'Car of the Future' for V8s

Release date: 16/03/2008 V8 Supercars Australia Chief Executive Officer Wayne Cattach, has flagged the idea of standard panels and parts for the categorys two manufacturers.

Cattach said the car would be similar to NASCAR's 'Car of Today', which was introduced last year and fully implemented this year.

NASCAR spent five years on the project to improve safety for drivers and curb expanding team costs.

The car was designed to put the racing back in the drivers' hands rather than in pit lane.

“We will probably start to think about this whole idea of the 'Car of the Future' in a similar way to NASCAR,” Cattach said.

“I'm getting ahead of myself in saying that, but I think it is timely for us to have a more holistic look at the cars.”

Cattach said there was pressure from teams to control costs, particularly after the collapse of the Total Racing Expenditure Cap (TREC) plan.

“And to do that we would have to use the rulebook very extensively rather than go down the track we did previously with TREC, which I think was probably a bit ambitious as to how it would control costs.

“This will be more using the conventional means of controlling costs, standardisation of parts, simplification of design, a central purchasing and reducing inventory and all of those elements.”

V8 Supercars already has a number of measures in place to help standardise the existing cars in the Championship, including control tyres and brakes.

Cattach said a 'Car of the Future' would not only reduce costs but could also speed up the time needed to repair crashed cars.

“And that will obviously benefit the sport,” he said.