Three-time V8 Supercars champion Jamie Whincup says that Triple Eight Race Engineering’s brand-new Car of the Future Commodore is vastly different to his current championship leading car.
Whincup put Triple Eight’s COTF Commodore through its paces today in four short runs during a history-making initial shakedown on the Gold Coast.
The test marks the first-ever COTF ‘race’ car to hit the track. The team will conduct a full-blown test at Queensland Raceway this Monday following the Coates Hire Ipswich 300.
The landmark shakedown was overseen by V8 Supercars category technical manager Frank Adamson.
Whincup, who tested V8 Supercars’ Holden COTF prototype earlier this year, described the car as a “completely different beast” to the existing crop of VE Holdens and FG Falcons.
“Overall its vastly different to what we normally play with,” Whincup told Speedcafe.com.
“It’s a completely different beast in all areas of feel for the driver and is obviously different for the engineers as well.
“I think a day like today demonstrates that we are doing some major things not just for us but for the category as a whole.
“There are a lot of parts which are already homologated but already I can see that there will need to be some modifications.
“The gearbox doesn’t feel as nice and at the moment the changes are short and harsh.
“There were no secrets here today and we are talking to Frank Adamson about everything that was happening so he can report back.
“After our fourth run it looked like there was a problem developing in the driveline area so we’ll have a look at it and come up with a solution for everyone.”
Team manager Adrian Burgess said the team was on track to have nine cars completed before the season-opening Clipsal 500 early next year.
“We have another chassis which is ready to go into the paint shop and another one that is a couple of weeks away from being finished,” Burgess told Speedcafe.com.
“This car that we ran today basically has all of the control components expect for the fuel tank which is fractionally a different shape to the control cell.
“Of our nine COTF cars we will take possession of five, two will go to Tekno Autosports, one will go to Lucas Dumbrell while we haven’t yet finalised a deal with the ninth chassis.”
