Breaking news
Supercars Auckland
Steps taken to eradicate Tickford air box fire issue
Tickford Racing is hoping a fresh set of steps to eradicate an ongoing air box fire issue with its Mustangs will pay dividends at Pukekohe.
Andrew van Leeuwen
Published: Sep 13, 2019, 7:34 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
The squad has been battling the fire issue for a number of months, with momentary dips in power particularly prominent across both its main game and Super2 entries at the last two rounds.
The most high-profile case was Will Davison's Sunday drama at The Bend, a cough while making his second stop proving costly in a tight battle against Scott McLaughlin.
According to Tickford boss Tim Edwards, having the issue only raise its head when the cars were on the pit limiter at The Bend was a sign of progress.
He's now hoping that another wave of changes pre-Pukekohe have eradicated the issue entirely.
"We've been working away over the last three or four months, since it sort of crept in, to eradicate it," said Edwards.
"But the thing is, you can't test it until you come to a race track.
"So when we get to a Friday session we can try all the things we dreamt up in the three weeks since the last race. It's only once you do that that you can go 'okay, that might be better'.
"We kind of made some in-roads to it at Tailem Bend, but then it crept back in on the Sunday. So we've done some other steps since then."
Edwards added that rectifying the issue has been complicated by how inconsistent it is.
"It happens sporadically, it doesn't happen on all cars, it only happened on two cars on Sunday at Tailem Bend, nothing on Saturday, nothing on Friday... it's just one those things that randomly catches you out," he said.
"It's a big issue, but it's not a big issue. Will's hiccup – we call it an air box fire, but you know – that hiccup cost him 1.2s.
"Now that's 1.2s we don't want to give up, but it's not a catastrophic issues. It's just a hiccup that we've got to get on top of."
Davison shared Edwards' confidence that the issue is under control, saying his car felt "cleaner" in the lane today.
"Touch wood it’s certainly much, much cleaner in the pitlane so I’m confident that we’re on top of that," he said.
"It’s a big, big priority for us and obviously it’s quite significantly different, the way we’ve tuned it for the pitlane and even just how clean it is down the pit lane.
"You obviously that pop and bang a lot, which causes a lot of these issues, so it definitely feels really clean.
"Us drivers are going to have to be pretty careful the way we manage it with our throttle position and things like that, but I think we have two or three measures in place [so] hopefully it never happens again."
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Luggage allowance crucial to Holden aero update
Next article Pukekohe Supercars: Mostert heads final practice
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Andrew van Leeuwen
Toby Price explains 'unfortunate' Mitsubishi split
Dakar
Dakar
Dakar
Toby Price explains 'unfortunate' Mitsubishi split
Supercars parity review begins
Supercars
Supercars
Supercars parity review begins
SRO set for bigger Australian GT presence
GT World Challenge Australia
GT World Challenge Australia
SRO set for bigger Australian GT presence
Latest news
Franco Colapinto urges fans to stop the abuse: “You’re not helping me or my future”
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
1 h
Franco Colapinto urges fans to stop the abuse: “You’re not helping me or my future”
Gresini: New MotoGP rules won't increase gap between factory and satellite teams
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Indonesian GP
2 h
Gresini: New MotoGP rules won't increase gap between factory and satellite teams
Tristan McKee joins JR Motorsports in 2027 with future plans for full-time ride
NASCAR O'Reilly
NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly
Phoenix II
2 h
Tristan McKee joins JR Motorsports in 2027 with future plans for full-time ride
Colton Herta eyes potential Indy 500 return and IMSA enduros as 2027 plans remain in flux
FIA F2
F2 FIA F2 2 h
Colton Herta eyes potential Indy 500 return and IMSA enduros as 2027 plans remain in flux
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe