Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / The Bend 500 daily: Saturday
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to the Saturday edition of our daily podcast from the AirTouch 500 at the bend. My name is Andrew Van Leuren and I'm currently driving a car owned by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomew's, as he sits in the passenger seat working away diligently. But Stefan, it's time to stop that so we can have a chat about what was a pretty interesting day at the car races. It started with more parody drama, it ended with Ford's well on top after, well, not so much qualifying, but the top 10 shootout. What did you make of it? How was your day? Well, undoubtedly one of the most turbulent and traumatic twenty-four hour periods in the history of the sport. It's a huge statement, but it's something that came from someone very senior in the paddock today who's seen a fair bit. And ⁓ I think it ⁓ it summarizes it well. Yeah, let's run through basically what has happened since we finished recording the Friday edition of the Daily Podcast where we spoke about the fact that we were awaiting a statement from Number of Ford teams, perhaps all of the Ford teams, in response to the parity adjustment that had been made to the Camaro. We weren't sure if that was going to include any references to legal action of supercars acting outside of the TRC in the changes that were made to the Camaro that it believed had pushed the arrow outside of the parity box. That statement was initially meant to come last night, then it was meant to come at eight o'clock this morning ⁓ and it never arrived because there was a resolution that appeased the forward side of the fence and that was to make a 0.3 degree change to the maximum allowed wing level so that's minus 0.3 degrees and effectively take a bit of down force away from the back end of the car. That kept the forward side happy but suddenly the Camaro side sorry the Chevrolet side was very unhappy again and that's effectively how it played out and we just went from yeah, one one side being at least half satisfied with what they'd got and the other side being furious that it'd been allowed to the furious side being happy, the happy side being furious and Toyota not saying too much at all about any of them. Yeah, there was obviously a lot going on when we left the circuit last night. ⁓ and in that meeting yesterday evening Had been Jamie Winkup representing Triple Eight and then ⁓ Stephen and Brent and Grove from Grove Racing and those guys left that meeting with supercars with no indication that there was going to be this change forthcoming. Yeah. So those guys went and spoke to the other four teams and they all individually sent letters of dispute, so legal letters to supercars. ⁓ notifying that they were entering a dispute phase with the team's racing charter contract, ⁓ which obviously ⁓ caused quite a bit of concern amongst the Supercars Chiefs who I believe were at a dinner at the circuit at the time ⁓ being hosted by Sam Shahin. So ⁓ yeah there was a lot ⁓ happened then in the next sort of twelve hours after that, including some discussions there last night with team eighteen. presumably on how do we ⁓ how do we actually solve this. And ⁓ this morning then Supercars met with Triple Eight and proposed this point three degree wing change to the Camaro and that was agreed just before eight o'clock, which is when the ⁓ the statement was gonna come out publicly from all the the four teams about the fact they're entering this dispute phase. So things ⁓ A lot of things happen in ⁓ relatively short period of time. ⁓ yeah, so we had some pretty interesting conversations on both sides of the divide today. We did speak to General Motors Supercars program boss Simon McNamara about the whole thing and he made it very clear to us on the record that he felt that this was a short-sighted move from effectively this triple A Grove Racing Alliance to to mount this challenge. in the aggressive way that they did. He didn't feel that I mean the supercar statement this morning said that this decision was based on data out of practice and he questioned whether good enough data could be collated through practice sessions that particularly ones that include co-driver only running. ⁓ And that yeah he he didn't feel this was for the good of the sport, but that it was for factors outside of car performance that the decision had ultimately been made. Yeah, and ⁓ the the good of the sport argument does get used by aggrieved parties in these circumstances. Obviously the the grievance on the other side was that by permitting these aero changes that put them outside of the parody box that was going against the premise of a level playing field that the category that the sport is based on. Yeah. So clearly two sides to that. I think the external view seemed to be about how it all went down and that the sport has now fundamentally changed, where in the old days the team owners would thrash things out really aggressively, either between themselves or with the series, but engaging the lawyers is a whole nother level. And clearly the Groves have led that and that's because that's how they do business. They run a big business empire that has lots of big contracts ⁓ that ⁓ people need to be held to so I don't say that as any sort of slight on those guys. No. Yeah. But yeah there's there's a famous old Bernie Eccleston quote about the fact that F1 changed forever once the lawyers got involved. Yeah. And ⁓ yeah there was a bit of that feeling around the paddock today. Yeah, there definitely was. We did have a good chat with Jamie Winkup about the whole thing as well and and his view on it was very simple and that is that there's a parody box and once a car is outside of it. Yeah, as you say, the level playing field was gone and you know, he said they were going to they were going to murder us. We we felt like we were about to get murdered. And we went to supercars and said, You're about to murder us if you do that, which is pretty aggressive language, but that was the starting point of these discussions that ultimately led through these legal challenges and everything to the kind of mess that we found ourselves in by lunchtime today. Yeah, so there's a technical discussion about What do we do as well? Because to to wind it back once you're at the race meeting, that's part of why this is so extraordinary. We've seen arrow changes between events that cause quite a commotion, but they had to find something where they could wind back the downforce a bit without actually changing parts because I'm sure if supercars said, Can you bloke a GM put the old skids back on it? They would have said, Well, we don't have ⁓ here. Yeah. Whether they do or not. Yeah. You don't you don't voluntarily put Worst parts on the car. So by actually changing the wing angle, that was something that could actually practically be done. And the teams were only told about this 15 odd minutes before practice four this morning. So it came in as a rule from practice five at midday, but obviously the GN teams wanted to feel out the different balance as soon as they could. Yeah. So ⁓ they were they were running it there in practice four. Let's move on to some of the ⁓ what we did actually see on track. Now we We did end up with a Camaro on provisional pole via Anton Di Pasquale. There was what, another three Camaros in the top ten shootout, is that right? I'm obviously I'm driving, I can't look at the results. Yeah, well they got every team in there. ⁓ Matt Stone Racing with with the Zach Bates car, Erebus Motorsport with the Job Stewart car and ⁓ Premier Racing through Jaden Ojada. So if you looked at that and excluded the fact that there were no Toyotas in the top ten at all ⁓ it kind of looked like hey, maybe this has worked, but by the end of the top ten shootout, man, there was a lot of blue at the top there. I mean a top four lockout for Mustangs led by Brody Kastecki from Matt Payne, Cam Waters and Tommy Randall, Anton Di Pasquale in fifth place, and then a bit more blue before we see any saw any more gold, ⁓ from memory. Yeah, well it's interesting with Chevy sort of moving in a in a bunch because they all by and large tend to follow the the setup and data direction of Anton Di Pasqually because they're all in this GM alliance. So obviously they they do go their own way a little bit, but they kind of ⁓ yeah fall in behind where Anton is. But yeah you mentioned obviously Brody getting the poll. It was a little bit of an unusual build up ⁓ to that for them. They were actually last in that practice live session. Yeah. Which clearly wasn't where they were going to be. ⁓ a lot of talk from Brody tonight as you'd expect about focusing on the race car. Sort of stuff, but yeah, that was ⁓ interesting. One of the more bizarre Brody Kastecki moments I saw today was when I thought it might be worth wandering over to the Transam paddock after Todd Hazelwood and James Moffat had had a bit of a dust-up in the second Trans Am race. And seeing Brody Kastecki and Tom Moore already there, basically grabbing Br ⁓ Todd, sticking him on a golf cart, and getting him the heck out of the Trans Am. Before he even had a chance to confront James about what had happened on track, Todd obviously felt like the aggrieved party, a term we've used a lot in this podcast already, in that ⁓ in that moment, they got him the heck out of there and into an ice bath in the DJR tie tent as quickly as they could. It was perhaps some very smart management of ⁓ of someone that they didn't need getting himself into any trouble with a hot head after a crash in a support category race. Todd Hazelwood, one of the world's nicest blokes, having a swing at someone was ⁓ not on my list for the weekend. Yeah, well, it was obviously on Brody's list and he made sure there was no chance of it happening because he was there very fast. So that was ⁓ one of the more interesting sort of ⁓ side acts of the day. I'm sure it would have gone through their mind too whether he had actually copped any sort of injury any shoulder or anything out of that, because that's the the risk of competing in the support category. Yep. He yeah he did time attack last ⁓ weekend and got through that, obviously. But yeah, once you start banging wheels and and all of that sort of stuff in a big car like a Trans Am, yeah can't tweak something. Definitely can. I mean, we talked about the fact that no Toyota's in the top ten, or I referenced it at least. They just didn't really seem at the races today. Chase Mostert topped a practice session, but once it really came down to business it just didn't feel like any of the five Supras were really in the hunt. They are laying low in this parody storm. They're sort of the forgotten player at the moment. ⁓ and we do know that they ⁓ made a request for a change because they triggered the parody review as well and they got denied. But we believe that was their big thing is around COG. They're keen for this centre of gravity testing to take place, which Supercars is committed to ⁓ redoing the C O G testing with more cars than they did at the start of the year, so They're hoping to get a little bit of a gain out of that. They're also one of the parties that's very keen on the engine braking discussion at the moment, whether they're going to allow teams and drivers to choose different engine maps to tune that up. But I think for this weekend the Toyota guys are just hoping to avoid their engines braking. So just laying low and getting through this race seems to be the go at the moment. Any tips on how tomorrow's going to play out? I mean there's for all of the or for all the blue cars or you know, the Mustangs at the front of the field, that's still a pretty tasty prospect. ⁓ some very good primaries and co drivers going at it. Yeah, well I I tipped ⁓ the seventeen car at the start of the week and I'm certainly not getting off that horse now. ⁓ I do love that Matt Payne Will Davison combination though, who will share the front row. And nothing in it in the shootout between Brady and Matt either. Yeah. And ⁓ Daivo ⁓ was talking in the press this evening about how relaxed Matt is. ⁓ obviously very focused, but it's just funny seeing those two together that we know Davo's so intense, so sort of wound up. ⁓ he said if he could start his career all over again he'd probably try to ⁓ be more like Matt. I'm not sure whether you can change those things about yourself though, but that was interesting. Obviously Cam Waters, Mark Winterbottom. Third, they've sort of been all over the map, sort of chasing the car. Every everyone's chasing the track obviously through the weekend. It is one of those tracks that changes a lot through the day. So you're sort of yeah, trying to evolve the car but also dealing with this moving beast. And then ⁓ a lot of drivers talking about ⁓ dirt on the track too. Obviously that turn five ⁓ is affecting things quite a lot. So yeah, there's A ⁓ few good contenders and a few good variables to throw at them through the race. Well, we may be talking about fuel saving tomorrow, but I'm gonna talk about it right now because there's a big orange light on your dash glaring at me and I'm having a fair bit of range anxiety. So I think we're gonna leave the podcast there and I'm gonna focus on that. ⁓ we will of course be covering everything that happens on Sunday at the bend on speedcafe.com. So keep an eye out for all the news, all the race and session reports and everything. From the bend and we'll be back with a Sunday edition of our daily podcast tomorrow night.