Supercars conducted a parity review between rounds and discovered the Mustang had a “minor difference in rear downforce and performance in the braking zone” compared to the Camaro.
Download the full Supercars Townsville Round 6 Event Guide with track stats and facts and a full event schedule, plus our extensive driver profiles HERE
As a result the position, span and angle of the rear wing has been tweaked, while the size of the boot spoiler has also been increased on the Ford Mustang GT.
With Ford collecting no on-track wins and just seven from a possible 45 podiums, all eyes will be on Townsville to see if the Gen3 parity topic and “Blue Oval” teams frustrations can finally disappear.
Shane van Gisbergen and Anton De Pasquale had a controversial finish to the second race in Townsville last year.
Two Ford drivers who showed promising pace at Darwin were Cameron Waters and Will Davison.
Waters appeared destined to score Ford’s first on-track win of the season on the Saturday until things got hot in the cockpit.
This allowed Davison to fly the Ford flag and finally collect Dick Johnson Racing’s first podium of 2023.
But a Ford fightback is far from a certainty in Townsville with the street track well and truely Triple Eight territory.
Since Supercars started racing at the Reid Park Street Circuit in 2009, Triple Eight has won 22 of the 36 races.
Whilst Jamie Whincup was the original dominator, Van Gisbergen has taken over his mantle with his 12 wins all arriving in the last seven years, while in 2022 he joined Whincup (2012) and Mark Winterbottom (2015) as the only drivers to record clean sweeps at the venue.
The Kiwi is the talk of the Motorsport world on both sides of the Pacific after his incredible victory on NASCAR Cup Series debut in Chicago.
Triple Eight Race Engineering has dominated Townsville over the years.
Van Gisbergen’s next challenge is if he can quickly come off cloud 9 and overcome jetlag to be at his best in Townsville.
He has a battle on his hands with young teammate Broc Feeney outclassing him in recent rounds and the two Coke Camaros of Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown still leading the way.
Other drivers to have similar issues will be Chaz Mostert and Anton De Pasquale who raced at the Spa 24 Hours race.
Townsville also marks a return to longer-format street racing after five sprint rounds on the bounce.
A top 10 shootout and 88-lap race will be staged on Saturday and Sunday where strategy will play a big factor.
After Van Gisbergen dominated the last street-strategy battle in Newcastle, can anyone stop him in Townsville or will Aussie fans get a glimpse of his Chicago performance?
Download the full Supercars Townsville Round 6 Event Guide with track stats and facts and a full event schedule, plus our extensive driver profiles HERE
Auto Action, Australia’s independent voice of motorsport.
PODCAST: The latest episode of the Auto Action RevLimiter podcast is out now!
Shane van Gisbergen went to Chicago to have some fun and a job interview. He had fun, won and aced the job interview. Andrew Clarke was there for the historic win, and Bruce Williams and Paul Gover dig into the significance of it all with Clarke.
Then we look Supercars and the parity war, what changes are coming? Then F1, which needs more changes than any Motorsport on the planet.
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