Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / NEWS: Walkinshaw team boss quits + Grove's left-field signing
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to Full Credit to the News brought to you by Authentic Collectibles. I'm Andrew Van Loren and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomeyus. Stefan, we are in Townsville in far north Queensland. How good? It's great to be here and I'm glad you've joined us as well. What's been going on? Haven't heard from you for about a week and a half. You turn up, you're doing loads of washing like crazy. Yeah. Where have you been? ⁓ I have been right up Cape York Peninsula. ⁓ on a pretty epic camping trip. I don't think I've ever done as little work on a holiday in my whole entire life because ⁓ connectivity wasn't all that great in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Although Starlink does make it little bit easier, but yeah, it was a pretty ⁓ it was a pretty epic trick, but a lot of a lot of red dirt. So apologies to the Airbnb washing machine that's now washing all of my boardies and fishing shirts. So are you feeling fresh going into the weekend after a holiday or exhausted from the big journey? I kinda normally feel like this at the end of a race weekend, not at the start of it. But that's ⁓ but that's all right, Stefan. You know I can back up and and battle on through. We did spend the afternoon walking around the paddock in Townsville and there was some fun stuff to look at there, I gotta say, and you know that I love a yellow race car. I'm already fully on board. Those yellow DJR cars have to stay. It is great that ⁓ they've done something different. It's interesting that it's tied into this ⁓ minions movie. Mm-hmm and the connection there through some collectibles with the ⁓ shell outlets. But ⁓ a shame they couldn't actually get the licensing to put the minions themselves on the race car. It's on the pit walling. Yeah. but ⁓ not on the car. I tell you who will be most disappointed about that, and that is our fantastic sponsor of this show, Authentic Collectibles, because I reckon those yellow cars will sell a ride as a model anyway, but with the minions on it, that's what really makes them ⁓ makes them fly. What we need is for Will to make a model of this Aaron Seaton Mat Stone Racing wildcard dressed in those beautiful Peter Jackson colours celebrating the nineteen ninety-three Australian Turing Coach Championship title won by Aaron's father Glenn. We ⁓ saw some renders of that come out last week, but it looks so much better in the flesh. Some of the little details, the gold pinstriping between those stripes down the bottom. They've done a ⁓ really nice job, even though from a fan perspective, a lot of the feedback has been about the fact it's on a Chevy rather than a Ford. There is also some nice kind of heritage with the Stone Brothers and and the fact that, you know, they had backing from Peter Jackson at times ⁓ in their earlier involvement in the sport as well. Yeah, well when ⁓ Seaton had the PJ cars, the Stones were the were the brains behind DJ R at that point. So they were massive arch rivals in the Ford camp. The that battle between CEDOs and DJs was as big as any forward holding team rivalry's ever been. And then ⁓ AJ ended up, Alan Jones, pinching the PJ deal for that pack leader year in ninety six, which was then became Stone Brothers Racing in the end. But yeah, as I say a lot of fans talking about the fact that it's these colours are on a Chevy. But ⁓ I actually spoke to Glenn today and he was saying He'd been waiting three years for this ⁓ this livery to come out because originally they'd sort of talked about doing it in twenty twenty three when Aaron was in Super Two, ⁓ which would have been the anniversary of the championship. And he was running a Holden at that point. So ⁓ it didn't happen 'cause of a sponsorship. ⁓ the sponsor didn't want it, but yeah, it could have been on a holding which would have been even more controversial. Yeah, absolutely. I think just enjoy it. It looks cool and ⁓ and I'm looking forward to seeing it on track. Over the weekend, while we're talking about Townsville's specific stuff, let's have a chat about ⁓ Brody Kastecki. Obviously, you know, the kind of cloud over his fitness, having missed that race on the Sunday in Darwin. ⁓ he came into that weekend with a virus. It was we kind of later found out that, you know, there was this ⁓ back issue as well, which did seem to be the primary reason he wasn't in the car on that Sunday. you were at press events with Tom Moore. DJR team manager and Brody today. What's the sort of vibe around how he's feeling heading into the weekend? Well, the vibe was all really upbeat and that he's ready to go. neither Brody nor the team sort of wanted to talk about much ⁓ in terms of specifics that's gone on, but clearly he's done a lot of physio. ⁓ and I think Tom Moore had talked about a really good once over from a few physios and a few GPs, which was ⁓ kind of interesting. But yeah, the message from Brody is that he's ⁓ ready to race. As your washing ⁓ is done by the way. That's my washing. I'm not cutting this out. I'm not editing this. That can just stay in there. let's have a chat about some staffing movements in the supercar's paddock, starting with some news that came out a couple of days ago, and that is that ⁓ Walk and Shaw team principal Carl Foe will leave the team after the Bathus one thousand this year. He's obviously been a pivotal figure, particularly through this transition to Toyota, heavily involved in the development of the car, particularly on the engine side. ⁓ Yeah, ⁓ a it's been his decision to leave the team. ⁓ I think it's a sad loss for the paddock. yeah, what are your what are your thoughts on the Bathers timing is the interesting part of this for me? Yeah, especially ⁓ for a race team that last year told us that they'd ⁓ strategically planned for the finals the whole year. Yeah. ⁓ and this year the plan now has the ⁓ team principal and the architect of this Toyota project leaving at such a critical time that ⁓ That did raise the eyebrows, but as you say, it was his call. ⁓ it's easy to forget what a huge workload that that was, that whole Toyota thing. Yeah. ⁓ and he ended up taking a six week, I think, break. sort of didn't do the New Zealand events, ⁓ went on a holiday to Vietnam and really tried to recharge the batteries. But I wonder if that ⁓ made him realise that ⁓ the grind and the politics and just everything involved in supercars was ⁓ Something he didn't didn't need on a day to day basis. Yeah, absolutely. It's I do kind of wonder if the Bathurst timing might have something to do with the fact that that's when they are expected to roll out or finish the roll out of this fix to the valve train issue that they've been having with that Toyota engine. And perhaps that's the point at which he kind of feels comfortable to say, Right, I've delivered what I said I was gonna deliver, which is a fast, reliable race car, if this fix does do the job. And maybe that's something to do with the timing of this as well. Yeah, I mean that whole engine program done through Swindon in the UK, which was obviously his connection. ⁓ so yeah, that's a good point about the timing. But ⁓ we should also I guess just point out the fact that he's also ticked all the boxes really. ⁓ he had wanted to to be in charge of a new car project, which obviously he's done now with Toyota, but to have won a Bathurst with Holden and to win a championship with a Ford, ⁓ he's certainly ⁓ Certainly done what he would have set out to do. Absolutely. All right. Let's move on to Groves now because they've made a signing. They've signed Alex Lieske from Germany, who was part of Porsche's a number of Porsche programs, right? Mainly former E. Yeah. ⁓ so he's come on as head of simulation and performance engineering, reporting to head of race engineering, Jack Bell. This is just another sort of sign of the way the Groves march to the beat of their own drum when it comes to signing people. Isn't it? And I guess, you know, ⁓ on you could say is it a great idea to be looking outside of supercars for talent, but the whole Ricardo Corday thing has kind of proven that yeah, it can really work. It's hard to doubt them right now when they have had some key pieces come out of the puzzle there with David Cauchy, their team principal, and their technical director, Grant McPherson, who'd both come from Triple Eight, ⁓ have departed. And ⁓ they're at the top of Pit Lane. As you say, Ricardo's ⁓ come in and and they had maybe one or two rounds where ⁓ he had to get up to speed and he's been flying ever since. ⁓ and then to bring someone in with so much data analysis and simulation experience, I believe he's he's clued into the sim program they already use at Grove. So, yeah, there's just so much emphasis on that part of race teams now with it's being a spec car. Yeah. that ⁓ all of that is where the resources go. Well we've sort of seen TICFA do the same thing, right? Like they brought in a data engineering specialist and sim specialist from Europe. Yeah. So it will be interesting to see if there's more and more of this in the years to come. ⁓ somebody in the paddock was was saying too that like there is a little bit of a shortage of of sort of local talent in that area as well, which could be could be driving it. But ⁓ certainly an interesting development. I guess it does kind of also raise the question about what will Groves do if Matt Payne does leave at the end of twenty twenty seven as we expect him to in terms of a replacement for him because ⁓ we've kind of seen them go both ways on on driver signings. Obviously signing Matt Payne in the first place was there was risk attached to that, given the fact that he was unproven at that level. They took Kai Allen on as a rookie, which just pounced on the fact that DJR let him go and got him in the car, which that's paid dividends as well. We've seen them on the Enduro front flirt with overseas talent. They'd obviously I think they'd love to have Matt Campbell in the car pretty much any time that they that they could. it's but then you know, if you look at their Enduro lineup this year, it's highly experienced supercars drivers in there as opposed to overseas talent. ⁓ there were some comments from Brenton ⁓ in the last couple of days about about their kind of contingency plans. And he did say that overseas talent is is on the radar for them. Yeah, and he said that in the context of we'll look everywhere, whether it's local, international, or within the category currently. So this was part of the whole thing about they wanted Matt to see out his contract so they would actually have the time. Yeah. They've got the option now to either, yeah, in that case go to a an international and have a bit of lead time, or they could actually start up a super two program and blood someone for a year and then there's a lot more people coming off contract for twenty eight than there is available for next year. So it's hard to frame a market on which way it'll go. Yeah. ⁓ but it is with them because they could literally go in any of those directions. It's the one team that does seem to you know have it it's happy to to Yeah, fish outside what you would think is the regular pond. And usually when you get to the point where you are the best team, you can just look up and down Pit Lane and say, Well, let's take that guy. But it's just not exactly how they work. And I think it's interesting too that like three months ago you probably would have said, Well, they might need a shop for a superstar within supercars to really be the the strike force for their race team. But the way Kai Allen's come on Yeah. Like it doesn't matter how young he is, he is ⁓ yeah, a genuine star. So ⁓ they they could still go down that road of bringing in another young gun. Let's finish up having a chat about parody, everyone's favourite topic, obviously, because interestingly, out of Darwin, the Toyota and the Camaro triggered the parody trigger. It's always hard. It's gonna trigger the trigger. ⁓ but even though Anton Di Pasquale won a race ⁓ there and we kind of saw that earlier in the year with the Toyota doing so after I can't remember the exact details, but after a win or after a a a good performance or or whatever. there's no changes being made for this weekend. It was reviewed, as is the process. ⁓ no changes to either the Supra or the Camaro, but we do understand that this has led to Supercars Feeling like it probably has to look into this parity trigger system and determine if the trigger is being triggered too easily and if so, what a potential solution from next season onwards could be. Yeah. So this is the ⁓ parity review system that they introduced this year, which reintroduced a formal trigger process and it's a very complex mathematical equation. Yeah. that ⁓ essentially uses lap time data and results from the races ⁓ for a a number of cars from each manufacturer and then ⁓ equates it to a sixty second lap time and and if it's ⁓ yeah if the delta is such they'll review parity on certain cars. But yeah it's ⁓ it's going off all the time even when the parties that then get a a review process triggered aren't actually aggrieved at what's going on. Yeah. which y the GM guys probably shouldn't be aggrieved considering they've gotten two ⁓ two parody free kicks and they won the last race. So But that but you're right, they don't seem to be. I mean we spoke to a GM team principal today who was talking about the fact that they are finding that repeatability with set up and sort of stuff that they didn't have at the start of the year and they're pretty comfortable with where they're at with the car. And the on track in Darwin, it kind of felt like anyone was in the mix. Yeah, I mean everyone would always like more, but I think they've ⁓ they've gotten away with a fair bit ⁓ already this year. So yeah, it's one of those ones. So now there's there's too many reviews going on. So what's the answer? You review the review system and see what you get out of that. Mm-hmm. Interesting. All right. I reckon we are going to leave it there for this podcast. We will be back With the first of our daily podcast ⁓ tomorrow night, Friday evening, after the first one hundred kilometer race in Townsville. Don't forget there is a race on tomorrow on Friday. ⁓ so we'll be back to review all of that and of course on Saturday and Sunday as well. And between now and then make sure you stay tuned to Speed Cafe for all of the breaking news and reaction and everything that's happening on track at the NTI Townsville 500.