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DANE QUESTIONS FLYING FORDS

Roland Dane questions flying Fords - Photo: LAT

By Bruce Williams

Roland Dane questions flying Fords - Photo: LAT

Roland Dane questions flying Fords – Photo: LAT

Factory Holden team boss Roland Dane has welcomed the move by Supercars to investigate the speed of the Ford Mustang.

By BRUCE NEWTON

The new AUTO ACTION, out on Thursday, has all the latest on the Mustang parity row, which erupted at Albert Park.

Supercars has been secretly investigating the new two-door racer’s performance since the Adelaide 500, where the coupe’s clean sweep of the six races so far began.

Technical officials checked 10 cars – Mustangs, ZB Commodores and Nissan Altimas – on Monday and are also conducting computer simulation tests.

As well as comparing the cars’ centres of gravity, the Mustang’s aerodynamics is under scrutiny.

Meanwhile, grandee Holden team owner Dane has weighed into the debate after uncharacteristic floggings by the flying Fords.

He dismissed as “nonsense” the claim that any performance disparity between the Mustang and Commodore ZB is being exacerbated by the newly-mandated linear springs.

Ford teams believe RBHRT is struggling to make the change from trapezoidal springs, but Dane is having none of it.

“There has been an awful lot of nonsense spoken about adapting to linear springs and things,” Dane told AUTO ACTION. “We showed in Adelaide it wasn’t an issue for us and it wasn’t an issue at the grand prix.

“In all honesty, I think we are not quite at the level of the Mustang, but Supercars can decide what needs or doesn’t need to be done.”

The Ford Mustang has dominated the races so far - Photo: InSyde Media

The Ford Mustang has dominated the races so far – Photo: InSyde Media

Supercars has conducted centre of gravity parity testing of all three cars involved in the championship and is re-evaluating the Mustang’s aerodynamic performance compared with its rivals.

“They have been investigating it since Adelaide to make sure, to the best of their ability, it (parity) is there, so I am going to leave it to them for the moment,” Dane said, clarifying: “That’s whether it’s CoG or aerodynamics or whatever.”

But he made it clear the team was continuing its development of the ZB and wasn’t leaving it to Supercars to close the performance gap.

“Irrespective of any real or perceived parity issues, we are not going to sit back and wait for it to be put right,” he declared. “We will always believe we can do a better job.”

Dane also welcomed Supercars’ investigation of mufflers – as first revealed by AA – and the removal of heavyweight units.

While he maintained he didn’t know which teams had used over-weight silencers, AA has confirmed it was DJR Team Penske, which was forced to revert to lighter mufflers at Albert Park.

“My belief is that it (unusually heavy silencers) is external ballast and that is not allowed,” Dane noted. “If you are talking about a kilo or two (but it is much, much more than that), it could be in that grey outlier.

“Don’t think we haven’t thought about it, but we haven’t done it because my belief is it’s not legal. It’s not a question of being clever, that’s a question of external ballast and it’s not legal.

“There are very good reasons safety wise that we don’t carry ballast outside the cockpits of the car.”

For the full inside story on the Mustang parity debate, pick up a copy of the latest AUTO ACTION, out Thursday.

The new issue of AA also has a lot more big Supercars news stories you won’t read elsewhere.

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