The Blue Oval has made a troubled start to the Gen3 era, its Mustang package widely thought to be at a disadvantage to the Chevrolet Camaro.
So far Camaros have crossed the line first in all 12 races with Ford-shod drivers complaining of issues such as a lack of performance and rear tyre life.
The Ford engine is the chief suspect for the alleged disparity with suspicions it has been tuned outside of its best operating window to hit the Accumulated Engine Power numbers to match the Chevrolet V8.
Supercars is currently investigating a transient dyno testing programme to help get to the bottom of the issue, while torque sensors will be fitted to the cars by the Sydney SuperNight at the latest.
Should an outcome that Ford finds satisfactory not be found, it's possible that the brand's factory engagement could come to an end.
That's the message from Ford Performance boss Mark Rushbrook, who named the "opportunity to win" as critical to any works motor racing programme.
“What I will say is that anywhere we race, we race for the same reasons – and that is to win races and championships that matter," Rushbrook said.
"We need to have that opportunity to win because it is important to our brand. If we’re not able to win, we don’t have the opportunity to win, it has the risk of tarnishing our brand.
"We need to be in a racing series where there’s an opportunity for innovation and tech transfer. We need to race where we have the opportunity to market our product appropriately, which ties back to winning, of course, and to provide employee pride and satisfaction.
"So as we very regularly review inside our company with the leaders of our company to the very top, we are assessing all of the series for all of those important pillars for us.
"Where we meet those pillars, we’ll continue and we will be very strong in our presence. And if we’re not meeting some of those pillars, then that’s a consideration for us as we look at our future racing motorsport cycle plan."
Rushbrook reiterated his stance that the issue doesn't lie with the Coyote-based motor itself, but is instead related to what Supercars will allow Ford to do with it.
“I have utmost confidence in what the hardware is capable of with the Coyote engine and the software that controls it and the people that are working on it," he said.
"We have got great partners in Supercars with our homologation team and our engine partner with Herrod, just like we have great partners around the world. And we are able to race Coyote-based engines competitively in other series and do great things with it.
"So I have got confidence in that.
"Ultimately, though, it is the technical parity process that determines whether that engine hardware, and those great people, are capable of delivering."
Work on a new engine map for Darwin is ongoing, although critical running was lost by today's testing rain-out at Winton.
Still, homologation team Dick Johnson Racing is set to test in Queensland tomorrow, the outcome of which could be the approval of a new map for the Hidden Valley event in a fortnight.
