Supercars hails collaborative engine efforts

Supercars General Manager of Motorsport Tim Edwards has hailed around-the-clock efforts to prepare new engines ahead of the Repco Bathurst 1000.

On Thursday morning, Ford Supercars teams received updated engines, with GT3-specification crankshafts, ahead of opening practice at Mount Panorama.

It comes after a global effort saw crankshafts sourced from the United States and United Kingdom via Japan.

Dick Johnson Racing, Tickford Racing, Walkinshaw Andretti United and Grove Racing were changing their engines on Thursday morning, with Blanchard Racing Team set to receive their engines at midday.

“This morning, there was a delivery this morning of a lot of Ford engines, also some GM engines on the truck as well,” Edwards told Supercars.com.

"A lot of the Ford teams have elected to do their engine change now. I mean, it's normal at Bathurst that teams will change engines on Friday night or Saturday night.

"It's always been a trait of this event and some of the Ford teams have elected to put their new fresh engines in this morning.

"It's been a huge effort by not only the DJR guys, but also Ford. Each one of the Ford teams have all contributed after the issues they had at Sandown.

“So, it's been fantastic to see them all aligned and working together for the common good.”

The changes were set in motion after a spate of failures at Sandown, with engine supplier Motorsport Powertrains and Ford Performance moving quickly to supply motors with the new cranks.

“The positive is, it's fantastic they've all got their fresh engines ready to go with the updates,” Edwards added.

“Some teams have elected to put theirs in tonight. Some are putting them in tomorrow night. So actually they're not all putting them in, but there's a lot who have decided to put them in earlier. It's just a team decision.

“Obviously there'll be GM teams who put fresh engines in before they came here, and obviously just for the Ford guys, they didn't have theirs in time to put in, so it's more just a timing thing than anything else.

“But I can’t emphasise enough, the efforts that Ford and every one of their teams have put in to overcome this, with donation of labour and donation of cars. For example, we saw the Blanchard car brought up for testing at Queensland Raceway.

“So, it's been a real collaborative effort by all the teams. Grove mechanics actually flew up to run that Blanchard car with DJR engineers. It’s been amazing to see."

First practice at Mount Panorama will get underway at 1:20pm local time. Tickets for the October 10-13 event are on sale now.