Ryan Walkinshaw has asked rival Supercar teams to voluntarily freeze car development during the current in-season pause from racing.
While the Supercars Championship is scheduled to resume racing with the Winton Super400 in early June, the evolving coronavirus pandemic has raised the potential for the break to extend well beyond that.
During the suspension, Supercars have not imposed any legislation that bans teams from working on their cars. The only exception is that all on-track testing cannot go ahead, leaving a window of opportunity for teams to continue their in-factory development.
But in an interview with Autosport.com, Walkinshaw says he has put a stop to all work at Walkinshaw Andretti United during the break and has beseeched fellow teams to follow suit.
“We’ve pretty much banned most developments during this period,” Walkinshaw said.
“And we spoke with a bunch of other teams in Supercars, and said the same to them because I, personally, think that for the good of the sport, all teams should really stop development right now.
“It’s just not smart for anyone. It’s not a wise decision considering the issues that are happening around the world.
“One or two teams may be happy to go and continue spending loads of money on development, whilst everyone else is focusing on survival to a certain extent. I don’t think that’s in the best interest of the sport.”
Walkinshaw went on to add that the response from other teams to his request has been largely positive.
“At the end of the day you never really know what people are doing behind closed doors, but I think most of the team owners out there are pretty rational, prudent business people,” he said.
“And they fully understand the points and they fully understand the risks of going down that route.”
Source: Autosport.com