AFTER a crucial day of gathering data relating to a Dunlop trial tyre, there are two steps before it inches closer to implementation for the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship.
First, a deep dive into said data from today’s test at Queensland Raceway.
Then, if things continue to look positive – Supercars general manager of motorsport Tim Edwards indicated there were good early signs – it will be time for another test at another circuit involving different teams and drivers.
“I’ll reserve judgement until we’ve debriefed after today and analysed all of the information,” Edwards told V8 Sleuth.
“We also had surface temperature sensors on the car as well, so that’s something new for us, so we’ll analyse all of that.
“We also just did some work with the two cars following each other as well, just to understand the impact of the car in front. It’s obviously a bit of a trait we’ve seen where the car behind overheats its tyres and then it really can’t challenge, so we have got some good data on that.
“It’s been a very worthwhile day, trying to get an understanding of a possible new tyre for next year.
“We’ll digest what we have learnt. If it’s a tentative tick, we’d probably look to test it at another circuit, because this is quite a low-degradation circuit.
“So if it passes the first waypoint, then we’ll look at testing it somewhere else with some other teams and get a couple more drivers’ feedback.”
Edwards reiterated the decision is about making for the best racing show possible.
“We’re working hard on completely new formats for next year and obviously the tyre plays a big part in what we do on-track and putting on the best show we possibly can,” he added.
“We’ll feed all of the ingredients into the mixer and try to produce the best product we can for next year.”
Dick Johnson Racing’s #17 Mustang and Matt Stone Racing’s #10 Camaro were used for the tyre test today.
MSR’s #4 entry was also at QR for a rookie test for Cameron Hill, while the DJR #11 was put to use for some engine work ahead of the category’s trip to the United States next month for transient dyno testing.
“DJR has got certain things that they might want to put forward to try when we’re at AVL, and this is about getting an understanding of what they may or may not achieve, when you actually put it in a race car,” Edwards explained.
“You’d hate to go to AVL having never tried it on a car and you give it the tick there and then you bring it back and the driver goes ‘holy… that’s not nice to drive’. So it’s a bit of pre-work for that.
“And obviously they (DJR-owned Motorsport Powertrains) have got a new head of the motorsport business in Ryan Medew, so it’s also about him understanding how we’ve arrived at where we have arrived with some of the changes that we’ve made.
“But the primary motivation is pre-work for AVL.”
The renowned AVL facility is located in Plymouth, Michigan. A two-phase Supercars testing program there is scheduled for after the Sydney SuperNight on July 19-21.
