Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / Townsville 500 daily: Friday
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to the Friday edition of our daily podcast from the Townsville 500. My name is Andrew Van Loren and I'm joined by Speed Cafe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomew. Stefan, it was fighter jets in Darwin. Now there's a helicopter buzzing around over the house here in Townsville. We're having quite a run with aircraft when it comes to doing podcasts. But it was a bomb scare that kicked off our day today. That was ⁓ somewhat unexpected. It was. And ⁓ we can talk about that, but can I Just ask to start with, did you get a haircut at some point during the day at the racetrack? Or am I imagining that you look a bit more like Cam Waters now than you did this morning? All right. So I did get a haircut ⁓ probably about half an hour before the race started. It was as part of some content we were filming with Fireball actually. So Fireball has an activation at the track where there's two barbers working and you can go and get a free haircut there. and we were filming a bit of content because Fireball is our partner for the Sunday night after party at the Mad Cow, the famous Speed Cafe after party. ⁓ so yeah, that is why I might look a little sharper than I did at about three thirty this afternoon. Thanks for noticing. I appreciate that. It's a conservative almost mullet. Yeah. That's ⁓ well they're they're they're handing out headbands with mullets kind of behind them. So that's the look I think anyone's getting if they if they are smart or silly enough to sit in the chair. I'm not quite sure which one it is at this point. All right, so I don't know how we segue that back to the most serious part of the day. Yeah. But ⁓ we did have ⁓ some sessions interrupted this morning before the supercars track action by this ⁓ bomb scare, and the police did call in the bomb squad after a suspicious package was ⁓ sighted. ⁓ and it wasn't actually within the event precinct. It was slightly the other side of the fence over where the train line was. But of course they need to evacuate an area. A certain radius around that when they're ⁓ operating on something like that. So ⁓ yeah, one of the gates was shut ⁓ to the public briefly. So Marshalls had to move and stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. So ⁓ yeah, not something we ⁓ see ⁓ every round, thankfully, but ⁓ it all worked out okay. Yeah, it was cleared reasonably quickly and the the schedule was shuffled around a little bit, but there were no kind of major delays. ⁓ where do we want to start in terms of the on track action? Do we just start with with the end of that race. I mean, one of our questions ⁓ heading into the weekend was, you know, how real this resurgence from Tickford racing in Cam Waters was. Obviously, you know, winners in Darwin after a like not a terrible start to the season, but just a actually a decent start to the season that turned into a a kind of bad uninspired yeah dip dip of formed. ⁓ New Zealand was was pretty bad. ⁓ back into the winner's circle with a new car in Darwin and then come to Townsville and another win for Cam Waters. Like it does very different circuit. It does feel like there's some genuine speed there from that car. It feels more normal to see Cam Waters really fast, particularly in qualifying, like he was the qualifying king for a while, and then the form really flipped on him this year. ⁓ he wasn't quite the fastest today. Obviously, Brody Kistecki got. hole and it looked like that seventeen Mustang was the fastest car in the race. But the start really was where ⁓ it started going Cam's way. Brody ⁓ didn't have a very good one at all, dropped back to fourth, had a little bit of contact with Matt Payne actually. Yeah. ⁓ so maybe lucky that he didn't tweak something there. But ⁓ yeah that allowed Cam to sort of really take charge. And Brody really had to do that fight back from fourth ⁓ twice because they went the long strategy in the end with his car and with the deg here, the undercut was pretty powerful. ⁓ and he ended up back and forth after the cycle of stops. Worked his way back into second reasonably quickly. Cam Waters actually made a bit of a joke about how easy Matt Payne made it on him to get past him for second place, which obviously allowed Brody to close up on the back of Cam in those closing stages. But yeah, one of those races where kind of ha having to do that fight back twice, having to think outside the box a little bit strategy wise when you are on a high deg circuit and a street circuit where passing isn't incredibly easily, that they're the little things that just make the difference. Yeah, so it was a really impressively executed race from Tickford. Yeah. ⁓ because Matt Payne had pitted out a third seventeen laps in, and then Tickford saw that DJR was setting up in the pit lane to pit Brody. ⁓ potentially an undercut there and they reacted really quickly. The complication was Tickford were actually planning to pit Tommy Randall out of sixth on that lap. Yeah. ⁓ and so they had to ⁓ not only make the call to bring Cam in but ⁓ get the fifty-five tires out of the lane and set up for for Cam. And ⁓ the Tickford team manager Matty Roberts who we spoke to afterwards did say that it was ⁓ Fortunate that Tommy actually saw he was close enough to see Cam pitting ⁓ and could react to it 'cause there was a lot of radio and everything going on. ⁓ but yeah, that was why then DJ R reacted by not pitting Brody as they planned to do and ran six extra laps to try to get the tire offset. Brody in the end did say like I only needed half half a lap more and I would have got him, but I Don't think the fight with Cam was going to be quite as simple as Trivializing how easy it is to get past Cam Waters. But you're right, that was amazing heads-up driving from Tommy Randall because obviously, you know, in the heat of trying to fight for a victory, you know, they made the decision that that six-car was coming in no matter what. ⁓ we know there's been radio issues all year. It's sometimes complicated more at the street circuits, like there was no guarantee that message not to pit was going to get to Tommy. But as you say, he actually saw the six. Head down the lane and went, hang on a minute. I don't reckon it's a good idea for me to go in there. Cause if he doesn't see that or he doesn't notice that and he ends up in the lane, that's that's his day done. And you know, he ended up what sixth for that race, and they're points that he really needs. Yeah, great to see him get a result. Obviously, what he went through in Darwin with the cool suit failure, well publicised, but then even this morning, barely got a lap in in practice one due to some mechanical issues with that car. ⁓ sort of roll out and stick it in the top ten in in quality ⁓ and get his best race results since Albert Park back in March is a good bit of sugar for him. Matty Payne, ⁓ third place, didn't necessarily look fully in the fight for victory. You know, it sort of felt like the other two cars had the edge on speed, but I mean Penright racing cars in third and fourth. Again, Matt Payne now leads the drivers' championship and they lead the team's championship. Like if this is their tough day, like they're they're going good those guys. Yeah, absolutely. It's ⁓ sort of the the excitement of the race does mean that Matt ⁓ taking the points lead has been overshadowed a little bit, but that's a pretty significant moment. Obviously it's on a day where ⁓ Triple Eight and Brock Feeney didn't have a good one, which we can talk about later. But ⁓ Matt did speak about having a little engine issue. He felt a bit of a vibration early on, but it didn't seem to slow him down too much. They just didn't quite have enough speed. But yeah, I would have liked to have seen him fight Brody a little bit harder than he did. That was that was weirdly. Yeah, and the first couple of laps they w they were fun with some of those dive bombs ⁓ into turn eleven. But ⁓ yeah, there was too many people sidestepping blokes into that ⁓ final corner today, I thought. Yeah. ⁓ Chase Mostett was fifth. He made a great start to the race as well. Actually his move around the outside at turn two there to to end up momentarily in second place, I think it was behind. Cam Waters. That was actually a really great break for Cam at the start there because he did provide a bit of a bottleneck for a little while. But ⁓ yeah, he's ⁓ we were talking about this before. I mean, if you think back to New Zealand where Ryan Wood really had the edge on him, like we've seen a pretty good fight back from Jazz recently, and today was another really well executed day, probably as good as they could have done with the car speed they had. ⁓ and his three places up the road ahead of his teammate. Yeah, I mean I I feel like when Ryan was Really on top of Chaz earlier this year, Chaz's year could have gone in one of two directions and instead he's he's stepped it up and it's made him better. ⁓ he got a little bit lucky today with ⁓ having an engine issue right at the end of qualifying. Yes. ⁓ they explained it was a cam position sensor failure on the exhaust side, so they didn't need to end up changing the motor. But ⁓ it just just at the end of his last lap kicked in. Triple eight. What a bizarre day. For them, you know, again, one of our big questions coming into the weekend is, you know, is this the time where we see them go to one of their traditionally very good circuits and step up and be the triple eight that we know them to be? And it couldn't have been more the opposite of that. I mean, their cars were absolutely nowhere in qualifying, didn't even look close to progressing through the first segment of qualifying. ⁓ Will Brown, he did put in a pretty good race performance to end up seventh. ⁓ Brock Feeney tenth, but just you know, we've seen some uncharacteristic days from Triple Eight this season as they go through this transition into the Ford program and a number of other changes in their program, including the third car and that sort of stuff. But this felt like it was right up there in terms of untriple eight days. It was really weird too, 'cause they actually rolled out pretty well this morning. Yeah. Will Brown was second in practice and Brock was fifth. And then ⁓ in Q one The wheels fell off. There was that radio message from Brock to Marty Short in Q one where he said, I've got no idea. There's no grip, really bad inside front locking, bad turn, bad rear. It feels like it's on a wet. I don't know what an engineering group does with that sort of feedback where there's five minutes to go in Q one. Yeah. But ⁓ obviously then they had the wheel issue with Will Brown in that ⁓ callie session that red flagged it. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, just ⁓ Just a shocker. The only real highlight was the ⁓ the opening lap or two where they both made up about five or six spots each. Yeah. ⁓ and then let's talk about the Chevrolets because it was a pretty tough day ⁓ for that camp across the board. Jaden Ojada the best of the Camaros in ninth place. I mean, there was so much talk about. Obviously, we came out of Darwin, the last race won Anton Di Pasquale. ⁓ fair bit of paddock chatter, you know, yesterday and and even today about The parity trigger system, we talked about it on the podcast yesterday and the changes that were made to the Camaro and all this sort of stuff. But ⁓ boy, it's hard to argue that they've been given too much speed by the rule makers right now because that was a pretty tough day out. Yeah, and team eighteen in particular. Yeah. Just a really ⁓ disappointing performance from them. And you look at ⁓ you know, qualifying they were the fourth best Chevy team. There was MSR, Premier and Erebus cars ahead of the top team ANCAR. Yeah. So that is a serious dropping of the ball from from those guys when there had been so much talk about ⁓ whether they are the real deal as a factory team that's ⁓ hugely disappointing at a track where they'd gone well at last year. Yeah. We did see them ride some highs and lows in Darwin, ⁓ obviously splitting across tire compounds and that sort of stuff. But hopefully a bit of soul searching tonight can can get get those cars back up there and ⁓ And make it a bit more interesting for the GM fans tomorrow. Anything else you want to talk about out of today, Stefan? No, I think that is ⁓ that is the point at the end there that it can all change ⁓ overnight. It it is so close. Yeah. And even going back to last year we saw ⁓ Brody Kastecki and DJR, they had their first win together on the Friday in Townsville, but then didn't go on with it through the rest of the weekend and Triple Eight really took over. ⁓ Triple Eight have got a bigger hole to dig out of ⁓ for tomorrow. But anything could happen. Absolutely. All right. Well, make sure you do stay tuned to specafe.com across the day. Tomorrow we'll have all the news, the reaction, the session reports, race reports, everything covered at speakafe.com. And we'll be back with the Saturday edition of the daily podcast tomorrow evening.