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Triple Eight swaps Will Brown into spare car over undersized engine restrictor

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Triple Eight has revealed that an engine discrepancy has been found on the car of Will Brown, who will now move into a spare chassis for the upcoming Supercars event at Queensland.

Brown sits seventh in the points and is chasing a Finals berth, with the discrepancy on his car found during recent examinations to try and discover why the former champion has struggled for results this season.

The discrepancy relates to an undersized engine airflow restrictor fitted to the Mustang.

“At 7pm last night we found a significant issue on Car #888,” team boss Jamie Whincup said. “Since the start of this season, Car #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.

“This is not a part we, Triple Eight or Red Bull Ampol Racing, manufacture. 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 #888 this season to date.”

Supercars admitted that the part had been provided to the team for ‘demonstration purposes’ and wasn’t something that had been selected to be checked in scrutineering.

“The component was loaned by Supercars to Triple Eight Race Engineering (T8RE) for demonstration purposes only at the team’s launch in February,” a statement read.

“The air restrictor subsequently remained fitted to Car 888 through the Perth Super 440. Neither party identified the discrepancy until it was discovered by T8RE during preparations for next weekend’s event in Ipswich.

“Throughout the Supercars season, routine scrutineering and compliance checks are carried out at random by Supercars’ Technical department, covering a vast range of components and systems. As of the Perth event, the air restrictor fitted to Car 888 had not been selected for inspection during those checks.

“Supercars is reviewing the circumstances surrounding this matter and will evaluate opportunities to strengthen its technical and operational procedures moving forward.”