[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Mixer

21 and 22 conducted with no further parity changes.

ZB engine bay vent added in 2021 was unverified. Not the same specification as 2020.

Fans do not trust "Supercars" parity processes, having 888 design the Gen 3 chassis was another blunder. Hopefully the front suspension does not in any way resemble previous 888 front suspension, but you do wonder...

Originally Posted by Mixer

When Ford wins, you are happy even if it's not fair competition.

There is nothing wrong with setting parameters for drag and downforce in a straight line at 200 kph and permitting the designers to develop the best aerokits possible within that constraint!

On that basis, it would have been logical for 888 Race Engineering to come back and homologate a better aero kit for the start of the 2020, while hitting those required numbers.

In any case, aero kit design and engine balancing is out of the hands of the competitors now, hence all the more scrutiny on it.

The pushback of Supercars against North American design and build is worrying (be it Team Penske sensibly offering to build more affordable chassis or Ford Performance developing an aero kit), all while seeming to have an undue closeness to 888 Race Engineering...

A minor regional touring car championship shouldn't be stressful to follow, the category can't even take care of its only manufacturer properly -- you can see why folks do not want to bother with it, and prefer to follow Formula One and similar!

How is Mark Rushbrook meant to form an opinion on technical parity being correct when Supercars will not provide the data...

We are able to race Coyote-based engines competitively in other series and do great things with it, so I’ve got confidence in that.

Ultimately, though, it’s the technical parity process that determines whether that engine hardware and those great people are capable of delivering.

I think that comes back to the data transparency.

In every racing series, outside of Supercars, we have full transparency into the data, and we know what we are doing relative to our competitors on track.

So we know where we, as a manufacturer, may be falling short, or succeeding – or our partners, whether it’s an engine partner or a team – we have that as a dashboard in front of us.

We don’t in Supercars so, to be honest, we can make observations based upon what we see on-track and what data is available from our teams, but until there is data transparency, we can’t draw clear conclusions of engine parity or anything else.

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/06/02...percar-engine/

You can see how he would get frustrated by the category organisers and decide that Ford Performance should not bother with the class at all.

The adversarial approach taken in 2019 has set off relations with Ford Performance on a bad foot indeed. Rushbrook even had to come out with a mid-season statement: "We will not accept any more changes to our Mustang package."

It would have been a far more sensible move for Supercars to ask 888 Race Engineering to go to the drawing board and come up with a better aero kit for their ZB Commodore for homologation for the 2020 season (if Kelly Racing wanted to continue with the Altima, they could have developed an up-to-date aerokit for the Altima too). After all, Ford Performance were specifically told to "build a better car (while hitting the VCAT drag and downforce requirements)" by the Holden homologation organisation so they did it, so for the rival homologation organisation to then complain about that afterwards is just bizarre.

For its faults, at least Group A was a fair competition between Ford, General Motors Holden, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes, Audi etc. They always had the opportunity to develop their cars to be as good as possible. To bring out the next "500" or "Evo" of the Sierra or of the Commodore or of the Skyline or of the M3 or of the 190E 16V or of the Audi V8 with improvements to the breed of motor car.

The looser requirements of World Rally Car and Super Touring where more changes could be made to the best car also worked fairly well, up to a point. Though it was always baffling why the Lancer Evolution 6 and its actual yaw control -- so superb in Group A -- never amounted to much when Ralliart moved to WRCar (and the Lancer WRCar based on a base model Lancer, as they all were), even to the point where the Ralliart team replaced the electronic differentials with mechanicals one at one point for some reason (I don't recall why).