The czar of V8 Supercars, Tony Cochrane has recently announced an action plan focusing on increased engine life and control suspensions in one of the most important developments in the last twelve years since the V8 series was launched. The action plan had the unanimous approval of all the teams, which is seen as a comprehensive bid for a drastic reduction in cost.
One of the first actions to be implemented as soon as possible by the company is the doing away with “go fast” non engine data, telemetry system and the control valve train that is expected to raise the engine life of the Supercar to 8000 km. This could be a marked improvement from the present engine life of about 2000 km in case of some of the engines reported at present.
There were a few other points aimed at cost reduction raised by Cochrane during the meeting, but these did not get approved because of a lukewarm response from some of the team owners. There were three such points that were dropped but quite easily forgotten in the euphoria of the unanimous approval of other 14 points of the action plan.
Other significant highlights of the action plan emerging out of the meeting were decision taken on capping the number of pads and brake disks in one season or event. There was a unanimous view that a common radiator core would be an ideal system to adopt. However, if that was not feasible, the teams may have to homologate a cooling package for one season.
As regards control suspension, it was agreed that the complete front hub assembly of each team must be homologated for a period of two years. For the suspension components, such as track rods, wishbones, push rods, etc., it was suggested that they should all be homologated for a complete season every year.
There are also plans for increasing the number of all composite parts, such as the front and rear quarters, fibre glass bonnets, etc. Regarding final drive ratio, there was an agreement on reducing the number of options to 3.15 and 3.5. There are also plans for defining the centre of gravity of the next generation cars. The company also decided to investigate group manufacturing and purchasing for all consumables and parts.
Other points that were discussed and approved in the meeting pertained to control wheels, control dampers, control engine airbox, and control fuel system. It is expected that the technical department may undergo some major restructuring to implement the action plan approved in the meeting.
