Supercars to review Gen3 parity

Todd Hazelwood and Shane van Gisbergen Darwin 2023

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: 21 June 2023

Supercars will officially commence a Gen3 parity review, which has been triggered following another Chevrolet clean sweep in Darwin.

After Mark Winterbottom, Broc Feeney and Jack Le Brocq took the latest wins for the Camaro ZL1 in the Indigenous Round at Hidden Valley Raceway, officials will conduct a parity review in accordance with championship regulations.

The parity review system has been in place for over two decades and is designed to discover and analyse any imbalances between competing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and Ford Mustang GT models.

A review can only be triggered once the threshold of either five consecutive races or five to eight championship races, and these were met following the third and final race of the Darwin Triple Crown.

Camaros covered the pointy end of the field at Hidden Valley Raceway. Image: Mark Horsbrugh

Supercars CEO Shane Howard confirmed a review into the fairness of the championship will commence, with a long-standing process to be followed.

“The parity review system has been a foundation of the parity assessment throughout the championship over many years,” he said.

“Now that a review has been triggered, we have commenced the nominated process.

“Supercars have met and are working with both Homologating Teams to formulate appropriate recommendations for a parity adjustment.”

With technical parity one of the cornerstones of Supercars, the topic has been the most heated point of discussion of 2023.

Less than 24 hours before the season-opening Newcastle 500, Gen3 parity was signed off by Supercars, plus GM’s and Ford’s respective homologation teams Triple Eight Race Engineering and Dick Johnson Racing.

Since then the stats are tough reading for the “Blue Oval” with just one win collected by a Mustang driver Cameron Waters at Newcastle.

However, this has a massive asterisk over it with both Camaro pair Shane van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney finishing ahead of him on the track, but being disqualified due to a technical infringement. This means all 15 races have been won on the track by a GM.

Since then it has been all one way traffic with van Gisbergen, Brodie Kostecki, Feeney, Will Brown, Winterbottom and Le Brocq all driving their respective Chev teams to glory.

Camaro drivers Shane van Gisbergen, Broc Feeney and Andre Heimgartner stand on the podium in race 14 where the top 9 had the Chev badge. Image: Mark Horsbrugh

All up just seven of the possible 45 podium places on offer have gone to Fords.

Across the first five rounds of the season, various engine mapping and shift cut changes have been made as Fords have struggled to fight at the front and drivers reportedly struggled with rear tyre life.

But after a Darwin weekend where race 14 joined Calder Park 1979 as second time in the history of the category a single make filled the top nine finishing positions, Ford has cried enough is enough.

In a press release compiled by the “Blue Oval” itself some of the leading team principals did not hold back claiming there is a “serious issue” in Supercars.

All up just six Fords filled the 30 top 10 results on offer across the three races at Hidden Valley, while the tight qualifying sessions were similarly one sided.

Of course it could have been so much different for the “Blue Oval” on Saturday. Tickford star Cameron Waters took pole position and actually spoke encouragingly about the pre-event changes before controlling the opening laps of Saturday’s sprint.

Tickford’s Cameron Waters has been one of the few Ford drivers to consistently fight at the front.

But his dream of taking Ford’s first on-track win of the season went up in flames on Lap 4 and a Ford never got close to challenging for victory across the remainder of the weekend.

“There is something wrong. The parity keeps getting triggered constantly. It’s six or seven races now where we’ve hit the trigger,” said Tickford boss Tim Edwards.

“Once again, we were racing in the Mustang cup. The poor guys are driving the wheels off the cars and that’s not good for anyone.

“There are some stand-out teams on the other side, because they have beaten Triple Eight, but they are only racing against two-thirds of the field.”

Now Supercars will take the most forensic look the parity debate yet, with just a little over a fortnight before the next round at Townsville on July 7-9.

For more of the latest motorsport news, pick up the latest issue of AUTO ACTION.

PODCAST: The latest episode of the Auto Action RevLimiter podcast is out now!

In the latest podcast we discuss this weekends Darwin Supercars preview & news, F1 Canada preview, Winton ARG and LeMans 24Hour wrap-up.

Listen to the RevLimiter podcast on your podcast app of choice or here on the RevLimiter website

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