Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / Bathurst 1000 daily: Saturday
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to the Saturday edition of our Bathus 1000 daily podcast. And a very special edition it is because it's a birthday edition for Stefan Bartholomew, who's sitting across from me. Happy birthday, Stefan. Thank you, AVL, and thanks to everyone who has said something across the day. It's been a busy day. It has. And yeah, the phone's been lighting up as well. We are joined as well by Simon Chapman, our news editor, who is here for your birthday party. So if there is a bit of background noise. In the pod today, I do apologize. That is because we are preparing for a bit of a birthday bash. Well, it's actually going on outside. It is going on inside. We're inside doing podcasts and news stories at the moment. Yeah. That is that is true because that's unfortunately what we have to do on Bathis One Thousand weekend. Simon, how was your day, mate? It was awesome. I I honestly I don't think I've ever watched a a top ten shootout like that where I think I've actually probably gotten goosebumps. That was that was pretty special and obviously we'll get into it. But yeah, I think obviously that was that was the highlight of the day. Yeah, absolutely. So let's start with the the result. I mean, it's almost the exact same conversation that we had yesterday, which is that regardless of any parody stuff or any advantages for the Camaro, Zach Bates on pole position now, properly in the shootout, going out there, beating a lap set by Brody Castechi, who was Coming off three pole positions at Mount Panorama on the bounce, that was something special, Stefan. Like there's just no other way to slice it. That was an incredible lap from a rookie supercars driver. It absolutely was to execute under that spotlight and all that pressure was incredible. And it was really reflected in the way that the the pit lane came out and applauded when he came back in. It was scenes of two thousand and three when Greg Murphy did the lap of the gods. This was such a cool storyline. Yeah, absolutely. What did you I mean you said you had goosebumps, Simon. And I guess it's and again, we had this conversation yesterday, but it's not just about the performance from the driver. It's under or sorry, it's in the context of the fact of his uncertain future, all that sort of stuff. Like it is just a fairy tale. Yeah, I th I think that really really sums it up. And I think it's sort of dawned on us, during the top ten shootout how big this mountain would be to climb for for Zach because when when Brody went out, I think at that time Jack LeBrock was the fastest to that point and Brody put half a second on Jack to that point. And we I think we kinda looked at each other and went, Well, these these forts actually aren't too bad and then obviously Will Brown went afterwards and didn't go faster than Brody. And then obviously Cooper went and he didn't go faster than Brody. And so it was like like I was pretty close to writing my headline that Brody was going to get that fourth straight pole position. So yeah, I think that sort of speaks to how incredible that lap was from Zach, especially as that lap progressed and when he came out of the cutting and he was too tense up, that was when it really hit me that I was like, my god, I think this this kid's actually actually going to do it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Stefan and I actually had a conversation just before he rolled out on the lap, and not to dob ourselves in for being pretty wrong about something, but it was we had a conversation along the lines of Surely he won't be able to hold his nerve. in this moment and go out there and beat a lap set by such an incredible qualifier like Brody Kastecki. and if he hadn't have, that would have been completely understandable as well. But he did it. Like it's just yeah, I'm still just blown away at at how he drove on that lap. Yeah, well a pay driver's on pole for the Bathus one thousand. That's the reality of it. He has to bring funding to that drive and the discussion about his twenty twenty seven is how much he has to bring basically 'Cause he's contracted to bring some. And you would hope that this helps ensure that the car can be filled by paying commercial partners that the driver doesn't have to bring. Yeah, I mean it would be a massive shame for him to put on this display and then in three events time not ever drive anymore. Yeah, I I I had the feeling from conversations earlier today that it will all work itself out. Certainly when I spoke to Matt Stone about it, he was unequivocal that it's status quo for next year with the driver lineup. And they're going in with Jack LeBrock and Zach Bates, but we do know there's that other conversation going on in the background. But yeah, this is a hell of a statement from Zach. So how does it play out from here for the pole sitting car? Because I don't and I don't mean this as any sort of criticism, but we know the kind of way that Matt Stonebracing operates. Effectively there is funding involved in most of the seats there, whether it's, you know, a sponsor attached to the driver or whatever, but how much pressure does Does this actually put on Aaron Seaton as Zach Bates co-driver? Because, you know, Aaron's done some wildcard events. He's a he's a good race car driver, but starting pole at the Bathus 1000, it's a big thing. It would be nerve-wracking for anybody. Yeah. And we did ask Matt Stone this evening who's going to start it. And of course he was playing his cards pretty close to his chest. It also came up in the press conference as well. And and Aaron talked about the fact that you know, because he's done a couple of wild cards. He's done a few starts, so he's was sounding relatively comfortable with the idea of starting the car. But they've also then MSR got the Jack LeBrock car starting at only a couple of rows back. So when you think about if yeah, you wouldn't want to lose track position to the sister car and then potentially have to stack behind it all day. So there's sort of it's a good problem for the team to have, but it is a a real conversation they're gonna have to have tonight and maybe tomorrow morning. Yeah, absolutely. I'll run through the rest of the top ten shootout results quickly. Broda Castechi was second, as we sort of touched on. Anton Di Pasquale was third fastest, Cooper Murray was fourth fastest, Jack LeBron fifth, as you just said, Stefan. So that means what that is for Camaros in the top five, which is certainly something. Will Brown was sixth fast fastest, Jaden Ojade at seventh fastest, David Reynolds eighth, James Goldie ninth, and Matt Payne tenth. That's a weird thing. Like Matt Payne. We just think of him as a great qualifier. But yeah, the back end of the top ten there. Yeah, just a bit player today. Just before we skip over it, I feel like we have to mention Will Brown's slide at McPhilamy Park on his lap. That was amazing. Yeah. That looked like it nearly went around. It was so sideways. Yep. Yeah, I I think we're watching the tally going he looks a little bit sideways through there, and the the commentators when it happened live didn't quite pick up on what had happened, and then we saw that external view and everyone s sort of went, Whoa, like that thing, for lack of a better term, was right out sideways. Like he was he was hanging on to that. And I think you know, by that point the the track was probably starting to get better, but just going back to Matt Payne, there was obviously that issue I think in the previous session in Super Two with Matt Hillier's PJR holding Commodore that had dropped a bit of oil. around the track and that seemed to be a a common complaint amongst the the first guys and I think even even Brody said that he was he saw that there was still a little bit of oil on the track. So not not perfect conditions. what else caught your eye from today, guys? What else it's it's always a sort of kinda weird day. It's Saturday Bathis because we've been through qualifying and then we go into these practice sessions that are all about race setup. Except for the very end of the last practice session where you get the shootout simulations and it's an odd rhythm of the day, isn't it? Well and it was interesting as well watching that last practice session that it it didn't feel like we actually got a good read on on what the shootout was gonna do. We obviously s we obviously saw a lot of those shootout cars in that top ten, but looking at the times they weren't they weren't spectacular by any means, whether that's because there was rain overnight or or whatever else. If we want to talk about things that caught our attention, I think the the ducks making their way onto the track and causing absolute havoc for two supercars champions turned T V presenters who were I think trying their best not to tear each other up on on live television. I thought that w that was pretty interesting. What happened there? So I I feel like your best place to explain this this situation. Yeah, well it it basically looked like I think Chasmoster was the first car to come upon some double waved yellows, just exiting Forrest Elbow, going down Conrad straight, and he had Mark Winterbottom on his left, and then coming up behind them quite quickly was James Courtney and both cars, the two cars in the front are side by side. They've both hit the anchors pretty hard and that's left JC with with nowhere to go and unfortunately he's gone straight into the back of Frosty's car, which was in the in the bigger picture, like actually really not good for those guys, especially because, you know, they're they're trying to do long race runs, they're not in the shootout, they're really trying to get a a handle on on their race car and and they've been battling all weekend. But yeah, some a wee family of ducks and mother duck had made their way out onto the onto the track and and that brought the red flag out actually in the end. Yeah, but the issue out of all that was James Courtney not seeing First a single wave yellow and then a double wave yellow. So we don't actually know whether he heard the radio comms that were played in the broadcast telling him about the yellow, but certainly Potsey had told Frosty about it and that's yeah, obviously why he's wowed up. So they did that T V thing with the two of them together and sort of tried to make it make it a bit jovial. But you could tell that Frosty was actually a bit annoyed about the fact he got drilled in the ass under double wave yellows. We could see the rear bumper. From that car sitting in the next to the transporter this evening. And yeah, it was a hit. Yeah, so thankfully for those guys, because of the length of the red flag while they got those ducklings rounded up, they didn't actually lose too much of the session, if you can believe that was a sentence. Yeah. But I think for me today the the thing really was y you talked about the rhythm of the Saturday where there is so much sort of waiting around. It was the guys with nothing to do in the afternoon that missed the shootout. Brock Feeney, Cam Waters, Chase Mostett. Like these are the superstar names who are always fighting for poles. Yep. And it just encapsulates how sort of bizarre this weekend has been. But especially for that 88 car. Yeah. Like if you look at all the six practice sessions, their average position is 18th. Yeah. It's wild. They haven't been making any progress. They were doing an engine change on that car ahead of the race. They said they were going to do one. But I got the feeling that That's one of those ones where the driver asks for it to be changed. And even if the team doesn't necessarily think that's an issue, they're gonna change it to make the driver feel better. I think we've seen a few of these ones. placebo engine changes. Yeah. Yeah, because w and particularly on the Ford side, and obviously like engines was such a massive talking point coming into the weekend, and we know there were the the hardware and software changes made to the Ford engine for this weekend, and there does seem to have been a few Coyote engines coming in and out of Mustates this weekend. Yeah, DJ R are changing theirs like they're changing tires. Yeah. So we should also actually mention that the DJ R and Well Control guys massive effort to rebuild those cars after the shunts yesterday. I feel like we've had everything already this week from rebuilds and and wildlife and parody and we've sort of had all the Bathis storyline. Bathis bingo card, we've almost filled it. yeah, so hopefully we can still see some more things tomorrow. So what do we think we're gonna see tomorrow? Because it's actually quite fascinating the way the race is set up now. So I mean, the whole parody thing, whatever, it's it's it's it's cre i it's set the grid in a really interesting way because we do have these Camaros up the front. We have cars that we don't generally see up the front, up the front. The big question now is the cars might be quick, but can your MSRs Erebus, team eighteen. Can they execute a thousand kilometres of racing well enough to win the Bathus one thousand? Yeah, I think that's the big question, 'cause clearly they've got the speed to do it. And there's sort of one side of the pit lane saying, maybe those Ford guys are gonna regret the actually taking that engine tweak. Yeah. Has it done some other things to it? But then the other side's saying, Well the the aero parity has gone so far away from the wind tunnel, sorry, the aero specification of the Camaro has gone so far away from the tested wind tunnel model that it's completely how out of control how fast the Camaros are on the straight. So yes, the two questions for tomorrow is can the Chevy teams execute and can the Ford teams and the Toyota teams in any way live with those Camaros in race conditions? I mean we we made our tips or Put our tips forward for who's gonna win the race when we did our preview video on Wednesday. Was it Wednesday? Yes it was Wednesday. Wednesday. jeez, it's a long week. I'll tell you that right now. we are you making any changes to your tips right now? I feel like you Simon, you went out on a real limb. Yeah. You tipped the ninety nine car and have you seen some C F D that we haven't yeah, yeah. No, I well like I like I said on Wednesday, there's just something about Erebus and Mount Panorama and you can basically write off an entire season and they just seem to turn up and and do well and Cooper Murray over the course of the weekend has has shown that. Lockie Dalton's done done a pretty good job as well and and in Super Two has been performing up the front there too. So I I think I I'm probably still sticking with Erebus, all things considered, especially with some of this parody chat that's going on. We don't really know what tomorrow's race is going to look like. in the in the grand scheme of things, I I'm I'm curious to to know who who starts that car. Are they are they confident enough to put Lockheed in and just send him on his way or do they do you need to do need to rely on your full time guy because that top ten is like like we said before, the it's such it's such a fascinating mix of of names, whether you're a fulltimer or a co event. Yeah. I still think most of the co drivers will start. Yeah. And especially for someone like Locke who's doing Super Two Super Two, yeah, exactly. That's a really good combination. It's No obvious thing to say at this point, but that's that's we didn't think it was so obvious on Wednesday. Well the driver combination is obviously pretty strong. But y there's there's lots of things that we'll find out tomorrow that we don't really know now, including the tire life of the Chevies with this arrow configuration. Obviously they got the extra down force at the bend and then they took some rear wing off it. So does it actually burn the tire off at a bit in race conditions? Fuel economy is big big talking point this year that the Chevy wasn't quite as good as the Ford and the Toroto. They did do some mapping changes through the year to try to help with that. So a lot of work was done by supercars on that, but still a question there. And then this brakes topic that's been so sort of rampant up and down. Teams are talking about two two brake changes. Yep, exactly. So Which puts the pressure back on the teams in terms of executing the race. And we saw that what I talked about before. In practice, you know, we we saw on the broadcast a few brake changes that they weren't sloppy, but they were just slow, you know, just have to to get through that process. So that that could be a a pretty big factor in that. Well that can definitely yeah make or break the race. Yeah. And yeah, I think that the Ford and the Toyota guys have got to find a way to get to the front that doesn't involve passing cars on the racetrack because from what we've seen, you're not gonna pass a Camaro on the straight. So you tip the seventeen to win, if I remember correctly. Sticking with that one. I don't feel like I should be making any tips at this point considering how this week has gone. But if anything, I'll just stick with the seventeen. Like that was a remarkable lap from Brody today as well. Not to take anything away from what Zack did at the end. Well, it adds to what Zack did. 'Cause he had to go out there and do better. Yeah. So yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Well, I tip the eighty eight and I don't even know what to do at this point. It's I've got no idea there. Laying there putting a new motor in the thing right now. So maybe I'll just refrain from tipping as well. Maybe, maybe the car with the Peter Brock polarizer in it. The David Reynolds James Courtney car, which we'd sort of talked about as a as a dark horse at the start of the week. they're looking pretty good as well, right? Yep, absolutely. All right, anything else? Or should we go and enjoy Stefan's birthday party? Let's go this Birthday, Bachi Bash. Alright, let's get the barbecue up and going. Thank you very much for listening. Of course, stay tuned to speakfa.com. If you are listening to this on Saturday evening, we'll have all of the action from Singapore covered with the F1 there. And then tomorrow it is the Bathus 1000. It is the biggest day of our season. It is a pretty daunting prospect at this point of the evening on a Saturday, but it will be fun when we get there tomorrow and crack into it. We'll have the whole day covered, everything that's happening at Mount Panorama from on the ground. We've got a big team there and we will be doing very comprehensive coverage and then we'll be back in this podcast feed tomorrow evening with a review of the Bathus one thousand.