Control components in Supercars spotlight
With the majority of sprint rounds out the way and the enduros approaching, durability is key for success and control part failures are in the spotlight ahead of another longer format Supercars round in Sydney.
After five sprint rounds on the bounce, longer races made a welcome return at the sixth event in Townsville last week where Will Brown and Anton De Pasquale were victorious.
However, there were also many hard luck stories with many suffering mechanical misfortune.
But there is more frustration than bad luck, with some teams struck by Gen3 Supercars component failures.
One of the most notable was Chaz Mostert, who after finishing a solid third on Saturday could only last two laps on Sunday.
Car #25 made the shootout, but a whack with the wall on the exit of turn two put the two-time Bathurst 1000 winner on the back foot.
After just two laps Mostert had to retire with Walkinshaw Andretti United team principal Ryan Walkinshaw revealing it was not related to the shootout swipe and instead was another control part problem.
Chaz Mostert watches on as his Walkinshaw Andretti United crew go to work on his #25 Mustang.
“We have gone through four (steering) racks this weekend. One of them was from touching the concrete, but all of the other failures were just failures,” he said.
“It is a control part that has just let us down multiple times this weekend.”
It was a weekend of woe for Todd Hazelwood in the single-car Blanchard Racing Team setup, being unable to greet the chequered flag in both 88-lap races.
On Saturday Hazelwood was given strict instructions to stop after fears of a fire underneath his #3 Mustang.
But on Sunday Team CoolDrive owner Tim Blanchard revealed a “very frustrating” failure caused a lap 36 retirement.
“We had an upright failure in the last race, so it’s pretty frustrating to have all these component failures and troubles,” he said.
“It’s part of the teething problems with the new car but it’s very frustrating.”
Todd Hazelwood and the Blanchard Racing Team endured a tough Townsville 500.
Meanwhile one of the more high profile battles occurred in the Tickford Racing camp.
Supercars frontrunner Cameron Waters led the first 21 laps of race 17 from pole position, but by the time the chequered flag fell the Monster Mustang was down in 15th.
Tickford boss Tim Edwards revealed Waters was the prime example of a weekend plagued with bad luck for the team with his lead driver “in a world of pain” on the Sunday.
“It is frustrating because we have had better car speed than we could show in the races,” he said.
“We had all sorts of mechanical issues over the weekend. Mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and steering – and it’s all control parts, so out of our control.
“Cam had multiple mechanical issues (in race 17). Wheel bearing issues, engine misfire, power steering rack issue. He pretty much got every one of the ‘issue boxes’ ticked in that race.
Cam Waters and Tim Edwards celebrating pole position on Sunday, but they were soon frustrated by a string of technical gremlins.
“He battled on to bring the thing home, but he was in a world of pain.”
But the issues were not just exclusive to those in the “Blue Oval” with Chevrolet squad PremiAir Racing also encountering steering dramas.
The #23 of Tim Slade finished five laps down after being forced to dive into the garage to encounter the power steering issue that did not relent for the remainder of the race.
“For Tim it has been a tough weekend with some unexpected steering issues plaguing the #23 which hurt his progress in qualifying and also in race trim unfortunately,” said PremiAir’s head of engineering Geoff Slater.
“We will take the lessons we need to learn from this one, put in the work to find out what exactly is going on with #23, and make sure we can do a better job in Sydney.”
“It was a struggle for us in qualifying and then unfortunately in the race we had a power steering issue where we had to pit to fix that,” Slade continued.
Tim Slade had a lonely race 17 due to steering issues.
“After that we basically just trucked on for the rest of the race and got a finish.
“It has been tough, but we will just aim to be better at the next one.”
The next round at Sydney Motorsport Park will be another test of the durability of man and machine.
The opening race of the Sydney SuperNight will be a 51-lap affair that is scheduled to run for almost two and a half hours under lights, while a shorter 36-lap sprint awaits on Sunday.
Teams will be making sure their cars can do the distance at the July 28-30 event, which will be the last long-format round before the enduros.
Image by Mark Horsburgh
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