Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / NEWS: Supercars latest from Ipswich + Verstappen's big call
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to Full Credits of the News brought to you by Authentic Collectibles. My name is Andrew Van Leon and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomew. Stefan, we're back in our Airbnb in Rockley on the outskirts of Brisbane for the Ipswich Super four forty this weekend. And that was a busy Thursday at the track. There is just so much going on in the sport right now. Yeah, a few ⁓ meaty topics to talk about. With ⁓ people in the paddock and a bit of action too, with some engines going in cars and things we don't necessarily normally see on a Thursday. Yep, absolutely. Let's start with the with you know, what's one of the biggest stories of the year, to be honest, and that is this whole thing around the non penalty for Kai Allen's tire bri tire breach in Perth. We've talked about that side of it a fair bit. We had the appeal hearing on Monday night in Melbourne. That appeal was dismissed. So Kai Allen keeps his fifth place and the 105 points that he scored from it from Perth. ⁓ an interesting result. We can't, it's hard to talk too much about the result right now because we're still waiting for the full document to come out from Motorsport Australia. They have 14 days to provide that as to why the appeal was dismissed. ⁓ but I guess it was one of those weird things because it felt like on one hand, a common sense outcome that the the appeal would be successful, but when you think about it, you are talking about trying to find a reason to overturn it when the stewards always had the discretion to make the decision. They had the evidence. They made their decision. There wasn't a process as failure. So maybe this was just the obvious outcome. Yeah, the appeal hearing isn't intended to just hear the same case again. And there are some pretty strict rules on Anything new to be added into it. So unless there was a a real process error, this is the way it was probably going to turn out. So not a surprise from that point of view, but a surprise in the sense that there's still so much aggravation among other teams, among supercars as well. And ⁓ supercars has had to then go away in these couple of days to work out what to do for Ipswich so that we don't see a ⁓ a stampede of of cases of people. Preaching this tie pressure rule and then trying their luck at the stewards. Yeah. So what was decided ⁓ by Supercars heading into this weekend and communicated to the teams via the team representatives meeting at about five o'clock on the Thursday evening at Queensland Raceway. He's effectively ⁓ Supercars is quite comfortable with the rule, how it's written. There is a minimum tie pressure. ⁓ you can't go under that. If you do, you are in breach of the rules, which was established in this Kai Allen case. but effectively what what they've brought in now is ⁓ a get out of jail free card of sorts. If you do have a tire that dips below sixteen on the grid, you do now have the option of coming in at the end of the formation lap, changing that tire or as many tires as have dropped under the minimum, and then effectively starting the race from pit lane. So it doesn't doom your race. ⁓ Or put you on a collision course with disqualification if you do drop sort of point one of a pound or whatever. And the reason they've kind of done this is because a big part of the Grove argument was that once that tire dipped below sixteen in Perth, there was nothing they could really do. They were just in a position where they just had to sit there, get through the race and then find out how the stewards were gonna handle it. So this gives teams an out, ⁓ which Seems like a pretty sensible approach. Certainly the people we spoke to in the paddock felt like this was a pretty sensible approach, right? It does look that way. It the optics of it are unusual 'cause it it's giving the teams an escape route there. But clearly Grove Racing already found a massive escape route because they actually breached it and didn't have this option and won the case. So it's it's ⁓ sort of bizarre optics on that. Yeah. But ⁓ yeah, it it might be It might prove the clever way to do it. There was a lot of discussion earlier in the week about other things they could do in terms of changing the recommended penalties table, ⁓ potentially through the SUPREGs moving this from Division D sporting regulations to division C technical, which is meant to be a DSQ ⁓ for anything anything breached there. But at the end of the day, the stewards under the FIA ⁓ guidelines were told do have discretionary powers when giving any of these penalties. So it wasn't just a cut and dried matter of ⁓ removing discretion from the stewards. And there is an argument as well to say that that wouldn't be the way to go anyway. And just having it blanket because in the extreme example of the Bathus 1000, is it justice to DSQ someone from the whole race? Yep. Because the tie pressure dipped when it was not in their control while on the grid. Yeah, exactly. And that I I think that is what this whole thing has highlighted is that that could realistically happen. So having some sort of ⁓ sort of yeah ⁓ way to escape being you know, doing a six hour race knowing that you're very likely to get disqualified from it is probably the ⁓ the way to go. And that whole the fact that the way the rule is written is that you do sit on the grid for quite a long time and your tires can't dip under the the 16 in at any time it there's a lot of jeopardy there for the teams and obviously a lot of thought goes into it and obviously they're good at it because again we've seen this happen but a it doesn't happen very often and b there was 23 other cars in that race that that didn't breach the rules but this does seem like a a a a reasonably common sense way to look at it. It will also be interesting like if you're starting the race from pole or on the front row or something and this does happen. Yeah what do you do Right now. Do you come in and start from Pit Lane or do you just go, you know what, there was just a case just like this and there was no penalty dished out. Let's just roll the dice, stay out there, do the race, win the race potentially, and then head into the steward's room and and make that very point that ⁓ you know, a a similar case or a potentially identical case wasn't deemed necessary of a penalty. Now the hope is that this you know, this takes out that argument that there's nothing you can do, 'cause there is something you can do, but It's just tough to know whether that is a big enough deterrent for the teams. Well, I'd say Supercars has had the discussions with Motorsport Australia who did immediately reach out to try to work together with Supercars on how to formulate a solution here. Yeah. And clearly Supercars would be confident that ⁓ the stewards would rule against anybody who's breached now that there is the the escape button there. So I think there too there will be some work probably after the season a review of the whole thing and potentially some some definitions in the rule book. ⁓ a lot of people talking about when does a session actually start, and and all of that sort of thing, which which we believe was part of the appeal ⁓ hearing, but again we don't have that information to us at the moment in black and white. Yep. Yeah, it's very hard to comment on on exactly how that played out, and we will analyze that when we do get that document. We don't know when that will be, except for the fact that it has to be within those fourteen days. You touched on it before. There was a fair bit happening at the track even as we left, quite late tonight. Can't remember what time we left, but it was reasonably late. ⁓ a whole lot of engine changes going on. There's been a big push to get this B spec Toyota engine up and running for this round. The initial target From Walkenshaw TWG Racing was to have two B B spec engines ready for this weekend. So one would have stayed at Walkenshaw, one would have gone to Brad Jones Racing. They've ended up with four. There was a bit of a late scramble. Craig Haste was driving an engine in reasonably late this evening on the back of his ⁓ of his Ute. That was the the last one that was delivered out of the four. But that's a reasonable outcome to have four engines ⁓ ready to go for this weekend. But as you also pointed out before, it was kind of odd seeing like there were four cars that rocked up with no engines in them at all. Which is a really weird thing. Which was a fairly good sign that ⁓ there was going to be more than two of the B specs available. But ⁓ yeah, Craig Haystead drove the the last of those into the track at about four PM. Yep. ⁓ apparently still warm from being on his dyno. And it was in Chaz's car by about six thirty when we were looking at it. Yeah. So ⁓ because of course like It's one thing for the package to be homologated, but each engine after it's been built by Walkenshaw's down in Melbourne needs to come up here and get run on Craig's Dino and then sealed. So yeah, he o the last two of those only got to him this week. Yeah. And yeah, it was a a big effort from from him as well as the effort that had gone on from Walkenshaw's and their partner, Swindon Powertrains, in the UK before that. Yeah. ⁓ that ris resulted in them being able to have four in the cars this weekend. Yeah. I mean, if this is the reliability fix they've been looking for, this is a good outcome this far out from Bathus. That was always, you know, the that was the round that had the red circle around it as we need this fixed by then. ⁓ so y there must be a fair bit of confidence that obviously Macaulay Jones is the only car still running the A spec for this weekend, but it feels like there's enough time to ensure everyone has what they need, including spares, for when we get to the big points prestigious endurance races. Yeah, and the ones that are in the cars should get a lot of running in the next little bit with a race meeting and then a full test day on the Tuesday. Yeah. That endurance test and then a ride day. Actually we don't know if those teams are involved, but potentially they do have the track time to do that. So yeah and and again to back over it, this is essentially a revision to the camshaft profiles, trying to take load off that valve train that they've seen several failures with so far this year. It had been a bit of a obviously an issue from the start of the year, but there'd been a lot of discussion about which way they needed to go to solve it. ⁓ going right back early in the program before Walkenshaws were even involved, when it was a Toyota and Supercars discussion, it was going to be a five point four liter engine. That was the the architecture suggested by Supercars. And then when Walkenshaws and and their partner Swindon took over, they designed it as a five point two. And it's had some some issues. So there was some question of hey, do they need to actually go and increase the capacity? But they've stuck with what they've got for the bulk of the engine and they've yeah just changed what's upstairs. All right, let's hear from our friends at Authentic Collectibles. They have produced two very special 118 scale Ford 100 Years in Australia exclusive editions. One is the number one hundred Ford Performance FGX Falcon Supercar. 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Now we had a double barrel of ⁓ Red Bull news just as we were kind of ⁓ trying to wind up at the track this evening. ⁓ Stefan, the first of those was some good news on the local front, and that is that Triple Eight has secured a new three year deal with Red Bull as its ⁓ naming rights sponsor. They needed a bit of good news, Triple Eight, this week to be honest. So they ⁓ this is good news. They did. I wonder if they knew that the ⁓ Max Verstappen Red Bull news, which we'll get onto in a minute, was going out at exactly the same time. It felt like an unusual rollout for those two things to happen together, but Clearly a good news story for Triple Eight three more years, so through to the end of twenty nine, considering that partnership started in twenty thirteen. That is a pretty serious journey that they've had together and it's gotten to the point where it's kind of unimaginable to think of the supercars field without those Red Bull cars in there. I think they give it a lot of credibility as a big global sports brand. And ⁓ they clearly do a lot of activations and bits and pieces. outside of the racetrack as we've seen. Demo runs in Geelong. Yeah, that sort of thing. Demo runs in Latvia. Yep. That ⁓ Scott Pye, as everyone has seen, ⁓ had that incident. We learnt today that Mark Dutton was in the passive for that. So it wasn't a case of hope the ⁓ team manager doesn't see this because ⁓ he was in the car. Yep, that that was ⁓ that was very funny. And they'll get some coverage this weekend, Red Bull, 'cause so many eyes are going to be on Will Brown and how he goes in that. Spare chassis, that new chassis that he's running this weekend, and obviously with the right size restrictor in it. We did see a lot of restrictors kicking about the paddock this evening as well for whatever reason. It certainly does feel that ⁓ after that whole thing came out, every team decided, hey, we better just pull these things out and check them and ⁓ and see how they're going. So that was quite interesting. But as you touched on as well, ⁓ we have some clarity around Max Verstappen's future. There has been this speculation that he may not. Want to continue in Formula One, that he's, you know, he's been so opinionated and and publicly vocal about his dislike of the new for 2026 F1 regulations. And that kind of drove this idea that he might leave the sport. Obviously, he was actually still contracted, so his original contract before this extension meant that he was still contracted to the team, but the performance clauses in that and the way that that team has struggled by its own lofty standards and the lofty standards of Max Verstappen this year meant he was going to be able to get out of that if he wanted to. I would imagine those clauses are all still going to exist in this New Deal, which runs until twenty thirty. But surely you wouldn't make this big a song and dance if he wasn't making the positive noises about wanting to stay in Formula One. Well I guess on the on the issue of of the rule set and everything like that, F1 and the FIA have actually sort of Plotted out what they're gonna do on that front. So he had visibility on that. ⁓ and it's not just committing himself to F run F one but to Red Bull as a team. So I think it's it's clearly a massive win for them. Yeah. ⁓ they have looked not quite the powerhouse that they did ⁓ under this rule set, but if they lost Max that would have been a serious, serious issue because th he makes them a contender regardless of what's going on basically. Yeah. And I guess it does and not that there was ever really anything concrete out there about whether McLaren will be interested in Max Verstappen or or any of that sort of stuff, but it does really put a bow on the fact that Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are the drivers that McLaren want and and are gonna continue to to drive for that team, you know, at least through their current ⁓ contract period. So but it's look, i I think I never really understood the idea that he might leave F one. Like it's just his earning power there is just so incredible. Like you would have to hate those cars a lot to walk away from that. And I know he loves doing the GT3 stuff and all that sort of stuff. But A, he has so much time to do that. Like and B, like it's still Formula One. Like it's still F one. And it's that's where guys that are as ambitious and driven as Max, that's where they want to be. That's the only place you can win the Formula One World Championship. Yeah, you just have to ride out the the times where you don't have the best car or you don't like the rule set that much. You've just got to be in there. you mentioned McLaren, like just obviously there's just so many different knock ons and a effects of this. I feel like George Russell would be one of the people sleeping the best tonight after after this news. The ⁓ the threat of him coming and taking that drive would have been in the back of the mind. And it kind of I don't know, i even the way the release was written and stuff, it just it does start to feel now that Max is gonna be a career Red Bull racing driver. Like that is where his commitment really lies. I guess things can change if it really goes south and there really is a more competitive car out there, but you you can't fault his c this will take it to fifteen years on this contract with that team. Like you can't fault that commitment. The ⁓ the big one people were talking about not too long ago was Aston Martin. Yeah. And I guess he's ⁓ not rush to to jump into that considering how that's all going. Nah. And if you look back through his career, ⁓ like there was interest from Mercedes in here when he was in F three and all that sort of stuff, but Red Bull was the one that said, we'll put you straight in from what was European F three at the time. So different 'cause the FIA F three and F two system didn't exist as it does today. But it was Red Bull that said to this sixteen year old kid, who didn't even win the ⁓ the Euro F three championship that year. We'll take you straight to Formula One. Like we'll put you straight in F one and that's why he went down the Red Bull path. And for all the troubles that they're having at the moment, for world championships, a whole bunch of race wins and Max establishing himself as one of the absolute greats of F one, it's been a pretty good innings. It has, but the loyalty only ever goes so far and I'm sure Max and his management would have screwed Red Bull for every dollar they could possibly get along the way here. Yep. Absolutely. All right, let's finish up ⁓ by having a bit of a chat about what's been going on. ⁓ sort of below the supercars level in Australian motorsport, it's obviously been a pretty wild old week ⁓ in terms of ⁓ the the wheels coming off the ASA race series, formerly the high tech ⁓ oils super series. ⁓ it's now been confirmed to the surprise of very few that the Fight in the Night last weekend is the last event that the double ASA will hold in that guise. ⁓ obviously we saw the likes of TA two and IRC, ⁓ Formula Ford, ⁓ and Legends effectively part ways with ASA after the Queensland Raceway event last weekend. ⁓ and the double ASA has now confirmed that it is going to refocus on sanctioning and licensing and not on promotion and that there will be no more of those race series events. No great surprises there, obviously, Stefan. No, I guess the surprise was it just took them a little while to come out and say this 'cause it looked like it was always the way it was going. But they were just taking so much collateral damage on the way through. Yeah. Where yeah, maybe they could have got out with this a little bit earlier. Because also like last year they'd actually gotten out of this promoter model where it was handed to George Gambino and high test to be the promoter and that only came unstuck. in in May this year and they had to then take it back on again. So clearly this is something they didn't really want to do. Motorsport Australia, it's something they were in the business of and decided they didn't want to do. So again, that's not the business model that they want to be in. Yeah. But the the way it's all played out, like we've had categories like Formula Ford announcing their severing ties with the ASA immediately. So you've not just got a situation where that that race series they're not promoting anymore, but categories are actually announcing they're cutting ties with yeah, with this sporting body, which seems unusual. Yeah, well I think it's just a reaction to like it's it's an image thing, right? And that is something that is a problem that ASA has right now. And it's been through this change in ownership, which has led to a legal challenge which has just kicked off as well with the Vanilla Auto Club. So ⁓ yeah, it's just a messy situation. Hopefully You know, there's sort of rumblings already of things in the works on the Motorsport Australia side in terms of trying to re-establish some sort of national series at that level, not necessarily promoted by Motorsport Australia itself, because again, we just know that doesn't work. We now have two very recent examples of that not working. So hopefully this is the genesis of some more sustainable series at that level that can cater for these categories on both sides of the of the sanctioning body fence because something will come along on the double ASA side as well because there are some categories that either can't or don't want to be tied up with Motorsport Australia. So hopefully this is a low point that's going to lead to some sustainable promotion at that level for categories. So all these people can just get on with racing their cars. And hopefully the double ASA can get back to what it was intended to do in terms of cutting the cost and and various other things out of going motor racing at that lower level. Yeah. But as you flag the the legal issue they've got going on at the moment, they're gonna need to get that out of the way before they can really move on from this. Yep, absolutely. All right, well I think we'll leave it there for full credit to the news this week. We will of course be on the ground at Queensland Raceway for the Ipswich Super four forty. So we'll be Covering everything that's happening out there, all the session reports and race reports and breaking news and reaction, all that sort of stuff will be on speakfa.com. We'll be back in this podcast feed every night for the next few nights with our daily podcast. So keep an eye out for them because we'll be keeping you up to date with everything that's happening in Ipswich.