Big change is afoot for Ford's race-winning, championship-leading Supercars Championship entry.
Since its return to the series this year, the Ford Mustang Supercar has proven to be dominant — winning all but one of this year's 10 races so far. But, new parity changes that are to be implemented before the next round could help equal the ledger.
The Mustang has long been the target of parity debate, but there's hope that these latest changes will end that. From the next event in Perth and onwards, the Mustang will sport a smaller pair of rear-wing end-plates, a lower rear-wing 'Gurney flap', and a shorter undertray extension on the front splitter.
These are the changes tabled by the Supercars technical department and UK-based sister firm D2H that should equal a supposedly unequal playing field.
The Supercars Mustang as it currently sits is a completely legal car. While there are spurts of unique engineering throughout, the machine was produced to Supercars' 'Car of the Future' regulations.
And naturally, this has resulted in some blue-oval teams expressing disappointment — as well as Ford themselves.
“The Mustang is an advanced, state-of-the-art Supercar, designed and built within the rules of the series,” said Mark Rushbrook, Global Director of Motorsport, Ford Performance.
“We are disappointed that we have had to make changes to the cars, however we respect the Supercars technical department and will comply.”
“We will make these changes ahead of the next round so we can quickly understand the affect they’ll have on Mustang to give us the best chance of maintaining our pace.
“Mustang is run by some of the best teams in the series and that’s not technical parity, it is the sporting performance of the teams that race the car.
“Our car was signed off and homologated by Supercars ahead of the 2019 season, however whilst we understand these changes are in the interest of the sport, we expect to run the rest of the season on track unchanged from this specification.”