Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / Ipswich Super440 daily: Saturday
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to the Saturday edition of our daily podcast from the Ipswich Super 440. My name is Andrew Van Lorn, and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomew's. We're back at our Airbnb, Stefan. It's ⁓ reasonably late as we're recording, staring over a half-eaten takeaway pizza on the table here. But that was a heck of a day of car racing and storylines at Queensland Raceway. We saw the fairy tale, Will Brown and his new. Triple Eight Mustang with a 50 mil air restrictor getting it done. We spoke ⁓ in recent days about how much pressure that whole storyline had built on that driver and that race team. And they went and delivered. Yeah. I mean, we'll get on to obviously the the headline part of this, which is the fact that he won that that race. You can talk about whatever circumstances there were there with safety cars and Brody Kastecki's mistake and that sort of stuff. But ultimately, Will Brown had Brock Feeney's measure all day through both qualifying sessions and in both races. And that's really the true measure that, you know, he's back in form. It's something that he's found so hard to do, not just this year, but even well back into last season. They've had to fight so hard to get through each segment of qualifying all season. And then in the the second session today, Q one They do one run and then save a set. They sit out the final minutes so confident that they'd done what they needed to do to make it. I mean, that for me right there, like encapsulated the the turnaround that's gone on here. Well, remember, I can't remember if it was Perth or that not that long ago, they did the same thing based on the fact that whether they made the shootout, they'd used all their tires or not. So they may as well just s see if they could save a set of tires for a shootout. He was sitting like eighth or something. It was never gonna work. He got bundled down the order. And out of the shootout, but their thinking at that point was like, We're gonna be starting either at the very back of the top ten or, you know, a a few positions behind that anyway. So to be doing the same thing but for such different reasons now and so confidently and making it through so easily, you're right. It's just a huge turnaround. And they'd also had a difficult Friday, don't forget, with ⁓ that gearbox issue. They missed a whole bunch of time. But ⁓ yeah, I think it's been Pretty clear through the day, like Will Brown just back to his confident, bubbly self bouncing around outside of the car, in the car. They even had some dramas with the dash in quality, and he was really forthright on the radio about needing to fix this. I don't know whether this whole saga's given him a bit more sort of grunt to really, really be firm on even the little things, but ultimately. In the race we saw the Will Brown of old. It's it's sounds like a cliche, but the thing that he had been the best at, particularly during his time at Triple Eight, was the racecraft stuff. Yeah. And just fighting his way through. And we really hadn't seen that. Like so much of the focus goes on his poor qualifying. But as we know, his qualifying wasn't great last year, but you could never count him out in the races. He would always push through. Yeah. and gave him they gave him half a sniff today and he was not going to be denied. Yeah, I mean there there were some circumstances, as I said, Brody Kastecki could have easily won that race had he not made the mistake and and run off the road ⁓ and lost some positions, including the position to Will Brown. ⁓ and then obviously the safety car bunched that field up, created that spectacular battle, you know, at the end there, where Will came through and pushed forced his way to the front. Even Brody Kastecki said in the press conference, I knew he was gonna go. I knew he was gonna do everything to get to the front. So I just glued to his bumper and followed him through all the madness. Spectacular racing and just with the context of the fairy tale, like just one of the great supercars races. And this fairy tale story, for me, the most bizarre part is the way that that restrictor has become this ornament that Will is parading around. ⁓ and we saw Mark Larkin present it to him ⁓ during practice yesterday, which was odd and unexplained. But today we'll actually did talk about the fact that as the true car dealer, car salesman he is, he actually barted his way into getting it off of supercars. Yeah. Yeah. I mean he went he was asked by Supercars Media if he would do a sit down interview in the lead up to the weekend, which again I can understand why you might have a bit of trepidation about something like that, given how much pressure we really felt was on his shoulders heading into the weekend. But ⁓ he said I'll do it if I can have the restrictor, because the restrictor belongs to supercars. And ⁓ Nathan Prendergast said, Yep, I'll do what I can to make that happen. And that's what led to that, as you say, bizarre moment on TV where he was presented with it. And it's basically it's that's his now. And that's why we saw it up on the podium. He was drinking champagne through it. On the podium parading it round. My question to you is, is that actually a good look for particularly supercars, but for anyone? Like this whole thing was kind of embarrassing for all concerned, except for Will, because it was completely out of his control. It wasn't, you know, he wasn't the one who made the mistake of leaving it in the car. He wasn't the one who perhaps wasn't diligent enough about getting something that had been loaned for a demo back. And man, he really let everyone know. That it was not his fault by being up there on the podium with that thing. Was it a good it's a fun thing, but was it a good look? Well, for us on the outside, it's fantastic. It's just ramped the story up tenfold. Yeah. For Will Brown, it's awesome. Yeah. That he can really ram this point home and it's part of this celebration and euphoria. Yeah. If I was supercars or if I was Triple Eight, I would have done absolutely everything I could to bury that thing and it never see the light of day because Let's not get away from the fact that this is incredibly embarrassing for both of the series and the race team. There's been a lot of back and forth on who's to blame. But ⁓ Yeah, there were no winners outside of Will Brown, who's today literally a winner. Yeah. But Jamie Winkup sat in the presser yesterday and talked about the fact that sport is about telling stories. Yep. And they put this story out there and ⁓ everyone has feasted on it. Yep, absolutely. Now you had a ⁓ A chat with Andrew Edwards, Will Brown's engineer after the race. ⁓ lovely guy, a very like an emotional guy that does ride the highs and lows of the sport, takes what he does incredibly seriously. ⁓ yeah, it sounds like it was a pretty emotional chat that you had with him. Yeah, it was ⁓ the chat that I wanted to go and do after the race. I feel like we all know that ⁓ this sport's not just about the driver. Yeah. But ⁓ obviously the narrative around all this has very much been about how it's affected Will, but certainly Andrew has has ridden the the roller coaster as much, if not more, than than Will, because not only has he had all the the self-doubt and the pressure of underperforming while at Triple Eight, but then he had a he had the extra element of the embarrassment that that He hadn't found it and the team collectively hadn't found it for six months. So I think ⁓ yeah, he's as you say, he's an emotional guy anyway, and he is somebody that does doubt himself and question himself and and obviously analyzes everything so hard. but then there's also just that connection that he's built with Will. And ⁓ when I mentioned to him that Will had specifically said on the broadcast, like thanks so much to Andrew. Who didn't give up on me through this whole process. Yeah, there was some tears in the eyes and and AE really didn't know what what to say to that. Yeah. Just because of this this thing that they've been through together. It's such a big part of this feel-good story. And it's obviously it's not the most visible part of it. But yeah, the the fact that AE has been on this ride with him, it is a big part of why this is such a feel-good story. And Also, like again, we we talk about the physical restrictor and and all of this stuff and different people will tell you different things about how much it's worth, whether it's yeah, five horsepower at the top end or six or a tenth or whatever you want to call it. But Andrew made it really clear that the difference from where they'd been to where they were today wasn't just the restrictor. And so part of it is the the release of that weight of constantly looking for something that you can't find and they could really just lock in and focus on on the setup and everything like that in the lead up to the weekend and and today. ⁓ obviously the the other side of that coin was the pressure it really added on this weekend. But Andrew did speak about the fact that Will just handles that sort of pressure so well. And I think that does tally with what we know about him. Like he is naturally a pretty self confident guys so yeah as soon as this was discovered it really flicked the switch in Will and and he just obviously rose to the occasion. Yeah and it's funny you say that about what AE was was talking about in terms of the this the restrictor wasn't the only reason why they went out and won a race today because literally as you were having that chat I was in the press conference and Will Brown was saying exactly the same thing. He said like this was not just about and that's why he made he made the point a few times during the week like We're not just expecting to go out and win because we've found this one thing. Like we're actually trying to rebuild a season that's been tough for trip by triple eight standards anyway. ⁓ and he talked about the fact that he knew that there was going to be so much pressure on him because of this. And this whole week he has just been locked locked in. And like and he's been working with AE so closely to make sure they w were gonna come out and have a good weekend this weekend. Because he knew he needed to. Because if they didn't And he's kind of he's got the luxury now that kind of whatever happens tomorrow, like it's you know, they they've they've achieved but they've overachieved probably what they even expected to do. They've got the feel good story. I'm not saying it won't be a storyline if he goes out and qualifies fifteenth tomorrow. ⁓ but yeah, it what there was a real focus on the fact that this situation had created pressure. It was so outwardly communicated by the team. about the fact they'd found this issue, they could have buried the whole thing and spoke about it after the weekend and and and not had that pressure. But I think there's people in the team that would have rather that had been the case. But I don't think one of them was Will Brown. Exactly. So I think at the very least ⁓ they felt they owed it to Will to actually air this reason as to why he's he's gone poorly. But just on the what happens tomorrow and and into the future, that was one big message from Andrew Edwards was the fact that He wasn't doing a victory lap on we're back and everything is like just back to how it was when they won the championship in twenty twenty four. This is this is a sum of various parts of what they've tried to tried to improve on, but even like they've been better on the super soft tire than they have been on the soft. And yes, they won the super soft race. They qualified well in the other one, but She was on the podium, but yeah. Yeah, but I mean Brode Castelli. Yeah, it was no ended up a fair way up the road saying with same with Matt Payne. So there's a lot of fast guys doing really well on that that tire in particular. Yeah. It's the one thing and you know, I don't think the whole finals format has been overly popular at Triple Eight ⁓ since what happened at the end of last year. But Will did say in the press conference today, like, thank God for finals. Like it just means his season is still so alive. Like if they can continue to get on top of these things like the soft tire. ⁓ he's still in the mix, despite everything that's gone on and despite how ropey his form has been for whatever reason, whether it was a the restrictor or whatever else, like there's absolutely no reason he can't win the championship this year because of that format. And he did say, I'm just so lucky with this format. Yeah, that's not lost on anyone down there. I It didn't look that lost on Paul Feeney who was sitting next to him if I can tell you right now. But the ⁓ the other side of the coin today really was Grove Racing. They look set for a one-two. They were just about to switch the cars around. Obviously, Matt Payne had a tire advantage on Kai Allen when the safety car came out for Roland Gray spearing off at turn three. It looked like it was going to be a absolute banner day for them. And they didn't get a car on the podium. I do love though, again, we talk about the strategy of Grove so much. the fact that they in both races they inserted Kai into the fight by pitting him early and running him on two tires. And just playing with this rotor roll. And and especially when they were battling with Brody and DJR who haven't had the strength of a second card. Ryland has been obviously showing a bit more lately but Groves, yeah, they're just so good at at trying to play two cards at once. Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ Brody Kastecki, a pretty good day for him, really, even though, you know, he was probably ⁓ at the start of the second race it looked like he was just toying with the field because as they were all kind of battling, he had that opportunity to bolt and he and he kinda didn't. But it felt like the race could be his to win and then he has that mistake after ⁓ well but was trying to pass Pass Kai. Pass Kai, that's right. Which was interesting because again he had the tire advantage, but it looked like he was too desperate to get it done too quickly. Yeah. ⁓ but then again th I I thought it was really interesting too that he said after the second race that at QR ⁓ it's it's felt like when you're right up behind somebody, it's actually making the car in front loose. And he was saying maybe it's just the Ford, maybe not, but ⁓ he thought that once he got Matt early in the race that he would be able to drive away and it didn't work that way. Obviously we're watching it going, ⁓ is Brody playing with him because we're so used to it being harder to follow. With the way it heats the front tire. But Brody was really saying it was the opposite today. Yeah. Yeah. But still good day. A first and a second place. A a good haul of points. And a very fast car. Like ⁓ they're obviously in a in a pretty good position. And then even Ryland Gray in the first race was quick. Obviously, he had an engine issue. They had to go through a frantic change between the races. He was really late getting out on the grid, like it was just within the nick of time for that race. And obviously he made a mistake and ended up in the sand in that race. But those DJR Mustangs are are pretty fast, but ⁓ for all of that, the biggest headline for Brody for today was that unsafe release. And when we think unsafe release, we think about a car clattering into another car as it's coming down pit lane. But in this case it was the way he stormed out of his pit box, straight through the team eighteen pit box as the team eighteen crew were setting up and their team manager Mitch Croak I mean, he almost got wiped out by the car. It's it was quite frightening. Really, how close it was. ⁓ they ended up copping a fine ⁓ and teams points, was it in the end? Yeah, thirty teams championship points. Yeah, so it was put down to a to ⁓ the a mistake by the team. it's hard to know exactly where you should apportion the blame for something like that. There's it's all I mean, the driver is still the one driving the car, but that's a pretty scary stuff. That's the sort of thing that can really go wrong and have big consequences for a human being. Yeah, it's normally something we see teams agree on allowing a car to go through their box on the way into their own, but this was on the way out and I didn't actually see it during the live no race, but they showed the onboard of Brody's actually during the cooldown room and it was sketchy. And so that was yeah, first port of call was ⁓ the team eighteen garage after that race to see what they had made of it. And ⁓ yeah, they'd already submitted something. It wasn't until after the race that they actually submitted something to race control, ⁓ asking for it to be reviewed. But there was a bit of uncertainty on what actual rule that ⁓ would have been broken there and and in the end it was actually an FIA international sporting code about don't endanger people's lives when you ⁓ exit your own pit box pretty because it didn't line up clearly to a a single supercar's rule. Yeah. yeah, so that was In the end, when you think about the potential consequences of that, doing that when there wasn't a clear deal in place between the teams, I think maybe they got off a bit lightly there. Definitely. I totally agree with that because that is often, you know, when you're coming in through someone else's pit box, that is something that's agreed upon. And this was not something that had been dis discussed. And it's not I don't know if I've ever actually seen drivers going out through a setup pit box with crew ready to execute a pit stop like that before. So It's really something you've got to have a conversation about if you're gonna have a crack at it. Yeah, and the team eighteen guys did actually have their right rear in a little bit so that Brody could go could actually drive around, not through. So that's obviously shows they weren't expecting it. Yeah. anything else we need to talk about out of today? ⁓ I guess one of the other ones in the first race was the penalty that Kyle Allen got for the contact with Chaz Moster. out of turn five when he ran him off the road. What was your take on that? I think it was one of those situations where if it wasn't penalised, I'd probably be okay with it. But I was okay with the five second penalty as well. He really didn't give him much room on the exit there. Like he'd kind of won the battle and he could have just left enough room there. And I think that he probably was far enough ahead that Chaz wasn't going to be able to at least legally get up the inside of him. into turn six there. So he probably could have just left him a bit more room. Yeah, I I wouldn't have been offended if it wasn't a penalty, but in general, I don't like seeing guys just run other blokes off the track. And in some categories like Formula One, they seem to just allow it and say the guy on the outside has no value. Yeah. ⁓ on the racetrack, which is bizarre. So yeah, I I think it was it was probably the right call. It it stood out a lot in the first race 'cause there wasn't that much action. There was so much wheel banging going on in the second race that it probably wouldn't have, yeah, stood out so much. But ⁓ Kai has ⁓ sort of emerged as a bit of a surprise modern day enforcer in the in the field. I think we really saw that at Wanneroo. He's got a taste for blood at Wanneroo when he had that clash with Brody and he's like, This is great. And he he certainly backed it up off the track with some of his comments there there too. So ⁓ Yeah, he certainly ⁓ last year he got pushed around a lot. And it's very clear in all these battles that that's not happening again. Absolutely. All right, should we leave it there? We should. Let's leave it there. Make sure you do stay tuned to speedcafe.com across Sunday because we'll have all of the news from what is hopefully an equally ⁓ interesting and exciting day at Queensland Raceway. And we'll be back in this podcast feed tomorrow night with the Sunday edition of our daily podcast.