The Ford Mustang has been confirmed as a starter for the 2019 Supercars season, a partnership between Ford Performance, DJR Team Penske, and Tickford Racing.
FORD AUSTRALIA TODAY launched its Ford Performance brand in Australia with the ace up its sleeve being the confirmation that a Mustang V8 will take to the grid for the 2019 Supercars season. The homologation of the Mustang for Supercars, sees Ford Performance partner with DJR Team Penske and Tickford Racing. The teams are currently working on the design of the aerodynamics package.
“We’re proud to announce that Ford Australia, with our Ford Performance global team, is working with DJR Team Penske and Tickford Racing to homologate Mustang for 2019,” said Ford Australia President and CEO, Graeme Whickman.
“There’s been a lot of speculation and calls for Mustang to be on the track, and as a Ford Performance model that’s raced around the world, it’s fitting that Australia’s most popular sports car should be on our race tracks.”
While there’s speculation the Mustang will arrive in time for the Bathurst 1000, at least in some sort of exhibition lap, neither Ford Australia or its partners would confirm the car would be ready in time. What is confirmed is that the Mustang, which will run a V8, will be ready to race at the Adelaide 500 (the first round of the season). Since its inception in 1997, Supercars had prohibited the racing of two-door coupes but that is no longer the case.
“Having Ford back on the Supercars grid and with its iconic Mustang is going to be brilliant for the whole sport, said Tickford Racing team owner, Rod Nash. “This is a landmark day for Australian motorsport and the teams involved,” he added.
“Throughout the entire history of this team, we’ve never run anything but a Ford, and this announcement today is fantastic,” said DJR Team Penske Co-Owner, Dick Johnson.
“The fact that we will be able to build and race a Mustang in the 2019 Supercars Championship is music to my ears. It’s great to be back in the Ford fold, and we’ll continue to ensure that we give Ford – and its millions of fans – something to cheer about.”
While Ford fans were perhaps nervous Ford Australia might have walked away from Supercars for good with the death of the Falcon, Dick Johnson said he never lost the faith, adding that he would never have switched brands.
“Could you see me walking down pit lane in anything but a Ford jacket,” he told motoring media at the announcement today.
Building on its announcement about the Mustang joining Supercars, Ford Australia said the Ranger Raptor would serve as the official recovery car for Supercars and its support events. The Ranger Raptor will arrive in showrooms from September this year.
As a Ford fan I am disappointed in this decision made by them to re-enter in an unofficial way via Tickford & DJRPenske.
Supercars COTF/GEN2 is stale and needs to get away from a “control everything” formula, it is making motorsport so boring and its very damaging overall., ok not as bad as the end of Group A was in 91/92 but bad, when only 34,000 people are watching live racing on pay TV then you know its hit rock bottom, they can spin the TV viewership all they want by adding all possible hours viewing but the actual races only get 34,000 viewers LIVE watching, lol even the CH 10 or ONE SD highlights get more viewers (around 150,000), simply put its a mistake by Ford to re-enter.
Their was a sense of optimism with Ford leaving and Volvo leaving and Nissan about to also walk away that Supercars would be forced to abandon COTF/GEN2 and return to proper vehicle racing based on the platform of the vehicle and not a controlled chassis / control everything series.
That is all gone now and its a validation by Ford that Supercars have the right formula with Gen2, that is a sad state of affairs.
Now that said at least the Mustang is RWD and has a V8 engine and you can buy the road going version in the same basic set up that is RWD & V8, unlike the ZB Insignia there is nowhere in the world world the average buyer can walk into a GM dealership and say I want what they race in Supercars, that just show you how silly a controlled formula racing series is, come on a RWD V8 Alitma? Nissan please stop this madness.
Lets not even get started on the terrible TV broadcasting, that is another story, wait I did that above already, when you chase money instead of eyeballs you end up loosing money, but that is fine, look at the idiots that run Cricket Australia and all the flak they have received this week.
The only interest left is Bathurst race and even then the Bathurst 24hr is better of the two races, heck even the Bathurst 6 hour is now better than Bathurst 1000 and that is sad, very sad indeed.