by The results of all-in pre-season testing were overwhelmingly in the Chevrolet team’s favor, with Camaros filling 11 of the top 12 spots in the final standings.
The trend was consistent with Ford’s concerns going into the Gen3 era that the Camaro was a better package, especially in terms of straight-line speed.
Supercars are planning another air homologation test next week as they campaign for the performance parameters of the new Ford V8 motor.
Camaro’s whitewash prompted suggestions from some Chevrolet teams that, amid the politics, Ford teams did not set representative times at SMP testing.
Grove Racing driver Reynolds is adamant, however, that there were no instructions to stop him – and that the speed of the Camaro is truly worrying.
“It’s a concern that the time sheet looked the way it did,” he told Autosport after finishing 18th fastest.
“There were allegations of sandbagging, which was not nice. I wish we were smart enough to do that, but I don’t think we are.
David Reynolds, Ford Racing Grove
Photo by: Edge Photographs
“I know on our side of the fence we were just running through our program, trying to get as much speed as we could.
“We didn’t want to hide any speed, we went flat out from Lap 1. We were the first cars to roll out on slick tires and we were on top of the times until everyone started going more faster.
“We were really going as fast as we could.
“It all goes back to when I first drove the (Mustang prototype) last April at Symmons Plains. The Camaro was 0.4s, 0.5s faster than me and down the back straight it was tough into the limiter.I couldn’t get anywhere near it.
“After the first day of (team) testing at Winton (this year) I was talking to some other drivers about their times and tires and I estimated we were about eight tenths off the Camaro.
“And then we got some more power for the Sydney test, and they took a little gear cut out of the Camaro, and I think the gap was about six or seven-tenths.
“There’s no specified minimum weight yet, so cars could be running super light. There could be Center of Gravity differences, there could be aero differences, there could be engine differences , I don’t really know. I’m not involved in those conversations.
“But we’ve known about (the speed deficit) for a long time.”
Reynolds also said he supported Supercars resolving the issue, as it did in 2019 when the Gen2 Ford Mustang was found to have an aero advantage.
“Supercars are finding solutions to these problems, we’ve seen that before,” he said.
“They have a good track record with parity. I hope it doesn’t take too long.”
