Did Holden cheat in the Australian Supercars series?

In 2017, when Holden was working on his Commodore ZB with the Triple Eight team, the two organizations called upon Nick Wirth, former technical director of Simtek. Formula 1 (among others), and his firm Wirth Research. Wirth's objective was to work on the aerodynamic package of the General Motors brand, in order to make the most of the existing regulations.

During an appearance on the podcast "The Hard Compound," Wirth explained that he had found a loophole in the Australian Supercars regulations. To determine the aerodynamic loads for the two manufacturers competing, Holden and Ford, before the season began, Supercars conducted highly controlled testing sessions on airport runways to ensure that neither manufacturer could gain an unfair advantage. However, the way the regulations were written allowed Wirth to discover a loophole.

“Triple Eight contacted us to help them counter Roger Penske and Ford’s dominance in the Australian Supercars Championship. The most fun part was figuring out how to create a car that would be a big step forward. I had an idea, because they had a flaw in their method of validating car performance, which we exploited to our advantage. They were using standard brake ducts during testing. These were different from the brake ducts we used on the actual race bodywork. I thought, ‘This is an opportunity.’”

Wirth then explained that he had asked his teams to model the brake ducts brought by the Supercars, and those used by the Triple Eight team in racing, in order to find an aerodynamic package that would generate little downforce with the Supercars package, but considerably increased downforce when the correct brake ducts were fitted to the car. "As soon as they removed their components and we installed our actual parts, the bearing force was literally two and a half times greater than what had been measured."

Nick Wirth claims the team was unaware, with engineers even questioning how the car could be considered legal given its massive increase in downforce compared to the previous version. The arrival of the Commodore ZB in 2018, however, didn't prevent Scott McLaughlin from winning the title with his Team Penske Ford Falcon, a crown he retained for the next two years when Ford introduced its own evolution, the Gen2 Ford Mustang. Shane van Gisbergen also won two titles with the ZB in 2021 and 2022, the last two years of competition before the Gen3.

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