Triple Eight have finally uncovered the “significant issue” behind Will Brown’s form woes, pinning his No.888 Ford Mustang’s deficit on an “undersized” engine airflow restrictor provided by Supercars.
Team boss Jamie Whincup said he will take up the matter with Supercars but noted the team is “taking responsibility” and apologised for “allowing” the problem to persist for months.
Brown, the 2024 champion, has been off the boil for much of his first season in a Ford, recording just two podium finishes to sit seventh in the standings.
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Teammate Broc Feeney, in contrast, is second in the championship after bringing up his fifth win and 11th podium finish overall in Perth last weekend.
Brown’s disappointment in WA convinced Triple Eight to move him into a spare chassis for their home race weekend at Queensland Raceway later this month.
In the meantime the team went to work taking apart his problematic car, and on Wednesday team boss Jamie Whincup announced the findings.
“After Perth we promised Will, his crew and all stakeholders associated with car No.888, which includes our beloved fans, that we would leave no stone unturned and find reasons why car No.888 has not been fighting for race wins recently,” said Whincup.
“At 7pm last night we found a significant issue on car No.888.
“Since the start of this season, car No.888 has been running with an undersized engine airflow restrictor. This part manages the airflow into the engine and has a significant negative impact on engine performance, and therefore lap time.”
Whincup claimed the issue has created an average performance gap of 0.15 seconds per lap.
He confirmed Triple Eight would be speaking to Supercars about the supply issue.
“This is not a part we, Triple Eight or Red Bull Ampol Racing, manufacture,” Whincup said.
“This is a supplied part from Supercars expected to be the same for all 11 Ford Mustangs, distributed at the start of the season and expected to be run for the whole season.
“We as a team are taking responsibility and want to deeply apologise to everyone involved for allowing this to happen.
“While this error has cost our team a considerable amount of resource, sport is an emotional game and these types of things have knock-on effects bigger than the average 1.5 tenths a lap.
“We will be taking up with Supercars why they have supplied us with what is a controlled component out of specification, which has negatively impacted the performance of car No.888 this season to date.
“We will continue to roll out our new chassis for car No.888 at Queensland Raceway and look forward to measuring our capability now we are competing with the same horsepower as the rest of the field.”
Supercars has yet to address Triple Eight’s development.
Backed by top-10 finishes in all nine races across events at Symmons Plains, Darwin and Townsville through the middle of the season, Brown remains well in contention for the second edition of the finals series.
But he now has just three races at Ipswich to regain confidence in his new machine before the all-important Bend 500 and Bathurst 1000 ahead of the championship rounds.
