Ambrose Mustang ruled out of Bathurst 6 Hour

NASCAR race winner and Supercars champion Ambrose was set to team up with former protege Miedecke in a Ford Mustang for the six-hour production car race.

However that plan has been scuppered just days out due to a random electrical issue which saw the car shut itself down at speed during its final test earlier this week.

As a result the team has decided to withdraw the entry on the grounds of safety.

“We’re a bit shattered," said Miedecke. "The car would ‘chuck a code’ into the system every now and then which would put the car in limp mode.

“It wasn’t an issue that you could just fix by stopping the car on track and re-starting things, it needed to be brought back to base.

“It’s a safety issue. It’s fine testing at Winton but if it happened coming out of McPhillamy Park, for example, at 200 km/h then there’s a good chance we get drilled by another car which is not safe for us and for other competitors around us.

“To have something like this throw itself at us so close to the event is frustrating because everything else had been sorted.”

Ambrose and Miedecke had been looking to break BMW's stranglehold on the Bathurst 6 Hour with their ambitious Mustang project.

And Miedecke is confident the car would have been a contender based on testing had it not been for the electrical glitch.

“The gearbox was a big tick, the engine? tick. The safety? Tick. Handling? Tick," said Miedecke.

"Everything was looking really good and it was definitely a step forward on the old car.

“It was going to be competitive and will be in the future.

“This is just one of those strange, unforeseen issues that crop up when you turn a road car into a race car, with all their modern technology. It’s a ghost in the system that we’ve not been able to find.

“The Ford Mustang was otherwise good to go, and this is an issue we’ll rectify and fix and get it back on track to go again.

“We’ll all be watching closely on Stan Sports to see how the race plays out. It’s going to be a fantastic battle with lots of good cars, and we wish we could’ve been safely part of it.”

It's the second high-profile withdrawal from the race this week after reigning winner Shane van Gisbergen was ruled out due to a positive COVID-19 test.

Fabian Coulthard has also been forced out of the TCR Australia round due to COVID, with Tim Slade taking over his Wall Honda.