Erebus frustrated at Supercars Gen3 car build delay

Supercars will debut its next-generation hardware next season, with a pair of prototypes – one Chevrolet Camaro and one Ford Mustang – well into their testing programme.

That programme is being run as a joint venture between Supercars itself and the two homologation teams, Dick Johnson Racing (Ford) and Triple Eight (Chevrolet).

While drivers from most teams have now cycled through the cars as part of the testing, the teams themselves, outside of the homologation outfits, are yet to begin a hands-on role with Gen3.

Teams haven't even been able to start work on control Gen3 chassis, the final design of which has been subject to ongoing tweaking due to complaints over driver ergonomics.

Ryan says that's a source of frustration for his outfit, which would like to get a head start on the new-car builds ahead of next year.

"I don't want to say anything too negative, but it's hard to be totally positive because we still can't even start welding cars together," he told the Castrol Motorsport News podcast.

"It's very, very frustrating. They've had them on track for two or three thousand km now, so we're getting close to having a final product that we can start making.

"But it's very frustrating that we should have been racing these things this year, and we still can't even make one.

'[Supercars is] doing a really good job and it's tough, but I'd like to have chassis welded together now and be starting to assemble them. But we're still a long way off that."

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Gen3

Photo by: Mark Horsburgh, Edge Photographics

Ryan reiterated that his frustration isn't at the Gen3 product itself and that he is still confident the new cars will be ready for next season.

"It's easily achievable for next year and I think the work they are doing now will make it that the car will be ready to put together and race, not test," he said.

"We've got to know the product is going to be ready to go."

As for when he predicts teams will be testing their own Gen3 cars, Ryan isn't expecting it to be until at the very end of this year, if not early next.

However he's not worried about the homologation teams getting a leg-up in terms of testing, based on the nature of the running with the Camaro and the Mustang so far.

"I don't think it's going to be until December or January," he said of individual testing.

"I think that's the earliest anybody will be allowed to, whether you can get [the cars] together before that or not. There will be a strict approach where nobody is going to get a leg up on anybody else.

"The testing that they've done so far has been pretty good from what I've seen. Nobody is tuning them, trying to make them go faster.

"They are actually just making sure the product is right and it's ready to give to a team and the team can start adjusting it and it and tuning it."