bend. And ⁓ it sounds like you didn't have much to do out there today on your own. There wasn't much news kicking about. Happy days. Yeah. No, obviously it was a very newsy day out there and as ⁓ We have now covered. I'm not fully across everything that happened because I wasn't there. So I think the format of this show is just gonna be me asking you some questions about things that are going on, starting with the parody stuff, because we did know from a few days ago, that would have been earlier this week, I think it was. Tuesday. That that yeah, it was ⁓ confirmed that there is an an aero change happening for the Camaro based on the tr ⁓ the parody trigger being triggered. It's always a confusing kind of thing there as well, after ⁓ the Ipswich round. And I mean, we spoke to Jamie Winkarp in Ipswich long before any of this had actually happened. And he made it very clear that he was already furious about the second step of the changes that were made earlier in the year and that he'd be upset with more changes. And now we're at a point where it seems like between Triple Eight and Grove Racing, there's some very unsettled people about what we're seeing unfold here. Tell us what what was happening out there at the track today. Yeah, well one of the things that was happening was the GM guys actually attaching these new modified skids that are under the splitter, mm-hmm ⁓ which gives them a larger tunnel under there. So seventy mil larger than before. ⁓ so more front down force is is the key, more total down force. I was gonna say that's the thing, right? Because We've dealt with aerobalance shifts before, but it's always been about the fact the amount of downforce doesn't change. But is that the thing that is upsetting the Ford and I assume Toyota ⁓ teams at the moment? Yeah, well supercars hasn't, as usual, shared full details on it, but I'm told it gives them more front and it can also give more rear because the air's been channelled under the car. So more total is the issue. And the claim is that it's actually put the Chevy outside of what they call the parity box. Yeah. This ⁓ this box of ⁓ downforce and drag that all three are meant to fit inside of. And ⁓ you're never gonna get them exactly all on the bullseye. Yeah, which is why you have a box. Yeah. Yeah. So they they in the wind tunnel ⁓ sign off a homologation that ⁓ ensures they're all within this agreed parity box. And again, I've spoken to a couple of Ford teams today who believe that Supercars is just bowed to political pressure by General Motors. There's a feeling out there that GM may have even threatened to quit the sport had they not got what they wanted here. And so Triple Eight and Grove Racing believe that what Supercars has done here has actually breached the team's racing charter, which is the the contract that that binds the sport together, it binds the teams to the sport itself. And ⁓ yeah, that they believe that's been breached in multiple ways, but the key one really is the fact that this is meant to be based on technical parody and they believe this is clearly sporting parody because the technical parody is not meant to be about equalising teams and drivers. Yeah. It's about, to quote the TRC, a level playing field for all. And post Perth there was a parody review that came back with supercars saying that they believe the deficit in terms of what's been seen on the racetrack ⁓ with the Chevrolet was down to teams and drivers. And then after Ipswich, we've ended up in this situation where supercars has said it's technical and and we need to change this on the car to fix it. I mean, I asked Adrian Burgess in the press conference, the Sunday press conference in Perth. If he was sort of happy where things had landed with parody in terms of, you know, that had a few events by that point with the with the pre-Tasmania change. And he was pretty positive about it. But at that point, like Anton had finished on the podium in Perth, he'd had that win in Darwin. Things were kind of I there was a podium, there was a second place in Townsville as well, right? So things were sort of tracking reasonably well. ⁓ so it kind of makes sense that at that point. the trigger wasn't going to prompt any kind of change because even the team boss from the homologation team was sitting there on the record saying, No, I think we're we're kind of where we need to be. But it's just it's unbelievable that, you know, on the eve of the Bathus one thousand last year, we had DJR trying to protest the entire event based on the barometric pressure effect on the Ford engine. And then we fast forward to now and we're having more threats of legal action around parody changes. Also remember, Ford got an aero balance change right on the eve of this race last year. We were chasing the same stuff around last year, which was trying to get photos of bits being glued onto cars before they rolled out. Like it's just I know that like parody has always been something we've spoken about. You remember Gen 2, you remember the Mustang coming in and and how The effect that all had on the sport, but just in this Gen three era, it's just such an explosive thing. And the fact that this did happen last year, but the other way around, ⁓ and obviously that's complicated by the fact that Triple A have swapped sides, but the fact that the Ford got something, ⁓ and then dominated the back half of the season. Yep. ⁓ in this era too, where the finals are everything in terms of the championship. Bathurst is obviously ⁓ huge one as well, but ⁓ that has made this so much more sensitive because ⁓ yeah if it's ⁓ if it's overshot the box based on their CFD projections, I think we've seen enough evidence in the past that ⁓ the actual realities have overshot the projections in the past too. So that's all contributed to why ⁓ particularly Triple Eight and Groves who are fighting for for a championship here are so up on the wheel with this and I think it is a little bit of a team effort because Groves through their business have a lot of legal muscle on hand and Triple Eight being the homologation team have the real technical insight into this ⁓ work with supercars. So those two teams sent a letter to Supercars on Wednesday, which was signed by Stephen Grove and Jamie Wink up requesting a meeting with Supercars. Yeah which Supercars has agreed to take place on Friday. ⁓ so they've got a Get in the room and discuss, and obviously those those teams want to ask the question of why they think they can do this. And if they don't get the answer they're looking for there, the next step under the terms of the TRC is to actually lodge a formal notice of dispute. And then the parties have again 14 days to resolve that, again, under the what's written in the TRC. And if they don't get a sac satisfactory outcome. out of that. Groves is certainly not ruling out taking legal action on this matter. I mean what a round for Tim Edwards to not be at. And I don't say that as any sort of criticism. He's undergone hip surgery and is ⁓ hopefully recovering very well. But yeah, what a what a time for him not to be here. But effectively, you know, if if we're talking about these legal challenges and whatever's like nothing's going to change Apart from the changes that have been agreed to for the Camaro for this weekend, right? Like this is all about Bathurst. Yeah, correct. Because of that fourteen day thing, it couldn't really be resolved in time. And Groves are not looking at protesting results from this weekend or anything like that. It's about challenging supercars, holding up the TRC and saying, We don't believe you can do this. And obviously this has come off the back of supercars ⁓ and the whole issue with the tie pressure, saga in Perth and ⁓ the Stewards obviously not penalising Kai Allen and then Supercars actually appealing that, taking them to the National Court of Appeal, ⁓ and really trying to take Groves to task really over the letter of the rule book that obviously got thrown out. and there's been some other issues as well, like supercars ⁓ taking Groves to the Stewards in Perth over using too many radios, which ended up being a suspended fine. There was a small fine as well for Groves at Ipswich, where I think Brenton Grove had actually crossed the pit lane before the last car signal was on the race management channel. So again there's a $1,500 fine. Technically it's broken the rules so supercars has been really hot on all those things. Yeah. And this is a are putting the mirror up to supercars and saying this is your own, this is the contract that we've signed. Yeah. We believe that you're breaching it. That's ⁓ yeah, it's amazing. and so like what happens from here? Well they go through those steps as described. Yeah but Well so okay, let me reframe that. What happens from here if we have another Mustang whitewash this weekend? Despite the changes to the Kamara. That would take a little bit of heat out of the the external conversation, but whether that puts Groves and Triple Eight off this case at all, I can't can't really say that. And from the ⁓ And it's such a likely outcome as well, realistically. From how strong they were on it today, I don't imagine that they would just shrug it off pending results from this weekend. But ⁓ I guess one of the other things that has come from all this is that ⁓ Toyota, the Wall Control guys, the HT for Toyota had actually also submitted for a change, having triggered the parody review on the Supra as well. And they got denied their request. So ⁓ yeah, ⁓ Supercars has has denied that on the premise that the engine's still under development. Yep. ⁓ and we haven't seen the best from that yet. But ⁓ there's that's certainly added to the to the mix here as well, that GM are getting things through again and again. And the Toyota keeps triggering too, but they're not getting any help. Yeah. ⁓ it's very interesting. another thing that's been a big talking point, well, through Ipswich and beyond has been ⁓ brakes and brake pads in particular. we know there was a whole bunch of issues up and down Pit Lane. With ⁓ pad deterioration, like a well actually like breaking up ⁓ during that weekend. There were some issues with MSR that again, you'll know more about this than me because you were at the track today that did seem like different issues perhaps, or that was certainly the early thing. There's been nothing official on it, but ⁓ from what people are telling me it was a pad issue. Okay. All right. So ⁓ what we do know is that there's going there the or Supercar set about trying to get a new batch of pads made from their supplier. It's a control supplier. The theory, and it's always with these things when it comes to failures of control parts or control components, I always think it is the preferred theory that there was a quality control issue in a batch and that just getting new ones and saying, Hey, can you please make sure these ones don't fall to bits is gonna be the answer to everyone's prayers. But that all takes time. There's been a rush on to do it. Where are things at in terms of this emergency batch of brake pads getting to Taylor Bend in time for this weekend? Yeah, this is certainly a huge talking point. It would be the number one talking point on any pre event pod if it wasn't for the extraordinary stuff going on with parody. Yeah. But ⁓ yeah, so several teams had issues. Pretty much all teams had some sort of issue at Ipswich. And ⁓ I believe one team said to supercars after that weekend that the Ben five hundred cannot happen unless you can fix this issue because it is such a safety problem. Yeah. ⁓ and so yes, there's ⁓ another batch has been sent. ⁓ it sort of depended on who you talk to as to how exactly this is rolled out, whether they're all here yet or one Part of the batch was here today and another part's coming tomorrow. But ⁓ yeah, so there's there's people saying it'll all be fine, everyone will have new new pads, but they don't fully understand why that batch had a problem. So you can't have full confidence that new ones coming out are not gonna have that problem as well. Yeah, well that's that's what I meant by the fact that it's always the most convenient outcome. Yeah. Like that's the one you hope it is that Someone externally just didn't get something quite right. And that's that's the problem. And so supercars actually told the teams to bring all the brake stock that they have to the track this weekend. And they've done an audit on them. So they've told all the teams to bring them to supercars. Supercars were doing lots of hardness testing ⁓ with pads today, which I believe was existing stock that teams had and also some from this new batch that have come in. ⁓ And so the last resort is to find all the good ones and share them out. But the teams were handing over their existing stock of pads today under the understanding that they were getting them back. Yeah. ⁓ because obviously if you've got a a good bunch of pads. You want your good pads back, yeah. Exactly. So there's been various communications from supercast to the teams, including some new guidelines on how to bed pads, ⁓ which there's some quite complex or ⁓ Definitely involve procedures in in things like G T racing that supercars guys don't tend to do too much, partly 'cause we just don't have many practice sessions and things. So they tend to go out and and smash them straight away. But supercars, as we know, have implemented a dedicated brake bedding session tomorrow morning. ⁓ so that's in addition to the three practice sessions. And yeah, the teams can't do any setup changes or anything during that. So ⁓ yeah, they're they're trying ⁓ everything that they can. But again there's a question mark and certainly teams are gearing up to change pads in the race. Yeah, I mean it is I think drivers are right to be concerned about that. If it turns out particularly the MSR failures were pad related. Like there's pretty much no greater issue, right? That if your brakes don't work. Doesn't matter what circuit you're at or whatever. Like that's it is it is a pretty serious thing. And almost ironically, we're on the shorter the West Circuit they call it here this weekend to try to make the racing more exciting, but it's harder on brakes. Yeah. So it's probably something they didn't need. ⁓ we talk about the deja vu of all of the ⁓ aerochange stuff, but this is I'm starting to think about a certain control supplier batch issue that led to Zach Best polling a supercar's race at the bend a few years ago as well. Some magic brake pads, you reckon, could be could be the ticket. ⁓ dear. All right. I think that's going to be enough for us. ⁓ quite late on a Thursday evening. We do have a long weekend ahead of us at the bend. Thank you, Stefan, for holding up the fort for me while I wasn't there today. You've done a great job of getting everything we need to ⁓ need to talk about. we will obviously be covering everything that happens out at Talem Bend over the weekend. We will have our daily pods. From tomorrow evening onwards. And yes, just stay tuned to specafe.com for what is shaping up to be a pretty explosive weekend of news, firstly. And then we also have some car racing to cover as well. So there's gonna be plenty to follow and follow along.