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BJR's next car underway

29 Jun 2015
New engineering structure producing ideas for 2016 racer.
4 mins by James Pavey
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Having successfully and competitively debuted Alice the Snow Leopard in Darwin, Brad Jones Racing is designing a new Holden Commodore VF that is intended to be a significant development in terms of independent engineering thought compared to any previous New Generation racer that has rolled from its Albury shop.

BJR006 isn't scheduled to race until early 2016, but the new engineering structure at BJR has already begun the review process that will lead to the new V8 Supercar.

For 2015, BJR has promoted Jason Bright's former engineer Andrew Edwards into a chief engineer role, overseeing his old Team BOC entry, as well as Fabian Coulthard's Freightliner Racing Holden and Dale Wood's GB Galvanising Commodore.

While the restrictive technical rules that govern V8 Supercars prevent design leaps, Edwards confirmed to v8supercar.com.au that the car would be a more significantly changed than 'Alice' was compared to Coulthard's old car 'Tallulah' (BJR002).

"Keeping in mind what we are actually allowed to change is not large and we generally upgrade our cars as we go along ... but we are reviewing where we are now and there is already a few areas that we think we can do better with some clean sheet in the new car," Edwards said.

"It's not a lot of things; it is maybe the wiring loom and the way we route things in the car and weight distribution. Some of those things are hard to do once you have got a car and that's why we are reviewing some of those things that we can't move around in the car, or are much more difficult to do so.

"The barwork of the chassis is generally fixed so that does take up most of the innovation in the chassis side. But in saying that it's small degrees of everything that we work on and we just keep refining as we go. And we will continue to do that."

One caveat Edwards noted was that much of the development work that goes into BJR006 might actually turn up on the existing cars, diluting just how different it is to its predecessors. Development ideas being planned for the existing cars would also turn up on the new car.

For instance, Edwards predicted BJR was likely to adopt the brake bias lever pioneered in the category by Triple Eight Race Engineering (Red Bull Racing Australia) before the arrival of the new car.

"It is on our list to look at and we want to do something, but I think it will come in before the new car.

"It is something that we could use and we could fit in our current car. But maybe the ergonomics will change slightly in the new car. That is something we would want to be testing before the end of the year if we want to go down that direction for next year."

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One of the key areas under New Generation technical rules that are still open to the teams are the front-ends of the cars. The design of the front upright, which mounts the wheel, brakes and suspension arms, is critical.

BJR currently runs the latest Mark 5 Triple Eight Race Engineering front upright. Edwards avoided direct comment on whether it was an area that was being investigated for BJR006.

"Uprights are one of the last bastions of development and design philosophy for the teams so it's something we'll look at further in the future," said Edwards.

"It's all on the table, and we are constantly looking at everything. Uprights are part of that envelope but the T8 design has proved to be a very good base for success."

Meanwhile, Edwards said the team was pleased with Alice's debut, despite coming away with only one third place from Coulthard's three top four qualifying positions after he was bundled off the road at the first turn in both Saturday races.

The team also qualified and finished all three cars in the top 10 in the 200km race on Sunday. Coulthard left the Darwin event third in the Championship.

"It was a very strong debut," said Edwards. "Potentially we could have come away with two firsts and a third. That's pretty strong in anyone's book.

"Is it the new car or not? I am not certain. I really think we have been on a pretty strong thread with our current set-up and the way we are working as an engineering team. I could have believed we would have went there and had those results without the new car.

"But at the same time it's a relief that the new car has come and everything is status quo and we are moving forward and the car is fast. So that gives us some confidence and that is great."

While the resurfacing of Hidden Valley made it harder to judge any potential improvement Alice offers over Tallulah, the July 10-12 Castrol EDGE Townsville 400 should provide some more clues. Coulthard qualified on pole and finished third in race two last year.

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