Statement from Jamie Whincup, Managing Director and Team Principal:
“After Perth we promised Will, his crew and all stakeholders associated with car #888, which includes our beloved fans, that we would leave no stone unturned and find reasons why car #888 has not been fighting for race wins recently.
“At 7pm last night we found a significant issue on car #888.”
“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.”
“We will continue to roll out our new chassis for car #888 at Queensland Raceway and look forward to measuring our capability now we are competing with the same horsepower as the rest of the field.”