Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / NEWS: Supercars calendar + Mostert penalty fallout
Transcript
- News pod Oct 30: Hello and welcome to Full Credit to the News, brought to you by Authentic Collectibles. My name is Andrew Van Leuren and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomeyus. Stefan, bit of a late recording this week. It is Friday afternoon because we just can't get out of this cycle of racing and news and just everything just keeps happening. It's true, although you have been at the zoo today. I have, yes. It is my daughter's sixth birthday, and she wanted to go to the zoo, so I have been Looking at some monkeys and all sorts of other interesting animals this morning, but now I'm looking at you, which is enjoyable as well. Very good. Well, there has been some news going on, but I guess the biggest topic has been what we don't have. Yes, and that is a calendar. We were half expecting to maybe get it today. We did sort of put the recording of this podcast off until today in case we got it, but it became apparent reasonably early this morning that it won't be until I think at least next week before we formally have a fully announced 2027 Supercars calendar. Stefan, I can only imagine this is because the I's are yet to be dotted and the T's crossed on these TRC negotiations. We know how complicated the whole thing has become. There was light at the end of the tunnel on the Gold Coast, but here we are, at the end of the week after the Gold Coast, and we don't have a calendar. what is going on here? Yeah, it's been a bit of an awkward radio silence this week. Supercars had planned to have it all squared away by now and everyone is still waiting. I'm not entirely surprised though. this plan to have the teams on two different financial deals you'd imagine would be a tricky thing to actually execute in the paperwork when the whole premise of the TRC itself is equal treatment for everyone. So I'm sure there's a bit going on in the background ironing that out. But obviously the calendar is is what we all externally just want to see and want to have some clarity on and we do think we've got a pretty fair idea on how it looks. Yeah, so how do you expect that to play out? You wrote a story about this for SpeakAfee today. What are your expectations of how the calendar's gonna look next year? Yeah, I don't think there's too much in terms of surprises in what we rolled out this afternoon. The the big piece really has been Philip Owen coming in, which they've already confirmed. The unconfirmed is Queensland Raceway. We expect to go out. and sand down moves from that November slot into August. The big question at the moment is whether this sand down event is actually gonna be a proper endurance race. Yeah. Because we know that Supercars has wanted to expand that Enduro Cup and give the sort of three portions of the season a little bit better balance. But the latest suggestions today are that the teams don't want to foot the bill for an extra co-driver round. Obviously they'd have to pay the co-drivers more to do three events rather than two. So I'm not sure where that leaves us exactly. It could be interesting if they try to ask the primary drivers to do all 500Ks. That would definitely be interesting, but it would feel like such a shame to take Sandan out of the finals picture, put it in a position where it could be an Enduro and then a two driver Enduro and then not really leverage the history of that event by doing so. Yeah, at the moment we've got the fake Sandow five hundred where they still promote it as that, but it's two two hundred and fifty K races that we'll have next weekend. But as I say, that that sand down question is the big unanswered one for me at the moment. I do always enjoy the kind of wintry nature of our trip to Tasmania each year. It has sort of fallen in and out of those deep winter to early winter dates in the last couple of years. But tell you what, Tasmania in in mid March, that could be reasonably pleasant. That could be quite a nice experience for us next year. Yeah, so we're expecting Simmons Plains to move from being the fifth event up to the second event because there needs to be something in that March gap where Albert Park previously was that's gone to the first weekend in April. That's the actual piece that we do know because Formula One have announced that. and then after Albert Park will again be the New Zealand doubleheader, but one thing to note there is we expect it to actually be a reverse order in New Zealand where we'll have Rapuna first and then Topo second and that's just to do with trying to trim a little bit of time off the off the seafreight because the containers actually go back up to the North Island to to head back to Australia anyway. But we're not going to get the the air freight that maybe we were hoping we were going to get for at least one leg of that trip to really try and tighten that out. But it does sort tighten that up, sorry. It does feel like we're still going to have some pretty healthy gaps around that New Zealand double header. Yeah, huge gaps, which is unfortunate. But that's why Supercars has been working on doing a standalone Super Two round. It doesn't exactly fill the gap with a for event, but to see some Supercars action at Malala on that Anzac. day weekend, that's what they're planning on doing, and that'll be something different. Now I probably should have flagged this at the top of the show, but just in case anyone does notice that Stefan doesn't sound as crisp as he normally does, I think he's a bit limited on microphone options today because when I checked out of our Airbnb on the Gold Coast on Tuesday, I found a surplus of microphones sitting in the apartment lounge room on the kitchen table. Is there anything about that checkout process that you feel you need to divulge here, Stefan? I didn't actually think you'd bring this up because it might open the conversation around how our Mondays looked very, very different. A lot of work had been done before you got up, young man. Yeah, well, that's that can happen. That's what happens when you don't come to the after party. You have to get up and do the work the next morning. But anyway, all right, let's move on very quickly from that one and let's talk about a bit of super to parity, which is not something that we tend to talk about too much, to be perfectly honest. We talk about parity a lot, but not necessarily through the lens of Super Two, but there has been a change made to the Holden Commodore, the ZB Commodore package in the second tier to help it be more competitive with the Ford Mustang. We have seen the Gentoo Mustang be pretty dominant in Super Two across the last kind of 18 months. Stefan, this is a bit of an odd one. I mean, if you look at the results over that last 18 months, you can certainly make a case for the fact that there's disparity between the two makes, but When we were at the end of the Gen 2 era in the main game, it was generally considered that there was decent parody between the Gen 2 Mustang and the ZB Commodore. It took a while to get there, don't get me wrong, you will also remember well the the parody dramas that went on through throughout that Gen 2 era, but this seems very late to now be making more tweaks to these packages that have been out of the main game for four years or whatever it is. Yeah it just smacks of being a sporting parody change. There's no no doubt about that. And there's been some of the Holden Super Two team bosses agitating about this since last year when when Tickford wiped the floor with everyone and then you had a situation where a lot of drivers who obviously pay for their seats wanted to go and drive for a Tickford or another four team rather than in a Holden. But this parody change it it sort of feels like the scenario that we've seen a bit in the main game this year. Well, supercars has this system that uses lap time data from the races to trigger parody reviews, which is clearly like a sporting parody metric based off the racetrack. Yeah. And then it goes and finds a technical argument that will fit what they want to achieve to grease the squeaky wheel. So to me that's not the technical parody formula that it's that it's meant to be. And as as you say, like these cars have been racing for for seven and a half years across main game and then Super Two, so now all of a sudden There's a problem and it creates more questions than than answers about does this actually infer that the Ford's had an advantage when they're in the main game? Yeah, absolutely. I guess the lap time based trigger system is even more problematic when you get to Super Two level because you actually have a bigger disparity in terms of driving ability, team ability and that sort of stuff. No criticism of Super Two drivers or teams. It's just the nature of it being at a different level to supercars, at least at supercars level you can bank on a very, very vast majority of the field being professional level race car drivers that are going to be able to extract the best out of the cars in consistently. but in Super too, it's a it's a learning category. you are going to have disparity in in experience levels and in outright ability. Yeah, and I think Aaron Love showed that when he jumped into Eggleston Holden two rounds ago and and scored a couple of poles and won the round. that yeah, the the cars are really tricky to drive and for someone who had a bit more experience to come back in and and be able to win like that in a holding, certainly suggested that there's a bit more to it than just the the body shape and the motor. And this this Super Two parody metric, it it uses the six fastest from each make. So Yeah, the amount of variables in in driver and equipment through the six top cars. If you actually look at the Super Two field from each make, there's there's a bit going on there. And there was a change in the regulation at some point to allow new chazis to be built and implemented into competition in Super Two, right? And I feel like some of those Tickford cars are either new cars or or fairly recently built cars and we haven't necessarily seen a whole lot of that on the on the holding side. So perhaps there is a little bit of a case of like It's just better hardware because it's newer hardware. Yeah, hardware and then there's also a fairly big discrepancy on on the level of resource that some of these teams either have available or put into their Super Two programs. And that's where I do feel for for Tikford a little bit because they they've certainly resourced up their Super Two team in in terms of engineers a and everything. but I'd also suggest that the Super Two Gen two package that From Tickford is actually a bit more user-friendly than than some of the stuff that's X Triple Eight gear and and whatever. Mm-hmm. That makes sense. All right, let's hear from our very good friends at Authentic Collectibles. And this one is for the Ford Racing fans out there. Celebrate back-to-back wins at the Bathus 1000 with two historic collectors prints. Authentic Collectibles is proud to announce two officially licensed historic Ford Racing Collectors prints celebrating back-to-back wins at the Great Race, which are now available to pre-order. Starting with the Ford Racing back to back Bathus 1000 winners print, which is in the large format and limited to 250 examples, the print celebrates back to back wins at the mountain, featuring Matt Payne's first win with Gartander in 2025 and Brody Kastechi and Todd Hazelwood's unforgettable win in 2026. Next is the Ford News Mustang Wins Baths poster, which you might have seen floating around on the podium this year at the Bathur 1000. Authentic Collectibles has collaborated with Ford Racing to recreate this special A2 size poster. And if you buy one, part of the proceeds will go to the Drive Against Depression charity. This poster is perfect for Ford fans or Bathits 1000 collectors alike. Pre-order on the Authentic Collectibles website or inquire at a stockist. Authentic Collectibles Driven by Passion, made for collectors. Do you reckon A2 is the right size for those winning posters? I feel like Walkenshaw's rolled out some some A fours maybe at the Gold Coast. Yeah, they might have been A threes, but it looked like pretty flimsy paper they were printed on. So maybe they didn't quite hit the mark on that one in terms of of those posters. I feel like I feel like Ford has well look, it to be honest, if Ford makes a poster and it doesn't earn what was it, a ten thousand dollar fine for the one that went up on the podium at Queensland Raceway? Yeah. Scotty Mac. Yeah. You've got to sell a few you've although I think they did actually offer that as a a a recreated poster as well to try and offset some of that cost, right? Well, I think that was a charity promotion as well, but I can't remember all the details. Yeah, anyway, not something we need to discuss right now. Something we do need to discuss is the fact that we bumped into a couple of pretty interesting Brazilians on the Gold Coast, Stefan, wandering through the supercar's paddock. One of them was Christian Fittipaldi, ex Formula One indie car driver, someone who raced on the Gold Coast during the indie heyday back in the day. And he was with a driver that races in the Brazilian stock car series called Attila Abrayu. Now we had a chat with those guys about what they were doing there. It's always interesting when you see people like that show up. And yeah, they were kind of on one those classic exploratory missions to to try and get an understanding of how a supercars event works and maybe even see if there's anything out there for for Attila. Yeah, it was an interesting one. And Attila at the moment is actually an ex Brazilian stock card driver 'cause he pulled his team out of the series midway through this year amid some friction over how how things are being run there. What is that team name again? Skideria Bandeiras. I believe so, which which is a very cool name for amazing for racing team. And he had Christian installed in there as the team principal, so Christians are now helping Attila look for some new opportunities. they went over to an IMSA race at Elcart Lake and then obviously they're on the Gold Coast. So yeah, they they've talked about trying to find Attila a drive, but they're also on this sort of big fact-finding mission looking at how the series and and the event worked. Attila is currently starting up his own series in Brazil. using a fleet of little caterings. So he's trying to reinvent the motorsport event experience with the way he runs that and he's he's going around learning how everyone else does it to see what he can implement at home. Yeah, I mean lovely guys I would sort of question at thirty nine years of age, you know, where an opportunity in a supercar might actually come up for someone like a t Attila. Yeah, and there were even some suggestions that hey, these guys might be looking to buy some TRCs and, br bring their race team here effectively, but from some of his comments that I've I've seen, actually since he's returned home, he's he's realised that it's a fairly closed shop and it would be pretty expensive thing to to go and buy a team out and try to run his own show. So yeah, it'd be super fun if there was an international team or or even if he just came out at as a driver, but I'm not sure if this is quite where he's gonna land. Yeah, Scuderia, Bandeiras, and supercars would be absolutely amazing. So we can only dream and we definitely should. I do always find it funny how, when when people, whether it's drivers or or series officials or whatever, go on these sort of exploratory missions overseas to see how other categories work. You know, like when people come here they never show up at Simmons Plains or Monaroo Raceway. They generally try and pick a pretty good event to to come to. Well, the the event didn't look like the postcard though, did it? We've got plenty of rain and not much sunshine, but it is also really good to hear some comments from from people who aren't around the series all the time. Even Christian saying to us about being really impressed with the reliability of the cars. Yeah. when we've sort of had this this argument or issue going on with with a few bits and pieces, but it sort of gives it a bit of perspective. and even Attila making some comments about how how it's good that the series is structured so that it it pays the teams the revenues out when there's all that argument going on here, but yeah it's not actually what they're used to at all. He's sort of talking about hey, the twenty percent of your budget's covered by the series. How good's that? Yep. Yeah, no, it was it was very interesting chatting with those guys and they certainly were interesting, interesting people. Let's finish up with one of the sort of Controversial points that got a bit lost in the rubble at the end of the Gold Coast 500, Stefan. There was obviously so much going on out of that Sunday race in terms of potential race manipulation and team orders and all this stuff. And one thing that did just get left in the shade a little bit was the fact that Chaz Mostett was penalized for the fuel rig being connected to the to the car or the fuel hose being connected to the car once it was dropped from the stands. During that Sunday race it was a topic of conversation during the race. Would it be investigated? Well, I think fairly quickly it was clarified it would become a post race investigation. But given the fact that that is an opportunity for a car to take on more fuel, there is plenty of talk out there that that should have potentially been investigated in race and been an in race penalty. It wasn't. Remind me what the actual penalty was in the end. It was a team's points. Yeah, team's points. I think it was thirty points. They also copped a bit of a points penalty for something else, but I think it was thirty for that. Yeah, right. So do we feel that was a bit of a let off for Walkenshaws really, given the fact that, that so easily could be seen as a performance advantage, be an in race penalty, be a time penalty for Chas Mostert, affect potentially his race result, but it didn't play out that way and the heat was off because of all this other stuff. stuff that was going on. Was it a bit of a let off for those guys? Well, it was and it wasn't because I think, yeah, it doesn't pass the pub test. I'd argue that it's a performance advantage 'cause you get a bit of extra fuel in and it's potentially a safety breach, because you're not allowed to have the car on the ground with the fuel rig plugged in 'cause it risks the Greg Murphy Bathers two thousand and two style pulling the fuel rig down sort of incident. So I think You look at that and say it's a no-brainer that it should be a penalty for Chaz in the race. But the key point actually here is that it it wasn't the Motorsport Australia Stewards getting it wrong. They're actually just applying the penalty based on that recommended penalties table that's supplied by supercars. And that recommended penalty is what they handed out, it's teams points. So there was obviously a lot of fuss when the stewards went off script in Perth on the Kai Allen tire pressure debacle. And here that they've just applied the penalty. So there were some references to the fact that Shane Van Gisbergen got a time penalty for this infringement at Newcastle in twenty eighteen, which he didn't actually really effectively cost him the championship in the end. But somewhere in that covert period Supercars did a review of all these recommended penalties and it's obviously changed. One of the issues is the fact that This table doesn't get shared by supercars even to the teams. So they're not able to look at what everything is either. So I think that it would be better if that was transparent for for all of us to be able to see, but I'd also like to see them review this particular penalty because I don't think it fits the crime. No, absolutely. I I couldn't agree with you more. It is yeah, a a potential performance advantage and be potentially incredibly dangerous if it does go wrong. So yeah, I think that's definitely something that supercars should be looking at. Yeah, so they would have got a little bit more fuel in, just by leaving it in longer. One of the other teams actually pointed out to me that the fuel flows faster when the car's on the ground than when it's in the air just because of the height difference. Yeah, with a gravity fed system. But I think that would be pretty minimal. I guess we should point out too that, obviously Walking Shores didn't do it deliberately. They'd have an issue in that stop where they had a rattle gun fail yeah and so the stop was longer and they actually did have the presence of mind to to tell the fuel guy to to either stick with it or couple back up. I can't actually remember the detail, but that was clever to to use that extra time to get some more fuel, but then the process has been disturbed and this was the unfortunate result of that. All right, that will do us for this Friday evening recording of full credit to the news. Make sure you do stay tuned to speedcafe.com across the weekend. We will have all the action from Sandown. There's some early action happening at Sand Down with the Shannon Speed series this weekend. There is Trans Am and GT4 racing there, which will be worth keeping an eye on. We'll have all of that covered. And of course, the Mexican Grand Prix, where we expect Kimmy Antonelli to be crowned the world champion. We'll have all the action from Mexico covered as well. And then full credit to the noise, we'll be back in this podcast feed next Tuesday morning.