Supercars teams collaborate on building Gen3 parts

The Gen3 era is almost a complete departure from the current ruleset, with the transaxle and gearshift one of the few major components being carried over.

The cars will feature new V8 engines from Ford and GM and a new control chassis will be fitted with more control parts than ever in a bid to lower running costs and limit costly development wars on components such as uprights.

However delays to the development process has left teams scrambling for time to build cars ahead of the 2023 season opener in Newcastle. Money has also become an issue, largely due to inflated raw material and shipping costs affected by global forces.

To curb both time and financial pressure, teams have taken on short-term control supplier roles to help stock the field of parts.

There have been pockets of teams working together on parts production for some time, however Autosport understands a more formal approach to sharing production has now been taken.

Effectively, different teams have been tasked with building enough of a part, or parts, to supply the entire category. That is expected to continue until the Gen3 cars makes their competitive debut next March.

After frustrating delays for teams there is some momentum with the Gen3 build now, teams able to at least take delivery of or begin assembling control chassis.

Most of the field will use chassis built by specialist supplier Pace Innovations, while the likes of Walkinshaw Andretti United and Erebus will assemble their own chassis based on kits provided by Pace.

Gen3 Ford Mustang GT

Photo by: Ford Performance

Triple Eight, which has been responsible for much of the development of the new car, is building its own chassis and will supply its customer teams like PremiAir Racing and Team 18.

Teams on both the GM and Ford side already have access to some non-aero specific parts of the bodywork, however the majority of the panels won't be available until Supercars has finished its straight-line VCAT testing. That is expected to take place early next month after the Gold Coast 500.

Some VCAT work has been done however Supercars was forced to wait for the global unveiling of the latest-generation Ford Mustang to finalise the aero, which only happened last month.

As it stands teams aren't expecting to have any complete cars ready for testing until at least December.