Supercars 2024: New general manager of motorsport Tim Edwards says ‘parity’ should not be mentioned

It was the hot topic of the debut season for the Gen3 era as Ford cried foul over parity. Now Supercars chiefs have their say on the issue ahead of the season-opening Bathurst 500.

Supercars’ new motorsport chief says the “P word” should not be in the vocabulary this season as the category’s significant financial investment in its quest for parity between the Ford Mustang and GM Camaro was laid bare.

After the first season of the new Gen3 era was plagued by parity issues that beset the Fords last year, Supercars embarked on an extensive off-season testing program that for the first time involved a state-of-the-art wind tunnel in the US.

Former Tickford Racing team boss-turned-Supercars general manager of motorsport Tim Edwards has detailed the investment the series made in seeking parity between the rival Ford and Chevrolet cars, which he said had climbed into “seven figures”.

Supercars made two trips to the Windshear wind tunnel facility in North Carolina during the off-season and engaged specialist UK-based engineering company Dynamique to assist with analysing aerodynamic tests.

The series has also invested in torque sensors to use throughout the season and has plans for more precise testing on an engine dynamometer.

Edwards said all the tests had shown two cars with indiscernible differences.

Supercars is confident parity won’t be an issue between the Camaros and Fords this year. Picture: Getty Images

“It has been a huge undertaking by the category, a huge amount of time, but also a huge amount of financial input as well because it is not a cheap exercise,” Edwards said.

“It’s in the seven figures, so it’s been a huge investment from the category.

“That’s one of the things that actually appealed to me about taking on this role, the fact that the business was prepared to invest in making sure that every box was ticked.

“It has been a huge investment and we are all going to reap the rewards of it this year because there will be no question mark about parity.

“So far in all of the testing that we have done, either category testing or teams testing, we are struggling to see a difference between them.

“There were obvious differences that you could see on track last year.

“What we have ended up with is two cars that in all of the different states are paritised.

“It’s been a huge effort but the P word shouldn’t be part of anybody’s vocabulary this year.”

The party debate exploded last year when the Camaros dominated the Ford Mustangs in the first half of the debut Gen3 season.

It resulted in an in-season parity review after the parity trigger was hit following the Darwin Triple Crown and led to initial aerodynamic changes for the Mustangs before the Townsville 500.

The issue flared again before the Bathurst 1000 when Ford teams blasted the parity situation as “unacceptable” following an unsuccessful push for an upgraded aerodynamic package for the biggest race of the year.

More tweaks were eventually granted before the round on the Gold Coast after a second in-season parity review.

Former Tickford racing team boss Tim Edwards is Supercars’ new general manager of motorsport. Picture: Supplied

The debate led to calls for more advanced wind-tunnel testing. Supercars had conducted its previous aerodynamic testing on airfield runways.

While confident the aerodynamic package had been addressed, Edwards said engine investigations would continue.

“We’re not at the end of the journey yet,” Edwards said.

“We are still trying to dot the i’s and cross the t’s but if we needed to improve by a margin of 90 per cent last year then we are down to one or two per cent.

“We have really honed in, we are right at the pointy end now.

“We’ve totally addressed (the aerodynamics) and now we are working through the same sort of process with the engines.

“We have invested in torque sensors and we have been doing on-track testing between the cars to see whether we can isolate differences with them … and we’ve still got AVL (dyno) testing planned.

“But ultimately the torque sensors that you put in the car, that’s real world, that’s telling you exactly what you’ve got between the two cars on the racetrack.

“We will continue to monitor it very closely to make sure that we are on top of it.”

Edwards joined Supercars as its new general manager of motorsport at the beginning of December after almost two decades at Tickford Racing.

He said his first two months in the role had been almost solely devoted to resolving the parity issue.

Chaz Mostert was the highest-finishing Ford driver in the 2023 Supercars championship, finishing fourth. Picture: Getty Images

Edwards was among six Supercars staff who travelled to the Windshear facility in the US for three 12-hour test days in December.

There were also four representatives from each of the homologation teams – Dick Johnson Racing and Triple Eight – and from Dynamique.

A senior NASCAR aerodynamicist also attended the testing as an independent observer.

Supercars returned last month for one more day of testing at the facility.

“The four days we did in the Windshear tunnel in North Carolina, first of all it identified that the way we were doing it on a runway in that particular state, it did actually match up,” Edwards said.

“At 200km/h in a steady state, we did have very similar cars.

“What it wasn’t able to show us was when you brake and turn etc, all those different measures that a car goes through on a racetrack, and that’s not something that you can test on a runway.

“That’s what going to Windshear did for us. If you picture the car in any particular state, whether they are braking or turning, you watch them move around so much, we were able to test them in all those configurations.

“It was a state-of-the-art facility ... even from my time in Formula One we weren’t as advanced as that.”

As a result of the testing, the Fords and Camaros have ended up with a different aero package from last year – one Edwards expected to make all drivers happy.

“We ended up with more downforce on the front of both cars, albeit more on the Mustang than on the Camaro, and as a result we needed to balance that,” Edwards said.

“Otherwise, you end up with a car that has the wrong aero balance between the front and rear, so we had to give them both more rear downforce to offset the gain we made in the front.

“So inadvertently all 24 cars have a new aero package for this year, which certainly wasn’t an objective when we went to Windshear. That’s just the way it panned out.

“If you tell any race driver that they have more downforce now, I can tell you every one of them will be happy about that.

“The important thing is that we have a far greater degree of comfort going into this season.

“The business has invested now, big time, and we are all the better and wiser for it so we can just enjoy some bloody good motor racing.”