By Dan McCarthy
Release date: August 28, 2021
Sean Seamer, CEO of the Supercars Championship, believes there will likely only be two engine suppliers in the Gen3 era, one for Holden and one for Ford.
The Ford Mustang homologated engine is currently being built by Mostech for Dick Johnson Racing, while KRE is building the engines for GM’s Triple Eight Race Engineering team.
Kelly Racing, Tickford Racing and Walkinshaw Andretti United currently drive their own engines in the Supercars championship, the latter also supplying engines for Erebus Motorsport.
Although not confirmed, Seamer expects Mostech to supply all Ford teams and KRE for all GM squads once Gen3 regulations are rolled out in the middle of next year.
“At the moment there are two homologation teams that are developing the engines and finalizing the specifications for these engines,” said Seamer at a media conference in which AUTO ACTION also took part.
“There were no further discussions about production, at the moment these are the two parties that will move from design to production.”
Seamer believes teams who have built their own engines like WAU and Tickford Racing will not feel the need to keep doing so.
“I’m not sure they want to be honest with you,” Seamer explained. “The cost of the engines has dropped as much as I said, Mostech and KRE are the ones who do all of the work and development on these engines with Ford and GM respectively.
“I would certainly hesitate to hand over the construction of these engines in the short to medium term.
“Never say never, but it’s a crucial component in getting a new car to market and all you are going to do is risk failure by passing things on like that.
“So when we go through the development, production, introduction of Gen3 and bring these cars into the race, it will surely be Mostech and KRE.”
The championship CEO stated that several factors will deter teams from doing this in the Gen3 era.
“If KRE and Mostech decide in the long term to supply other racing teams with components, that’s fine,” he said.
“But I think you can get into a dangerous situation if you try to farm too much stuff too soon.
“Cost, parity and supply, all of these different factors (that would add to the decision).”
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