Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / NEWS: Bathurst 1000 latest + new Perth circuit insight
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to Full Credit to the News brought to you by Authentic Collectibles. My name is Andrew Van Lorn and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomew. Stefan, I'm going to call this our Bathur Week Eve pod because this time, in two days, we will be sitting around together at our home away from home in the shadow of Mount Panorama. How exciting is that? It is a hugely exciting time of the year for us. All roads lead to Bathurst at this point, and there's a lot of news around. that whole event at the moment. But before we get into that, let's talk about the big motorsports story. The Perth Royal show. I was pretty dubious when you told me the other day you were heading to the show on ⁓ work duties. Yeah. But you've ⁓ you've come back with the goods. Yeah, I think I have. earlier ⁓ this week, or last week, however you want to frame it, we caught onto the fact that the WA government actually had a supercar simulator. With a proper Perth Street Circuit simulation on it set up at the Perth Royal Show at one of its ⁓ at one of its kind of ⁓ Department of Infrastructure or government sort of exhibitions there. So on Thursday evening I grabbed the kids and forked out most of my life savings at my own cost, I must say. This might be the most expensive news story that I've ever got personally, to be honest. ⁓ and I went to Claremont and I went looking for this simulator and I found it. And I can say now that I've had my first. proper taste of the Perth Street Circuit. Well, I saw in the ⁓ the paraphernalia that you'd sent a photo of back to me that was there. There was a Mark Scafe description of the racetrack. So before I get yours, this was how Scafey had described it. He said it will reward the very best drivers and engineers as it is definitely not an engine power or straight line speed dependent layout. That to me says A lot of corners in a short space of time. Yeah, I think that's fairly fair. They probably should have ⁓ spell checked Mark Scape's name on that ⁓ on the brochure they were handing out as well, because it wasn't quite right. But ⁓ anyway, yeah, no, look, it was it was really the whole experience was interesting because there was a lot more ⁓ detail than I've actually kind of seen formally announced at any point about the circuit. So things like the exact length. I think initially they were talking about 3.4 kilometres. ⁓ this documentation they were handing out at the show says it's three point zero three kilometers. there was a fair bit of predicted corner speed data, top speed data. ⁓ I think they're saying the average speed is going to be what's it say 143 kilometers an hour, which would put it at around a minute fifteen second lap. There was like a leaderboard of the the punters that it had to go at this simulator. They were around the sort of minute. twenty. I think that's around sort of where I was as well. But that was like doing two laps of it. So I'm holding a dag with dog, I assume as well. Exactly. I think you can find the five seconds fairly quickly there. But yeah, top speed they've got at 240 kilometres an hour. That's on the the sort of riverside run back towards the the casino on out of turn two and into turn three. But it is pretty I mean it's it's described here in this in this brochure they're handing out as a As sort of a bull ring, and that is kind of how it how it definitely feels. So I'll sort of try and run you through a lap the the best I can. ⁓ to the front straight heads down towards the stadium. They reckon it's going to be 225 kilometers kilometers an hour max speed along the front straight, and it sort of goes into a what they're saying is going to be a 150k an hour left hand sweeper that immediately becomes a really tight left hander. So think if you can get your brain around this about turns nine and ten at bar range. Does that make sense to you? That that kind of you sort of go into a sweeper and then into a stop corner? Two of my favourite corners in the world. Just iconic. There you go. But no, you know, you know what I mean. That sort of that kind of thing. So, and then there's the longest straight, which as I just referenced, is the blast along the river back towards Crown Towers. So ⁓ predicted max speed of 240 there into a 65 kilometer ⁓ left hand almost hairpin. And that will be the best overtaking opportunity because you'll sort of struggle to pass into turn one and two because of the Kink, but you have a chance to unsettle the car in front and then get a run down the straight and pass into that big, big stop into turn three. After that, there's a long, flowy, mid-speed sort of section that kind of feels Townsville-esque, I reckon. ⁓ there's sort of a fast issue cane through turns four and five, and a big sweeper through six, and then another kink into a corner at a eight. I don't think you'll see much passing through there, just the way the track flows. Then there's another few flowing corners, and then a decent straight back down towards Crown Towers again. into what is basically a wide hair pin at turn twelve, which is the last corner, which will be a genuine passing opportunity as well. So I think turns three and twelve is where the passing will get done. ⁓ but it the whole thing's gonna be ⁓ gonna be fairly ⁓ fairly tight, that's for sure. Obviously these things can be different ⁓ on the sim compared to the real world, but what did it sort of look like? Was there it was it did it look like a park or was it concrete walls up against the the apexes and things like that? ⁓ it it looked ⁓ I reckon it felt a a fair bit like a Townsville sort of setup. It didn't feel like you were driving up to the wall. ⁓ the walls came at you pretty quick if you if you threw it off the road, which again I'm not an expert sim racer. ⁓ so that was ⁓ and it was sort of professional sim gear, so it was pretty easy to throw it off the road. So the you you could hit a wall easily enough, but no, you weren't driving it up against the wall like you do at an Adelaide, for example. It was more like a the mid the the sort of reed park section of Townsville where. Where it yeah, it felt like a parkland circuit and that's what we've really expected of it. Yeah, great. Well I know you've got some video ⁓ coming of this that ⁓ will go up online on the weekend, so ⁓ everyone should go and check it out. Yeah. And in case you were wondering, a White Suffolk U beat a Black Suffolk Ram for the coveted Supreme interbreed ribbon in the sheep shed on Thursday evening as well. I know you were sweating on the result of the big prize at the Royal Show there, Stefan, so I just wanted to bring you up to date on that one. Being from Adelaide, ⁓ I'm more about the wood shopping. That's what we're doing. Of course. ⁓ and some sort of butterfly eradication competition as well. If that was ⁓ if that was a thing, I would imagine would be up your alley. But anyway, let's get back to Bathurst. ⁓ nothing says Bathurst Week in the Gen 3 era, like a huge parody dust up, Stefan. And it seems that we've got one once again this year. We're realistically only, I mean, we're we're only a handful of days away from track action, right? And we still have question marks over. Three of the key pillars of parody, and that's engine arrow and center of gravity. Where does it all stand right now? Let's start with ⁓ start with whatever where do things stand right now as we as we literally head into Bathiswig. Yeah, well we haven't got one parody dust up, we've got three or four. Yep. And now with three players in the mix for each each one too. So ⁓ the the summary on that is there are spot fires and loose ends everywhere. And there's still more questions than answers, despite how close we are to actually ⁓ seeing the cars on track next week. But certainly the big piece is around the barometric pressure testing with the engines. It was obviously a huge talking point at the event last year. Ford pushed really hard for that testing to be done, but it wasn't completed in time. It was only an interim report that was handed down before the race last year, and they were ultimately denied a change. So somehow. It's 12 months later and Supercars is again scrambling to get this done. I do have a fair bit of empathy for Supercars on this because their engine department has been hugely busy this year with the Toyota program, but it's yeah still it's not a good look. So they've spent the last couple of days making changes to the dyno to get it ready. And I understand they'll start the testing either tonight, Friday night, or tomorrow. So there's ⁓ some noise being made ⁓ up there on the weekend. And on the aero front, do we think there's gonna be any changes? Well, this has certainly been a lot quieter than the engine stuff since the bend, but Triple Eight did come out publicly and say that they wanted it to be looked at again. And I think some of the thinking around that was hey, if there were changes made to the Camaro before the bend due to performance, because Supercars was quite openly stating that that's why they were making changes to the Camaro. What happens if the center of gravity testing shows that the Camaro's been carrying more weight than it should? Do you then start to unpick these other changes that you've been making as well? So again, nobody actually knows where this is gonna land, but ⁓ there's certainly been a lot less talk about it ⁓ than the engines, other than the fact that supercar's actually reducing the rear wing angle on the Camaro midway through the bend weekend to slow it down. Could make that thing even quicker in a straight line. That's ⁓ that's sort of where the ⁓ the conversation's going with all that. Yeah, it just seems to get messier every year, somehow. When we just when you think it can't, it definitely does. ⁓ and is there anything sort of COG wise that we expect to happen or that we I mean, we do expect there to be some some tweaks, but in the scheme of engine and aero stuff it's minor, right? Yeah, again the HTs on this one are still arguing it out. They ⁓ did the testing straight after the bend with ⁓ with ten cars down in Melbourne. But ⁓ yeah, they're scrapping over some tiny, tiny differences in the COG height, which is just like hundredths of a second per lap around Bathur. So this is probably the ultimate storm in a teacup, but again they talk about technical parity, so everyone is pushing their own cause and pushing for it to be Absolutely absolutely bang on. But ⁓ yeah, we'll see again there'll be there'll be people having to add ballast or adjust ballast ⁓ at the track because this hasn't been resolved before the cars get sent. Sounds like it's gonna be a fun Wednesday when we roll into the paddock at ⁓ at Mount Panorama to see what's going on with all this stuff. Well, unfortunately, I feel like it's it's not gonna stop when the cars hit the track this year. Yeah. Because the way that supercars handled the parody at the bend where they came out on the Saturday and said that they were making another change based on practice speed. Now, regardless of whatever else was happening in the background with legal letters and TRC clauses and everything, that's what they said, that they changed it because of the performance of the Camaras in practice. I think this has just massively, massively opened the door to sandbagging all the way up until the race. Yeah. And I mean realistically it didn't end when the cars hit the track last year, either did it, for Bathurst. I mean There were no changes made, but the politiquing and all that sort of stuff, boy, that went right on to the the eleventh hour at that event. So it just feels like this is what Bathis has kind of kind of become for ⁓ well, I'd say for good or for bad, but it's obviously for bad it's not ⁓ it's not all that much fun, but gives us something to go and chase. So that's what we will be doing. All right, now for some news from our dear dear friends at Authentic Collectibles, who teased a very special model just in time for Bathurst, and they reckon you won't want to miss it. It's a 118 scale exclusive limited edition and will be available online and at the mountain next week. Stay tuned for the official announcement on Monday, the 5th of October. Authentic Collectibles driven by passion, made for collectors. I know what this is, Stefan. And whatever the limited edition number is, you can take one off it because I've already earmarked one for myself with our friend William Hall. And for anyone coming to the full credit live show next Wednesday night that is inclined to collect models, you are in for a treat. Let me put it that way. So you're not giving us any clues on on what that is? Not my news to ⁓ to break. You do one you do know I love breaking other people's news, Stefan. It's what I ⁓ what I live for. But in this case, I've ⁓ I'm not gonna do that. But yeah, have a look next Monday. I think you're gonna like what is coming. All right, let's finish up with a bit of A bit more supercar silly season news, but not this supercar silly season, Stefan. Not for 2027. I'm talking about the 2028 or pre 2028 silly season because we had a chat with Matt Payne during the week and we probed him on his future. ⁓ and sort of based on some whispers that we'd heard that there are no guarantees that he'll be on the supercar's grid at all beyond 2027. Obviously, we know that he's been quartered by GM. There was perhaps a push to try and get him over to the GM side for next season. That's not gonna happen. He's gonna be with Grove Racing till the end of next season. What happens beyond that? You know, does he end up in a GM supercar or does he disappear from supercars at all? As I said, we put it to him. He did not shut it down at all, did he? The idea that he might leave supercars altogether. No, he wasn't ready to ⁓ to commit to anything. And so this is a storyline that's gonna bubble on and on until ⁓ They're actually ready to talk about what the plan is. But ⁓ certainly his manager, Michael Patrese, has been open about believing that Matt is an international level talent. So you kind of get the get the feeling from it all that Matt's not a guy that's just gonna go round and round in circles in supercars for his whole career. Like it's probably a matter of time before he really has a crack overseas. But yeah, whether that's twenty twenty eight or not, I guess it would depend on on opportunities. It's it's hard to see GM ⁓ in the case that's been spoken about so much wanting to pay him big money to to not drive a supercar when when they need stars here. Yeah, that's the bit that that I always struggle to make sense with. ⁓ that yeah, ⁓ how does this whole thing work? And ⁓ yeah, even if ⁓ even if you got a one or two year commitment from him, is that really what GM needs? Are they really going to spend a lot of money to have a driver that's then disappearing to. These are all just the I'm sure there's a formula here that that does make sense, but these are the bits that I keep sort of struggling to piece together and go, okay, well this is what the pathway must be. Well yeah I feel like there's just as many question marks on the GM's future at the moment as there is on Matt Payne's as well. So there's yeah there's a bit on both sides. Good point. All right that will do us for this week the Bahrain Grand Prix which obviously is being held at Sipang in Malaysia is already underway. How much you practice going on in the background as we record this pod right now. ⁓ there's some very nice ⁓ day and evening sessions for us here in Australia thanks to the time zone in Malaysia. So we'll have all of that covered on Speed Cafe across the weekend, including live updates and all the session reports, reaction to news. So stay tuned to the site for that. And full credit to the noise, we'll be back in this podcast feed next Tuesday morning.