Latest / Full Credit to the Noise / Perth Super440 daily: Sunday
Transcript
- Speedcafe Team: Hello and welcome to the Sunday edition of our daily podcast from the Perth Super 440. My name is Andrew Van Leon and I'm joined by SpeakAfe's managing editor, Stefan Bartholomaeus. Another late night recording. Stefan, it's ⁓ it's even late here on the West Coast. It is mere minutes away from being Monday morning on the East Coast, but it was a pretty busy paddock after a, I don't know, I would say an action packed weekend of Supercast racing in Perth. feel like every day here this week has given us a lot to write about and a lot to talk about. Yeah. And today was no different. No, I mean it was ⁓ it was all about Matt Payne and Brock Feeney today, really. That was the battle at the front of the field and what a battle it really was. I mean, it is kind of cool that Triple Eight has found its feet a little bit. It's back in the game and we're kind of seeing what some call triple eight of the south in Grove Racing actually going head to head with Triple Eight of the North, as in the traditional Triple Eight. ⁓ and today really was that kind of battle. Like there were moments where a bit like yesterday's evening's race, where ⁓ either driver had the upper hand at various stages of the race. In the end, it kind of came down to some good work in the pits and some good strategy work from Grove Racing, which is no surprise from those guys, it's what they do very well. ⁓ The two those two drivers kind of emerge out of their second stops on the same bit of road, bash wheels up through the S's, which is a very difficult place to execute any sort of clean pass. So it is, it sort of shows the quality of those drivers to get that done. But Matt Payne got ahead, managed, you know, like some damage to his tire. Brock Feeney was kind of managing the same and and took what was I think what was telling is that. how elated Matt Payne was to win that race and how gutted Brock Feeney was to lose it. Like that's how tight the margins were. Absolutely. And I feel like Supercars Racing is at its best when you've got two absolute powerhouse teams just going at it. And we well and truly got that today. At one point we had Brock and Matt going for the lead and we had Will Brown and Kyle Allen having at it for thirteenth or something. So they were having having it at both ends of the Steel basically, but yeah, I thought the the impressive thing about Groves today, they did have a faster car through that race. Yeah. But they executed the race really well and they basically pivoted on their their strategy. Yeah. 'Cause ⁓ obviously Matt had to get around Ken Waters early and then drove up to the back of Brock. they then ran him five laps longer. ⁓ to get a tire offset so they cost themselves four seconds but then he was able to drive up to the back of him again in that middle stint. Yeah and the idea was to obviously pass him but it had not enough front grip when behind the other car so they went right we can't go around him or go under him basically and they undercut him and ⁓ yeah what a dramatic moment when ⁓ came out of the pits and they were side by side up the hill. Yeah no that was absolutely fantastic and even the way they executed that like the second he got to the bumper you know, at the end of that second stint, straight in the pits. Like, let's not waste time sitting here overheating fronts and not really getting anywhere. Let's get on with the race. Let's force Triple Eight's hand ⁓ and try and get on top. And it did work. ⁓ I think the sort of like I had conversations with Jamie Wink up after the race and then Mark Dutton was in the post race press conference. ⁓ they always have a team representative in the Sunday press conference and it seems there was a couple of things that Triple Eight felt cost them today. ⁓ one, and this was some intel that came from Jamie, they probably dialed the car back in terms of outright pace a bit too much after qualifying. ⁓ they felt that they went a bit too conservative on the race setup compared to what ⁓ Groves did. ⁓ and second, they just put too much fuel in it. And it's something we've talked about so much since Townsville. Like, you know, this this kind of this glimmer of strategic freedom that you do have with these fuel churns and being able to fuel N well, not having a fuel drop effectively. ⁓ and Triple A, like Mark Dutton said in the press conference, we just put too much fuel in the car and we should have put less in. And it wouldn't have taken much less to give Brock track position because it was so tight between Brock and Matt after that second stop. And they should have just put their trust in the driver to say, let's give you track position, and then you've got to sort it out from there. Get to the finish. They had to make that decision on how much fuel to put in that car very quickly. Because they were caught by surprise. And Mark Dutton said they weren't, but there was that beautiful shot on the telecast of the triple eight guys in the garage craning their necks, watching the Matt Payne car getting service on that second round of stops. It did have a surprise sort of look to it. Yeah. But ⁓ yeah, you talk about how much it meant to Matt Payne. Clearly, the the difficulty there in that last stint. with what turned out to be that damaged tire. ⁓ that really made it so satisfying for him. I think he showed a real grit and and held his nerve in a way that we maybe haven't seen a lot of. A lot of his wins have been just out the front in clean air and bolting. Yeah. But in this, like Jack Bell, his engineer, really had to coach him quite a lot through it. At one point he he said, Come on, mate, you're a battler. Just like really trying to encourage him to hold his ground. And ⁓ yeah, just a just a great win. I thought it was interesting too that ⁓ Michael Patrizzi, ⁓ Matt's manager, was part of the celebrations afterwards. And I'd seen Michael in the Grove Garage during the day as well. And ⁓ Michael was in Darwin two rounds ago. And he was not the great garage. Now the team said he was never banned, but clearly he was not, let's say, feeling welcomed at that point. So ⁓ yeah, that was just another part of the whole day of like, maybe this is just gonna all work out after all. Yeah, yeah, I I kinda had that feeling as well. It's ⁓ It's interesting that ⁓ I I think every time that we've through this sort of ⁓ this purple patch that Groves have had every time we've had Brenton Grove, for example, in the in the Sunday press conference, he's talked about the fact that he does expect Triple Eight to hit back. We're seeing that now. And I kind of feel like, you know, obviously we had a Brock Feeney win on Saturday. and but the Saturday morning race hadn't gone great for Triple Eight, so there was still a bit of trepidation. in the triple eight garage about whether they're back, you know, the big question. Are they back? But the fact that, you know, like Jamie spoke to me about how much like he didn't feel satisfied with how today's race or sorry Sunday's race played out. He felt quite disappointed with how it played out because they didn't win it. Brock Feeney said he was gutted after the race. To me that's that's the sign that they kind of feel like they're back in the game because it's not It's not kind of satisfaction that they're fighting for wins, it's disappointment that they're not winning. And that was like really obvious from Brock. You could tell that he was genuinely gutted was the word, but it wasn't just sort of rolling out some words 'cause you have to fill a bit of time on T V. He was he was genuinely feeling that way. So if he was gutted, what would Will Brown be thinking when he puts his head on the pillow tonight? Because he was nowhere. Yeah, that is a ⁓ That is definitely a really interesting question and something that I did ask Jamie about and it came up in the press conference with Dutto as well. And they're just kind of miffed as to what is going on with the pace of that car, particularly over a lap. And ⁓ I think there's going to be a lot of work done in between here and Ipswich. Obviously, Ipswich is, you know, like a pretty known quantity for that team in terms of a racetrack. And Jamie kind of said that they don't know if it's a mechanic like there's some sort of mechanical issue with the car. ⁓ is it just a setup direction issue? Is it a combination of driving style and setup direction? They don't know. But they're kind of at the point now. And we know, and we spoke about this ⁓ already this weekend, but they have kind of reached the point, triple eight, where with all those spinning plates, the performance plate is the one that they know they need to get spinning again. And I think now it's the triple the it's the car triple eight performance plate they're gonna put some focus in and we'll see what they find. But it was definitely a yeah, a tough a tough day for the for the car triple eight side of the garage. There's a lot of pieces of that dinner set that ⁓ Jamie's gotta ⁓ monitor. I think the final bit on all that is it is also like the narrative is all around triple eight as a team going up and down. But I think for Brock Feeney Like just just personally, like people were questioning hey, he's only ever been in a good car. Yeah. ⁓ but to to see him do what he did this weekend as a whole was I think impressive on the individual level as well. Yeah. But we could spend all day talking about Matt Payne and Brock Feeney. There was another bloke on the podium who seemed to get there by stealth more than anything. Yeah, Anton Deeper Square. They're actually racking up a trophies at team eight in. Yeah are well two this weekend. and I've crossed the whole team quite a good day today because David Reynolds was in the top ten as well. ⁓ but yeah, that was one of those ⁓ kind of performances where and we hate to say this as people who analyze car races, where you go, hang on, how'd that happen? Where'd he come from? But ⁓ it just sort of shows that the the solid work those guys are doing. Obviously, you know, the Camaro got its aero tweak. The first step of that in New Zealand, they kinda do feel that I actually asked Adrian Burgess this in the press conference today, saying like now with the you've got a few rounds under your belt, like your your kind of toolbox of data in terms of you know, this was all about trying to get closer to the twenty twenty five spec Camaro and and being able to take setup direction out of last year, which is what race teams do, and make it work, you know, do you feel that's happening? And in typical A T B style, he doesn't give too much away, but he did say we kind of feel like we are where we should be. And now it's about just becoming a slightly better race team to try and run down and qualifying pace is the big thing that he pointed out because they do tend to have to come from a bit too far in the field to get to the podium. ⁓ but yeah, I mean that's if you look at how the championship is structured right now, like there's reasons to be if you were Anton Di Pasquale, you'd be like We just keep chipping away at this and get ourselves in the right window for the right races at the right time of the year. We're kind of in the fight here. It is interesting that ⁓ they do not qualify as well and then come through in the races when you think of Anton Di Pasquale and you think of the incredible one lap speed and maybe not ⁓ so much in the racecraft, but ⁓ yeah, they clearly executed in pit lane today really well. That's part of coming through like that. They're better on the soft tie than the super soft. I think that's pretty clear. And that was really backed up by the fact that David Reynolds started and finished in the top ten today as well. Yep. ⁓ Cam Waters was fourth. He dropped a couple of spots after starting on the front row. I think this weekend for Tickford was kind of one of those weekends where they were they were sort of in the mix but not right at the front. There were times like Tommy Randall topped, what was it, Q one for Race two qualifying, man, this qualifying gets confusing. Never start a sentence if you don't know how you're gonna finish it. Yeah, exactly. it's later, right? ⁓ but yeah, they they kinda had it feels like the Tickford cars were sort of in the mix, certainly nowhere near the the dire straights of the New Zealand swing and that sort of stuff where they were really struggling with pace. ⁓ but that was about where they sort of deserved to sit this weekend. They seemed a bit better over a lap than over a race, but ⁓ Yeah, just ⁓ that that was Tickford's level kind of this weekend. Yeah, so a bit of sweet and sour because I think it's a real positive that they were on the pace, this one lap pace that they managed to cook up before Darwin hadn't disappeared, but it was another one where they weren't as strong in the races as they were in qualifying, and I think that was most evidenced by the fact that Cam Waters just waved Matt Payne through. Yeah. He's he's running second in the race. Yeah, but he just knew he didn't have anything to play. And that's not a Cam Waters Something Cam Waters does lightly. Like he has to really know that he's he's got a knife and there's a gunfight going on for him to do something like that. So yeah, I agree with you. I think that speaks ⁓ speaks volumes. Let's have a chat about Kai Allen because he had to come from the back after a power steering failure in qualifying. Those grove cars are clearly pretty good because he charged his way all the way up to fifth place. and I don't know, it felt like a very fitting end to a weekend where he kind of had this coming of age of like the elbows are out and no one's pushing me around and he sort of fired through the field, which was pretty impressive. But there was a bit of a scare in the stewards room after the race today. What was going on there, Stefan? Yeah, we haven't ⁓ been able to get the full details from the stewards yet, but there was a hearing post race and it was centered around the minimum tie pressure rule where ⁓ you have to adhere to the sixteen PSI ⁓ for the entire time. That the car is ⁓ on the track. So that includes when it's rolling out to the grid and the whole box and dice. ⁓ so again we don't know the details of when, but we believe that it did read underneath the sixteen at some point through the tire pressure monitoring system that's in all the wheels. and yeah, there was a a ⁓ lengthy hearing and the case was dismissed, so no punishment. But ⁓ certainly looking forward to seeing why that is once the full explanation comes out because it'll be yeah talking point amongst the other teams because often this is ⁓ disqualification. This was a high stakes hearing that it was playing out. Yeah anything that's a technical breach that doesn't get punished with disqualification always creates a pretty interesting talking point in the paddock. So ⁓ we will of course cover that on speakfa dot com when the official motorsport straight documents are made public. It is slightly unusual that that got moved into Division D, so it is actually in the sporting regs that T PMS sixteen PSI rule. But ⁓ yeah, like we saw Chaz Mostett get disqualified from a race in Sydney when they're arguing about the whether the monitoring system was working properly, but it wasn't on the car ended up that it wasn't that it wasn't on the car, so that was a slam dunk. Yeah. ⁓ let's have a chat about Brody Kastecki. Obviously he had a tough ⁓ first race on Saturday where he sort of tipped himself out of the race and cost himself a whole bunch of points there. And then today he did come home twelfth, but really should have been in the fight for the podium. ⁓ but they had ⁓ an issue in their first stop where they couldn't get fuel in car. Like they plugged in the churn and no fuel was going in. Now they had that issue in Tasmania. ⁓ They do the team does seem to think it's a different issue this time around. That was a kind of vapor lock sort of drama there. Yeah, fuel spilling up into the vent. Yeah. ⁓ so but effectively he did a stop that put no fuel in the car, which put him on a three-stop strategy, which is not the ideal strategy by any stretch of the imagination. He did come home twelfth, but between the race one issue yesterday and missing out. on a bunch of points again today because he ended up outside the top ten instead of fighting for a podium. I mean that's his sprint cup hopes done and dusted. Yeah, so the team from what they were looking at after the race believe it's some sort of mechanical issue on the chassis side that was seizing up so in the coupling. ⁓ and it really was added insult to injury that they didn't get any fuel in and the car was sent yeah ⁓ back on track in that first stop. Tom Moore car controller was yeah a bit ⁓ down on himself that he'd sort of was focused on the fact that the left front wheel change was slow. Yeah. But as soon as that was done the car was sent and ⁓ certainly Mark Larkin was talking to us actually last night about this. Yeah. ⁓ but also I believe in the broadcast today about car controllers needing to actually look at the the fuel churn and see if the if the fuel's gone or it's still there before sending cars. So yeah. Trauma there. Brody was ⁓ pretty ⁓ abrupt with ⁓ George Cummins on the radio. Would not like to be part of that that debrief. ⁓ not at all. Brody is the ⁓ the team captain there and ⁓ he will not enjoy having, even though it's a different version of the issue, the same issue basically twice. Yep, absolutely. 'Cause obviously a a s a slow stop to get the fuel in would have been better than have to transit pit lane and do a whole other stop. ⁓ yeah, we saw it in the second stop. that ⁓ they actually had the same issue again. Pulled it out and when they put it back in again it ⁓ it drank all the fuel like it should have. So yeah, just a bit of a nothing weekend in the end for for Brody and those guys. Like they had reasonable pace, but they didn't get a top five from the whole thing. And when there was all the hype going in about the local star, the breaking the the drought of no Perth driver had won since ⁓ Garthander and and all of that. It just didn't live up to to the billing. It definitely did not. Let's finish up talking about ⁓ Toyota and did some obligation team. Walking shore TWG racing. Chaz Mostett was the best super home in six today, but poor Ryan Wood didn't even get to make it to his second row start because the engine went cablamo on the ⁓ on the warm-up lap. Yeah, and this sounded like it was a similar issue to what Andre Heimgartner had had. Yeah. Townsville where it's some sort of enormous backfire in the airbox. Yeah. ⁓ that essentially blows the airbox off the thing. So ⁓ Was it Tickford Motors once upon a time that used to love an airbox fire back in the old days? I think that was a very small issue compared to what they've got going on here. ⁓ that was, yeah, a little bit of flooding in the pit lane rather than ⁓ That's right. Rather than this. So that ⁓ car two was meant to run at the right day, ⁓ tomorrow, Monday, and it will not because of that. But car one will be on track and it's gonna be a significant day for them because they've got their B spec Toyota motor ready to go. This is the the solution that's meant to solve the the valve track issues that they've had ongoing since preseason testing. ⁓ and it's a development they've program they've run with Swindon Powertrains, their UK based engine partner, and they've managed to ⁓ get all the pieces together, get a B spec engine built, sent over here, arrived in Perth on Friday and they were ⁓ bolting it into the car this evening. Yep, as we left they were preparing to do that and it was quite late when we left, so that's the glamorous side of motorsport to do an overnight engine engine change before a ride day on on a Monday, back at the same track after a long weekend of racing. But that's what it takes to ⁓ be a homologation team and be competitive in ⁓ in, you know. a professional level series like this. So Yeah, I just hope for those guys that this does solve their issues. Definitely. Obviously it's it in some ways it's been the doomsday scenario for the Toyota program because that brand is just so attached to reliability. It's been this was the biggest risk of all. Yeah, it's a big part of their marketing and it is their their brand DNA. So it was interesting too that Bruce Stewart, the CEO at Walkenshaw's on the TV, ⁓ good on him for fronting up. Yeah. ⁓ but after this ⁓ issue today with Woody's car, he really threw himself on the fire. Yeah. He used the phrase it's on us multiple times in the explanation of this, which really looked like an attempt to ⁓ firewall Toyota itself from what's going on here. Yep, absolutely. Well, we will be heading out to Wanneroo to see how that engine is going in the morning. And by the morning I mean today, because again Time most people listen to this, it will definitely be Monday already. ⁓ we will leave it there for the Sunday edition of the daily podcast. ⁓ stay tuned to speedcafe.com across Monday because we have a whole lot of content that we're still riding, to be perfectly honest, to ⁓ to roll out tomorrow before we head out to ⁓ to the track to see what's happening at the ride day. And then full credit to the noise, we'll be back in this podcast feed on Tuesday morning.