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The Motorsport Brief: Digesting Bathurst with winning Team Manager Mark Dutton · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:04
  Welcome to the Motorsport Brief.
• 0:06
  It's Thursday, the 12th of October, 2023.
• 0:09
  Mega weekend at the mountain for the 60th anniversary of the great race.
• 0:14
  Hope you all enjoyed it.
• 0:15
  The Bathurst 1000 is in focus for us today.
• 0:18
  We will debrief it in detail now that we've had a few days to ponder it all.
• 0:23
  And we'll do that with a representative from the winning team.
• 0:27
  Plus, the.
• 0:28
  the heartbreak for their sister car, which may have been on for a podium, a potential one-two.
• 0:34
  We'll talk about that and more.
• 0:38
  G'day everybody, Greg Rust with you for this ep of the Rusty's Garage Shorty.
• 0:42
  Now, someone will invariably email in or DM and say, it's too much Red Bull on here at the moment with Jamie Wincup, our bonus Bathurst preview guest last week, and you could even stretch that thread to include Jack Miller as well.
• 0:58
  For the record...
• 0:59
  I just try and find good yarns.
• 1:01
  It has nothing to do with favouring one team or competitor.
• 1:05
  It was our first time ever getting jack on, and Phillip Island's MotoGP round is just a week away, so that was timely.
• 1:13
  And with Jamie, I was...
• 1:15
  particularly interested in some of the cool cars that were being taken to the mountain for the milestone celebrations.
• 1:22
  He took the Vodafone Commodore that he owns, affectionately known as Kate.
• 1:27
  And of course, when you get them on, you invariably chat about other things with them.
• 1:31
  I am a big believer in balance.
• 1:34
  I probably bang on about that too much here on the pod.
• 1:37
  So I have asked for a Ford representative to come on and talk to us about the parity situation.
• 1:43
  I've seen your comments and your messages.
• 1:46
  Thank you for those.
• 1:47
  That is a work in progress.
• 1:49
  And next week, we're also set to talk with the new boss of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, as well as a special guest expert from TEN's MotoGP coverage.
• 1:58
  They will join us for...
• 2:00
  an island bonus ep as we preview the australian grand prix on two wheels now standing by in queensland is a man who has well recovered after the celebrations on sunday it is red bull amp hole racing's mark dutton it was a special win for the squad but it wasn't without some mixed emotions as i said in the intro there plenty of nerves in the final 20 laps or so
• 2:25
  On a personal level, I love the comeback, the almost fairytale story of Richie Stanaway too, who is now in the record books as a Bathurst winner after quitting motorsport disenchanted just a couple of years back.
• 2:39
  That's a good turnaround.
• 2:41
  With the benefit of a few days off to digest it all, we thought we would get the team boss on for a chat.
• 2:47
  Hello, Dutto.
• 2:49
  G'day, Rusty.
• 2:50
  How wounded were you?
• 2:51
  Big night of celebrations on Sunday.
• 2:53
  You were allowed to.
• 2:54
  Yeah, mainly just tired, mate.
• 2:56
  As you said, it's a big night of celebrations, but just a big week, mate.
• 3:00
  As you know, Bathurst, mate, it takes you out of you.
• 3:03
  And just the focus and the mental concentration of the whole team throughout the whole day, it's a huge, huge day.
• 3:12
  Shane talked about investment in race car in the early kind of part of the week.
• 3:17
  And in some respects, they weren't on the radar or where we thought they would be, he and Richie, in the early part.
• 3:23
  How beneficial, when you look back on it, was that move in the outcome of Sunday's race?
• 3:30
  Mate, it was critical.
• 3:31
  It absolutely was.
• 3:33
  And it takes a lot of discipline.
• 3:35
  Everyone talks about it going in, but you're all competitors and you want to be the fastest.
• 3:40
  You want to be on pole, even though you tell yourself it's not important.
• 3:44
  It takes a lot of discipline to – and look, of course, we gave a red hot shot in shootout and things like that.
• 3:50
  You don't hold back as such.
• 3:52
  But no, the discipline of not just 97, but 88 and the Triple Eight boys as well and girls, to have the discipline to just keep the focus on a race car, pay dividends.
• 4:06
  There was a bit of talk or some worries around steering for the 97 car late in the game there.
• 4:12
  Talk about brakes as well.
• 4:13
  And that decent sized clump of rubber build up in the splitter.
• 4:18
  How serious were those collective concerns for you guys?
• 4:23
  Yes, some of it you don't know the full extent, unfortunately.
• 4:26
  So with the brakes, for example, in the past we used to have brake travel sensors.
• 4:31
  So you could monitor live when the driver spoke about a longer pedal.
• 4:36
  Was it 5mm longer?
• 4:38
  Was it 2%?
• 4:39
  Or was it going to the floor?
• 4:41
  you could quantify the feeling the driver's giving you because they're in the hot seat you're not.
• 4:46
  But these days we don't have that luxury.
• 4:49
  So you're doing it solely on the driver's feedback.
• 4:53
  So it's really hard to tell.
• 4:56
  Is it something worth...
• 4:57
  giving up position for and coming in or is it not so you do have to really rely on the drivers same with the steering you know you you yes you've got sensors and stuff but so much of it just comes back to the the driver having the feel um and more than the feel just the the the coolness under pressure when you are in that hot seat to to not think that it's much worse than it is which
• 5:21
  It's easy to talk about that calmly sitting here, but in the hot seat, it's definitely a different story for the drivers.
• 5:28
  So hats off to Shane and all the drivers, keeping it cool and going at the pace they are while having possible race stopping issues.
• 5:39
  Yeah.
• 5:40
  It was a tale of two garages for you as well, wasn't it?
• 5:43
  I mean, gutted for Brock Feeney.
• 5:46
  Have you had a closer look and can you understand now what went wrong and was it the same issue that befell the Lowndes-Goddard wildcard entry earlier in the race, rather?
• 5:56
  Yeah, it was, it unfortunately was the same issue.
• 6:00
  So we do need to go in more in depth.
• 6:02
  We only unloaded the cars this morning.
• 6:05
  We've sat down for debrief.
• 6:06
  So we haven't dismantled the cars yet to take the components out to fully understand the details.
• 6:15
  But no, it was the same situation in both cars, the same component failure, but
• 6:21
  So at least we had consistency there, but not the type of consistency we were going for.
• 6:25
  You want.
• 6:25
  Yeah, exactly.
• 6:27
  Probably fair to say that your role is a combination, performance and people.
• 6:33
  And we saw some real emotion from Brock in that lovely live interview with Chad Nalon in the coverage.
• 6:41
  That has resonated, Dutto, with fans.
• 6:43
  And I know that doesn't change his world, right?
• 6:46
  right now.
• 6:48
  How is he and what have you all sort of said in the wake of it to kind of console him?
• 6:53
  Yeah, I mean, the first thing we said to the whole team is let's worry about what could have been and should have been in debriefs in the week after.
• 7:03
  Right now, as every single body in Triple Eight, every person who works here, whether it's a driver, a chef, a manufacturing company,
• 7:13
  we all got the trophy.
• 7:16
  We all had the best day of anyone in pit lane.
• 7:20
  Yes, we had some pretty gut-wrenching moments and what could have been, and specifically for the 88 lads being so close to... And there was times when it was looking like Shane had issues and Brock was coming at him at lightning pace that there was a fair chance that Brock could have caught Shane, and that would have been interesting as well.
• 7:41
  It was gutting, but the initial thing is for everyone just to be proud.
• 7:44
  Everyone just be so proud of what we've achieved.
• 7:48
  And, yeah, we'll go through all the hard nuts and bolts of it.
• 7:52
  But, yeah, Brock is a true professional, yeah, well beyond his years.
• 7:57
  And he's strong.
• 7:58
  He'll be stronger.
• 7:59
  And, look, we need to – it's a harsh reminder that, you know, there's still things where we can definitely do a –
• 8:05
  a decently better job of that was that was not not Brock's fault at all obviously so that was from myself down that we could have done a better job there.
• 8:16
  Hypothetically if you had come up against that scenario where he had caught Shane was that something you discussed in the lead up to the race and how might you have handled it it's probably difficult to answer that at this point in time because we weren't confronted with it.
• 8:28
  Yeah, no, so we front-footed it.
• 8:30
  So when they come up against each other in full strength, then we've got to analyse and say, okay, how much do we fight each other?
• 8:42
  So if your competitors are far enough back that you can fight and not risk them catching you, then it's always been the T8 way.
• 8:52
  Let them have fun.
• 8:53
  Don't hit each other, but just race cleanly.
• 8:58
  When Brock was catching Shane the most, it was when Shane was talking of the brake issue.
• 9:04
  So Shane's car actually looked wounded.
• 9:07
  So I already spoke to the engineers when, from memory, we were 5.8 seconds away with 88 compared to 97.
• 9:15
  I said, look, guys, with 97 possibly being wounded, we don't need to make any calls right now.
• 9:21
  But if he is wounded and Brock catches the back of him, he needs to let him go.
• 9:27
  We're not going to fight because one wounded car, we don't want to give up the win as a team because we're fighting a wounded car versus a full-strength one, even though Shane can fight like no one else.
• 9:41
  So no doubt he could have.
• 9:43
  But no, we were front-footing that.
• 9:45
  And I'm sure if the situation had ever arose that 97 was truly wounded, it wasn't in the end.
• 9:52
  The breaks came good and it wasn't an issue.
• 9:55
  But at that point in time, it did appear to be wounded.
• 9:58
  So Shane definitely knows how to play the long game and the team game as well.
• 10:03
  So hopefully that would have gone off smoothly.
• 10:06
  Erebus had been quick in every session in the lead-up.
• 10:10
  Did you go into the race with a level of confidence that you could match them in racing terms, or was there an element of doubt in your mind?
• 10:17
  No, there's definitely an element of doubt because they were so quick, and Brodie's shootout lap was spectacular to watch.
• 10:26
  We thought we did some pretty good shootout laps ourselves.
• 10:29
  Brock in particular, his lap was...
• 10:32
  was pretty special.
• 10:34
  It looked fast, but for sure, Brodie, true to his form all year in qualifying in particular, that lap looked really special to watch.
• 10:43
  It was exciting to watch.
• 10:44
  Yes, we're competitors, but you still give credit where credit's due.
• 10:49
  Definitely, you're not sure how much of that pace is going to be lost for the race.
• 10:54
  So, no, we were...
• 10:56
  While we had confidence in our own cars and our team's ability as a whole to race the big race and also match race if we need to specific competitors.
• 11:07
  No, we were definitely very wary that they could be very, very tough to beat.
• 11:12
  Roland Dane wasn't there.
• 11:14
  He watched on the telly with over a million others while having a barbecue by the sounds of it.
• 11:18
  Do you agree with the view that he shared in his column around perhaps rethinking the, the tyre compound selections for the 1000?
• 11:27
  100%.
• 11:30
  From our perspective, it was a mistake going there with the softs.
• 11:34
  Like when we turned up on Tuesday, it was, it was 30 degrees, 30 degrees plus.
• 11:41
  we don't know if those soft tires would have lasted in those sort of track temperatures.
• 11:45
  And when we mean lasted, we mean, could it not do the race?
• 11:51
  You know, if they failed that dramatically.
• 11:54
  Now, the flip side of that is when the tires are such on the limit, then the teams that can manage them better get a bit of a leg up.
• 12:04
  So we worked super hard and we're very focused during all the lead up.
• 12:10
  to make sure we would we were as cross as much as we can be um the tires you know that's that's campers pressures looking at temperatures looking how the drivers are driving it you know there was a lot of effort and focus that went into that so that if there was any issues or any um hardcore uh managing that had to happen that it wasn't going to come as a surprise so i i'm
• 12:32
  I totally agree that I don't think it should be the soft tyres.
• 12:35
  Risk for reward, what did it give?
• 12:37
  It gave nothing.
• 12:38
  It gave a cool lap time.
• 12:40
  But ultimately, that's a one-lapper.
• 12:43
  That's not the race.
• 12:45
  It put marbles everywhere, which means the drivers not just have to manage the tyres, as Roland spoke of, but the offline marbles means that...
• 12:55
  You know, drivers are dubious about, you know, stepping out there to try a passing move.
• 13:00
  You spoke earlier about the amount of rubber that was built up.
• 13:03
  Like, you know, yeah, that can bring some crashes and things like that, which maybe could add to the spectacle.
• 13:09
  Not really in the way you want.
• 13:11
  But, yeah, definitely the amount of tyres we had and the compound, I...
• 13:17
  I believe personally was a mistake.
• 13:18
  I'm not going to complain about it too much because we came away with the silverware.
• 13:23
  But, yeah, I don't think it was necessarily the right call.
• 13:28
  Mark Dutton is kindly going to hang around for a little bit longer.
• 13:31
  A quick break here on Rusty's Garage.
• 13:37
  You're listening to the post-Bathis Motorsport Brief here in the garage with 888 or Red Bull Ampol Racing team boss Mark Dutton.
• 13:46
  Dutto, Triple Eight has won so many significant events in the modern era of the sport.
• 13:51
  Sum up what this one means for us.
• 13:54
  I mean, massive crowd, milestone year, the first Bathurst for Gen 3, pretty special.
• 14:00
  Very, very special, you know.
• 14:02
  At any time, it's special, but with the amount of time, effort and dedication that Triple Eight put into the whole Gen 3 project, it definitely is that little bit sweeter.
• 14:12
  Off the back of the 20-year anniversary for Triple Eight on the Sandown round to win that and then to come and...
• 14:22
  It was funny, I dropped my daughter at school yesterday and she wanted me to wear a race shirt, so I put on the 20-year anniversary shirt and on the back in big gold letters it says nine Bathursts and it was pretty cool to tell her that's now wrong, that's ten.
• 14:38
  So it means a lot to everyone at T8 that's been part of the journey, whether they still work here or whether they're long gone sort of thing.
• 14:49
  It was very special.
• 14:50
  Now that we've had two decent endurance races under our belts with these new cars, what learnings have you kind of observed or taken away that perhaps the sport can tune from here?
• 15:01
  And I don't want to get into parity.
• 15:02
  That's not what I'm asking there, Dutto.
• 15:03
  I mean, just broadly, generally.
• 15:05
  Yeah, well, so far they've held up.
• 15:07
  spectacularly well now it's a little bit counterintuitive me saying that because we had two failures but yeah that's very easy identifiable so what we can do there but uh we just had our team debrief um which is all about your reliability all the consistencies of the car so and one of the things we really harped on to the mechanics was as you're stripping the car down
• 15:29
  Look at everything.
• 15:31
  Look at everything.
• 15:31
  Don't take everything for granted.
• 15:33
  Even if it's, oh, I've seen that a little bit before.
• 15:36
  No, just write a list.
• 15:38
  Every little crack, thing that's flexed, anything that might be a little bit, oh, there's a bunch of rubber here, anything like that so that the post-mortem we can really understand because…
• 15:48
  Really, the cars did fantastically both at Sandown and at Bathurst for the category as a whole.
• 15:58
  So we just need to understand were there anything that was close to failing that didn't fail sort of thing.
• 16:06
  And the good thing with the Gen 3 for the category is that,
• 16:11
  you close the loop.
• 16:12
  So there's meetings after every event that every team will have one technical person in to give that feedback.
• 16:20
  So everyone from the category can learn together.
• 16:24
  And look, that's...
• 16:25
  That's a double.
• 16:26
  Yeah, you can take that two ways.
• 16:28
  It is bittersweet.
• 16:29
  Like it's good because it makes the category stronger.
• 16:32
  But, you know, they were those little things that as a team you like to do a little bit better than your competitors to get that little bit of advantage, which is now not the same.
• 16:44
  But overall, it means that everyone has a better car.
• 16:47
  Everyone should hopefully be able to have a more reliable car, therefore run it at a lower cost.
• 16:53
  And as you know, motorsport's not cheap.
• 16:54
  So anywhere that collectively we can save, when you talk about savings for the category on a whole, that's always a benefit for all of us.
• 17:02
  Shane's words post-race were something like, Richie should probably be in this car full-time next year.
• 17:09
  It is fantastic, I think, in story terms, that Stanaway is now a Bathurst winner and your team has played a very significant part in that.
• 17:18
  Do you kind of feel in some ways like a good one has slipped through your fingers?
• 17:21
  Yeah, 100%.
• 17:22
  Yeah.
• 17:23
  I didn't know Richie from a bar or so before this year.
• 17:27
  Obviously, I knew of him and seen him ran the traps in the early days, but I'd never spoken a word to him.
• 17:32
  So what a good guy.
• 17:34
  What a good guy.
• 17:35
  Amazing composure, awesome race car feel.
• 17:40
  Really, really good to work with.
• 17:43
  So, yeah, yeah.
• 17:45
  It's funny if...
• 17:47
  if things have played out in a slightly different order, maybe he would be the one in the seat for next year.
• 17:53
  Like it's one of those things that in life, but in motorsport in particular, sometimes just timing plays a part.
• 18:03
  And yeah, sliding door moment, if the timing had have been slightly different, then we're very happy with who we signed, don't get me wrong, but you definitely couldn't be unhappy if you haven't Ritchie driving for your full time.
• 18:17
  A couple to finish here, and that'll lead me to Will Brown very shortly.
• 18:19
  Firstly, Scott Pye.
• 18:21
  You may not be able to talk about this.
• 18:23
  Bit of chat that he is on the radar, potentially for the Enduros for next year for you guys.
• 18:28
  Any truth in that?
• 18:29
  Obviously, Shane may have helped kickstart that conversation because they're great mates.
• 18:33
  Mate, we're looking at everything because, yeah, we don't know what Shane's schedule will be like next year, so we do need to make sure we're covered.
• 18:44
  We'd rather have, you know, three co-drivers than one type thing.
• 18:49
  So I'm not sure if I'm allowed to confirm or deny anything in those areas.
• 18:54
  Well played, well played.
• 18:56
  But we're definitely investigating all avenues.
• 18:59
  Good on you.
• 19:00
  Your media manager over your shoulders, trade you well.
• 19:02
  I like it.
• 19:02
  Now, Dan.
• 19:03
  Finally, you've been able to lure Will Brown to the team for next year, which is great.
• 19:07
  You went there a minute ago in the conversation.
• 19:09
  He's a huge talent in the car and out of the car.
• 19:12
  When realistically can you start that integration?
• 19:15
  Is it not until the new year or will Erebus maybe give him a little bit of leeway that you can get him slightly sooner once the season's done?
• 19:22
  Um, we'll, we'll leave that till the new year.
• 19:25
  Um, as, as a basic rule, just to, just to make sure we give them the respect to run their season and us run our season.
• 19:33
  Uh, look, once the racing's over that there's, there's no extra testing anyways.
• 19:37
  There's not a lot you can do, uh, even if you, even if you wanted to.
• 19:41
  So now we'll let the year play out sort of thing.
• 19:43
  And then, um, and then, yeah, we'll be fierce competitors to the end of the year and then, uh, best of teammates next year.
• 19:49
  Good stuff.
• 19:50
  It's been fantastic to catch up with you.
• 19:51
  To everybody on the team, congratulations from all of us here at Rusty's Garage.
• 19:56
  Wishing you the best for the Gold Coast and especially for the rest of the season.
• 20:00
  Cheers, Rusty.
• 20:01
  Much appreciated.
• 20:03
  In other news, congrats to Oscar Piastri on another GP podium with second in Qatar behind Max Verstappen.
• 20:10
  And Oscar chalked up that win in the sprint race too.
• 20:13
  Breakthrough victory for him.
• 20:14
  Very good weekend in all.
• 20:16
  Hugely taxing conditions for everybody there.
• 20:19
  Several drivers massively dehydrated at the end and suffering heat stroke symptoms.
• 20:24
  Lewis Hamilton copped an 80k fine for crossing a live track.
• 20:28
  He did apologise to team mate George Russell after that contact at Turn 1.
• 20:33
  Russell was sandwiched with nowhere to go, Max Verstappen on the inside after Lewis made that brilliant start on softer tyres, but he wasn't quite far enough past when they made contact.
• 20:44
  Good yarn by Chad Nalon on the Supercars site.
• 20:47
  Worth having a read of too.
• 20:49
  About the sport's new breed, how they've arrived, and we need to have a bit of a glass of positivity around that to be looking forward.
• 20:56
  That pool of talent coming through means that the future is bright.
• 21:01
  Yes, we need to savour the different eras of the sport and appreciate them.
• 21:05
  What SVG has achieved, for example, is remarkable.
• 21:09
  And we're incredibly proud now that Scott McLaughlin and Shane will both represent the sport stateside next year, respectively in IndyCar and NASCAR.
• 21:19
  Now, Supercars needs to get behind, promote and help make this next generation household names.
• 21:26
  MotoGP is in Indonesia this weekend before heading to Phillip Island the weekend after.
• 21:30
  Then they're off to Thailand, Malaysia, before the season wraps up with Qatar and the traditional final event in Spain on November 27.
• 21:39
  Busy couple of weeks for those on two wheels.
• 21:42
  And a little memory popped up in socials in recent days that I love.
• 21:46
  The great Murray Walker would have turned 100 this week.
• 21:56
  one.
• 21:56
  That is it for this edition of The Brief.
• 21:58
  Keep an eye out for another long form ep that is set to drop early next week here on Rusty's Garage with the legendary MotoGP caller Nick Harris.
• 22:08
  I'm Greg Rust.
• 22:08
  We'll catch you then.
• 22:09
  Bye for now.