Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / Ipswich Super440 daily: Sunday
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to the Sunday edition of our daily podcast from the Ipswich Super 440. My name is Andrew Van Leon, and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomew. Stefan, another dramatic day of Supercars Racing at Queensland Raceway. Definitely didn't play out the way that we thought it would in terms of the sprint cup. It felt like Matt Payne couldn't lose it, but a what was it, a camshaft sensor? Crank angle sensor. Crank angle sensor, yeah. Right. Okay. Well, that's ⁓ that can prove pretty costly in these things. Luckily, Brenton Grove said earlier in the weekend that he didn't care about winning this thing because they didn't. Well, it's ⁓ just goes to show that no thing is a sure thing. Nope. ⁓ and none of us really talked up this battle at all. Brock said that ⁓ Matt had one hand and four fingers on the trophy heading into the weekend. Even the Supercars media call on the Thursday featuring Brock had two wild cards in there, it wasn't a Brock and Matt kind of thing that was being played up at all. And then yeah, the the shock of seeing Matt pull that thing into the garage and the crankshaft didn't know where it was, so it was dropping cylinders. Yep. And ⁓ yeah, that's not something they could replace during the race and and get the points they needed. Well, I mean the second they went a lap down, it was done right. He had to finish seventeenth, given the fact that Brock Veney was leading the race and went on to win the race. So it was sort of game over from that perspective. Obviously a long way to go in the championship itself, but it's kind of yeah, it's I I think you you'd have to feel deep down a little disappointed to have done so much good work across that first half of the season and not get something out of it, even though they have continually said from a team perspective that it doesn't matter. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, it feels like it would have been Right in a way to see Matt and Groves win the Sprint Cup. But we said the same thing last year with Brock Feeney and the whole championship. So yeah. It's just the way it goes. Maybe slightly awkward that Triple Eight supplies the engines to all the four teams and that's what let them down. That was brought up to me in the paddock as well this evening. but Brent and Groves certainly had some ⁓ fighting words, not about that, but just just in general that now you'll see what we're made of. He was pretty bullish about pressing on and and to be honest, I didn't actually speak to Matt, but certainly he spoke really well on the broadcast. Yeah. Obviously disappointed, but ⁓ he didn't seem too devastated in the paddock. No, he seemed quite up. He's pretty relaxed, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's ⁓ that's definitely the case. It was kind of a day of redemption for well, we saw the day of redemption for Will Brown yesterday, and that kind of played into this morning when Will took pole position for the race with the shootout lap. It was quite interesting that He really celebrated that that lap hard as he crossed the line and obviously saw the time and the position on his dash. And it was quite interesting. He was kind of the the response from Andrew Edwards was just calm down, mate. There's actually another car to run because Guy Allen hadn't done his lap at that point. ⁓ but it kind of felt to me like that celebration was as much about out qualifying Brock, who we know is an incredible. Incredible qualifier, and that is really where he has had the edge on Will for a long time. Take restrictors or whatever out of it going back into last season. So I think that one really meant something to him to get one up over a lap on Brock. But then the race was kind of Brock's redemption story, having been overshadowed by Will all through yesterday. He made a strong start to the race, went door to door with Will through turns one and two, big move around the outside into three, and that set up. A win that ultimately yielded the sprint cup. It's funny how this dynamic is so suddenly shifted back to what it was early days, twenty-four, obviously, and then probably the first bit of last year, where you really saw these two guys at similar sort of stages of their careers pushing each other so hard. And we just have have missed that recently. Yeah. But ⁓ yeah, that lap one, Brock ⁓ was talking afterwards about the fact that If that wasn't a teammate, he probably wouldn't have hung on around the outside because you'd expect to get fed off. But you know the teammate probably can't do that ⁓ without getting into some serious trouble with the team. So he sort of took advantage of that situation, but then he just gapped him. I think he pulled seven seconds on him in that first stint. So yeah, Brock afterwards was saying that he was probably more satisfied to win the race than the actual sprint cup. Yeah, I w I was actually thinking on the first lap, if we think back to the first lap of I think it was the first race. ⁓ no, it was the second race yesterday where ⁓ Will gave Chaz a massive hip and shoulder between turns one and two when they were running next to each other. But obviously that's just not something you're gonna do when you're running next to and he was on the outside on the inner. So those guys are mates but not teammates. Exactly. So it's ⁓ it's all on. Yeah. ⁓ so Yeah, what did you make of the race? Brody Kastecki ended up second in the race. ⁓ Will Brown dropped back to to third. Very it's it's quite weird that we talk about Will Brown going backwards in a race, not forwards, 'cause we're used to obviously the that the idea that he he doesn't qualify so well and then moves forward. ⁓ but Brody, he seemed pretty upset about some lap traffic and seemed to say after the race that it could have been a lot closer with Brock if he didn't have a few roadblocks along the way. Yeah, he was pretty frustrated with a lack of blue flags, ⁓ said he was following people for for ages and getting aerowash and all that sort of thing, or at least it was affecting him. Yeah. But yeah, the way that middle part of the race played out where Brody and ⁓ Brock were were going a bit longer and there was other guys coming through on fresher tires, passing them, like Ken Waters dive bomb Brock Feeney into turn three, ⁓ big time where Brock said he thought he was going to get taken out. ⁓ and that was that little period where Marty Short was trying to run Brock longer to get a bit of tire advantage on Brody to protect them on the way home. But the combination of of Brock getting a bit affected by that traffic that was trying to pass him. Yeah and then they had a bit of a slow coupling ⁓ with the fuel on the stop and it was a lot tighter than they had ⁓ planned it to be. It was just over a second between Brock back to Brody when Brock finally came out. of the pits there. ⁓ he was able to drive away as we saw. But ⁓ yeah, it all got a bit tight on them. It definitely did. Obviously the kind of headline engine issue in the race was Matt Payne because of how costly it was in terms of the sprint cut. But some troubling signs seeing Chaz Mostett roll to a halt. Well not roll to a halt, but have to limp back to pit lane, pull into the garage and was ultimately ruled out of the race with ⁓ an engine issue as well, which is on the B spec Toyota, which is meant to be the big reliability upgrade. ⁓ yeah, you'd reckon there's a bit of nervousness around Walking Shaws this evening. Yeah, well you were down there in the garage afterwards. What was the vibe like? Because the the view from the outside is that is a huge, huge concern. Yeah. ⁓ I think the mood was at that point one of just complete. uncertainty. So at that point they hadn't been able to easily diagnose the problem. It did seem that it wasn't as clear. It wasn't clear in terms of like if it was the same problem that they'd been suffering before, they'd learned how to diagnose that very quickly. So their plan as we left the track that were there pulling the engine out of that car. In most cases, in normal circumstances, they would have taken the car back to the workshop, pulled the engine out, done their own diagnostic work, and then got supercars involved sort of as they need, but given the fact that all the teams are staying in Queensland until at Wednesday, in in a lot of cases for the ride day, but more importantly for the Enduro test, they were pulling the engine out tonight. It'll go to Craig Haystead's ⁓ workshop tomorrow. He obviously runs Supercar's engine department and together they'll go through what's gone wrong, diagnose, well hopefully diagnose what's going to happen. Bruce Stewart said it would be a forensic investigation because this is now really important. When they were dealing with known issues and just waiting to fine-tune what the solution is or have parts manufactured to build these B spec engines. There was a little bit of calmness around things when they went wrong, but this is kind of like this they need to get to the bottom of it now because the next race is the first Enduro and the one after that's the Bathus 1000. So it's going to be a really important day in Brisbane tomorrow as they go through what's gone wrong with that engine and try and find out what's happened. Whether this has any bearing on it or not, I have absolutely no idea. It's not something that's come from the team, but that was the last engine delivered. And it was a rush, you know, like we we talked about it. It was still warm when it got to the track, having come off Craig's Dino in Brisbane. So But it would have had all the same bits in it as the other three, I would have thought. That's the thing. But ⁓ yeah, so there's definitely definitely some concern there, but it was mostly kind of uncertainty because There was no clear kind of okay, well, the here's what's gone wrong. We know what's happened here. So yeah, it's gonna be a very important day in the in the engine shop ⁓ in Brisbane tomorrow to see what's gone on there and and whether this is a big problem or or a small problem. Yeah, well, reliability, obviously question marks in the Ford camp too. We saw Roland Gray, they needed a change of motor in that DJ R car yesterday too. So yeah, a few nerves on the eve of the injuros. Yeah. Anything else out of the race that we ⁓ we should be talking about, do you think? Well, probably a shout out to Aaron Seaton for winning the wild card cup in the end. ⁓ he was the winner in the end. It was a pretty so much going on. I hadn't ⁓ I hadn't quite sussed that out. Hotly contested affair and ⁓ Ben Gomesall, he ⁓ he was the fastest of them in qualifying today. He did a pretty good job, I thought, across the weekend on his debut. Yeah, absolutely. But ⁓ yeah, he he ran it off there at turn two towards the end and SETO got him and Yeah, Aaron was the top wildcard in the race and then on points for the weekend as well. Yep, that's a good shout out. Let's move on to the big news of the day. And that was something that I mean, yeah, to to offer a peek behind the curtain, we were we sent an embargoed release about this last night, and it was something we were already trying to get our heads around. And this is this whole change at Triple Eight. So obviously we go through Saturday and there's this outpouring of emotion from Will Brown talking about how Important the support from Andrew Edwards has been. You spoke to Andrew Andrew Edwards about how emotional it was to rebuild after that tough period and to come out and win that race. And then we get this press release saying that Andrew Edwards is becoming the head of performance. David Couchy is coming back to Triple Eight to race engineer Will Brown. It was just it felt like odd timing. And it turns out it was actually meant to be announced last night on Saturday night and that was revised after they'd Had that win and there was all these I don't know if mixed emotions, but just a lot of emotion around the whole thing. They pushed it back to this morning. But the whole thing just has you can see on one level how it makes sense, but it just has this weird feeling about it, right? Just given what went on on Saturday. ⁓ I was really shocked by this. This is a huge decision for them. And yes, the argument or the rationale is that there was that gap left when Jeremy Moore. Their technical director ⁓ left to go to GM last year and Pete Ringwood, who was head of performance, stepped up into that T D role and they didn't replace Pete in that head of performance position. And so this is their solution that they put A E in that role and then get David Cauchy in to race the engineer will. So it's a part time thing. Yep. But ⁓ Yeah, so it's it's a weird one to get your head around because it's sort of presented as a promotion for Andrew, but for him to be pulled off a car, that has got to be really tough on him. I think it would be, yeah. Especially with that connection that he had with Will. And Will did speak today about the fact that he was part of the decision making. Mm-hmm. And his view of it was that he was He was happy for it to change as long as they had a good option to replace Andrew on his car. Yeah. Which ⁓ makes sense and David Couchy obviously hugely credentialed. But I am surprised that that Will didn't seemingly didn't fight really hard to keep Andrew. And obviously the whole timing of it's weird because it's a discussion that was happening for the last couple of months about how they sort of could lift themselves out of this sort of slump. But This was also something then that was decided very, very recently and communicated to the team during the weekend. Yeah. And it's happened as this thing has miraculously come back together. It is because it wasn't necessarily it's easy to look at it and say, Okay, well, it's a reaction to the fact that this whole restrictor thing did expose the fact that there was a gap in the technical leadership. ⁓ and then, you know, they're trying to run the engine shop and that's something that Pete Ringwood's heavily involved in, and all this sort of stuff. So yes, we need someone else in that kind of overarching technical position. That all makes sense. ⁓ but it's not like the it's not like they started having these discussions last Tuesday or whenever the restrictor was found, right? It wasn't like at that point they've gone, We have an issue here and we need to fix it and this is the guy that it's just Yeah, it's it's it's it's odd the whole thing is odd timing and it does make sense on a lot of levels, and obviously Andrew Edwards is a perfect person to come in and do a job like that. But to kind of have it roll out after that emotional win and where you re it was really exposed about how deeply personal it is for Andrew and how personally he takes. you know, whether Will is successful or not and how much of the blame he shoulders when he's not. It all just it was all just a bit of an awkward fit. Yeah, and Andrew's one of these guys that has the skill set to be in that higher level role. He spent some of his time at BJR in a similar position where he wasn't directly on a car, but then they put him back on a car with Nick Perkat. And again it's that connection that he builds with the driver. Yeah. And the pure racing element of engineering that ⁓ yeah there's just not that many super high level guys at at doing that. And obviously Cauchy is one. But yeah. So there's a beautiful story there about this sort of ⁓ prodigal son returning. But an unexpected story, right? Totally. ⁓ I mean it was only a couple of years ago Triple Eight were taking legal action because he started early with Groves when he went there. Of all the places he might come back to, that's just the one that didn't feel like But it would happen. But again, the paddock is cyclical and these things people get over that stuff. But probably the the bigger point there for me is the fact that it's ⁓ it's a part time position. So he's weekend warrior. Yeah. And it's at the moment the deal's only to the end of the year. So for a team like Triple Eight that, you know, these these big race teams want to build four walls and keep the people and all the information inside, to actually let an outsider in like that, ⁓ with sort of no yeah. tenure on on future, that that's surprising in itself. It's different approach to what we would consider the traditional triple A approach. Some people might say that everybody knows everyone's business these days anyway, with the the the amount of movement there has been and and the fact that cars are so similar and all that stuff. But ⁓ yeah it's going to be fascinating to see how this sort of works and and doing it mid season. That's that's huge. It's always a big thing. It's always a big deal when there's a mid season engineer channel. I feel like this is the biggest mid season shake up since Jamie Winkart demanded that David Cauchy come off his car midway through twenty fifteen to put Mark Dutton back on again. Yeah. To sort of s steady the ship in that scenario. So again, there's so much to unpack from from one decision like that. Well, I feel like my brain's at a point that I can't really analyse this in any sort of ⁓ useful way anymore. It's been a very long weekend or slightly more than a weekend out of the track. So many storylines, but that was an amazing weekend of supercars racing and And I have to say, like, we don't know exactly what's happening with the TRC negotiations. We don't know exactly where things are at right now with the ⁓ talks with the Australian Grand Prix Corporation and the Philip Island round coming in. But the one thing I will say is it would be a massive shame and perhaps will be a massive shame to not have this Ipswich event on the calendar because even today or even this weekend, it kind of feels like it almost feels like a marquee event. You know, even though it's just a it's a sprint round, but there's just it has this buzz about it and the racing is fantastic like once again, it is the best racing track. It might not be the best race track in Australia, but it is the best racing track in Australia. And ⁓ it'll be a shame if we're not here at some point next year, I reckon. ⁓ it'd be a a huge mistake for Super Guys to turn its back on the fan base that comes to the Ipswitch round. There's no doubt about that. The fact that racing is is awesome is almost secondary to the fact that there's there's such a heartland support for the category out here. ⁓ especially in this time where we've been to a few events this year where you you go, Whoa, there's not As many people are here as last year and the year before and the year before that. It feels big. It like it feels like something It maybe wasn't quite as big as last year when it was the first time we'd be No, but it's still it still had that buzz to it. It had a buzz to it. Yeah. And they'd cleaned up some bits and pieces to make the sort of event flow better as well. So I did speak to Tony Quinn about all this ⁓ this evening and he said he expects ⁓ supercars to be back here next year, but it sounded like Conversations about that hadn't actually happened. So we'll see. He obviously the model here is that Tony owns the circuit and he rents it to supercars. Yeah. And they promote the event, put on the show, and then hand the keys back. So yeah, it's just whether they ⁓ are in a position to do it. Well, let's hope somehow it works out that that can happen because it was a fantastic event. We are going to leave it there. ⁓ make sure you stay tuned to speedcafe.com. tomorrow because we will have all the fallout from the event. We have ⁓ voice recorders full of some very interesting conversations and ⁓ and plan to roll out over the next few days. So we'll definitely be doing that. So keep an eye out for that. And full credit to the noise, we'll be back in this podcast feed on Tuesday morning.