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AUSTRALIA’S SPORTING SHOWPIECE

TURNS IT ON AGAIN THE THREE BIGGEST SINGLE-DAY SPORTING EVENTS IN AUSTRALIA ARE THE FRIDAY, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY AT THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX, WTH RECORD CROWDS ON EACH DAY BEING DWARFED BY THE BILLION OR SO WATCHING ON TV. ANDREW CLARKE DEBRIEFS WITH OUTGOING CEO ANDREW WESTACOTT THE EARLY track invasion may have garnered media coverage on the Monday morning after the Australian Grand Prix, marring what had been a spectacular weekend of motor racing in Australia as the event continues to grow.

Over four days, 444,631 people attended the race, with 131,124 fans cramming into Albert Park on Sunday to witness Max Verstappen’s victory in a chaotic, actionpacked race.

The Albert Park event again blew away the biggest sports in the country, exceeding the AFL’s biggest crowd of 121,696 from the 1970 Grand Final (which is erroneously claimed as the biggest sporting crowd in Australian history) on each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

AA bumped into outgoing AGP CEO Andrew Westacott as we were leaving the track. The beaming boss expressed his pride in the event and the work of his team, which has got it there.

“The whole thing worked beautifully, and it’s a credit to everyone in the Corporation’s team, who work so tirelessly for many, many months,” he said. “A day like today, and a week like this, just doesn’t happen without a huge amount of planning, and that comes with working with Formula One, Supercars, Porsche, historic committees, and just all forms of music.

“I was so proud, for instance, having AJ (Alan Jones) and Lady Margaret Brabham (Sir Jack Brabham’s widow) out there doing the tribute just before the race, and I think that’s what this event is about – playing on the past, present, and the future.”

Like last year, there was an incredible vibe around the precinct. The Melbourne Walk, which amazingly has not been replicated elsewhere, was thriving, with thousands of fans clamouring to see many of the Formula One stars as they walk towards the tight security of the F1 paddock.

Westacott says the atmosphere is not something you can measure, but it was a real and important part of the event’s success.

“You do things very clinically,” he says of the post-race analysis. “You can measure it by the economics. You can measure it by the brand. You can measure it by the eyeballs worldwide that are just going to see Melbourne, and you look at that imagery and

THE CROWDS Thursday 60,832 Friday 122,927 Saturday 129,748 Sunday 131,124 TOTAL 444,631

Record crowds at the AGP. Left Outgoing AGP CEO Andrew Westacott chats with Aussie hero Oscar Piastri. Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES/ANDREW CLARKE say, ‘That is a great place. Gee, if I’m going to go somewhere for a holiday ... yes, I want to go to Australia, and I’m going to go to Melbourne as well as the traditional tourist locations,’ and that’s powerful.

“There so many ways to measure the event.

“When the Governor of Victoria arrived, Paul Little (chairman of the AGP Board), myself, and Minister Steve Dimopoulos, our Tourism and Major Events Minister, met the Governor at the top of the Melbourne Walk. We walked down there, and that was just awesome.

“There’s a new breed of F1 fans, and that isn’t lost on anyone at the Grand Prix Corporation. The new fans need to be entertained. The new fans want excitement, and if it’s a crap event, they say, ‘Oh, this wasn’t as good as I thought.’

They’re going to walk’.”

Last year’s dramatic increase in attendance came after two years of COVID lockdowns, and Westacott described that as a comingout party. This left a challenge as to how to keep it growing, which they did.

Saturday and Sunday were sell-out days, and Friday was not that far off it. If they could get more staff, they’d probably let more in.

“Last year, you could say it was the coming

out party for Melbourne, but this year it was authentic support for how big and fantastic this event is. I think it’ll build again, and I’m going to watch with real admiration the Grand Prix Corporation team who will deliver next year, just like they have for all my 11 years.

“I know they’re already looking at what they can do.”

If he doesn’t get sent a complimentary ticket, he says he will buy a four-day pass and go to different stands each day! He likes Turn Five and the Stewart Stand, Turn 11 in either Vettel or Webber, race day would be the Brabham stand, and he’d shout himself a spot in the Red Bull Energy Station or Chicane Pavilion.

Finally, he said, one of the keys was having Australians in the race, this year with the introduction of Formula Two and Formula Three, showing the future of Australians in international motorsport as well.

“I was excited that Oscar Piastri got points; his first-ever points were in Melbourne. Now that’s a bonus. People’s careers will be determined by their performances, but Mark Weber had 10 years, and Daniel had 10 or 11 years.

“Oscar’s just starting his career after the

successes of Formula Three and Formula Two, so let’s hope he’s following Mark and Daniel. As an engineer, I look at the trends, and if the trends are saying about 10 years, let’s hope that the Melbourne fans have got 10 years of Oscar Piastri.

“I was able to see Tommy Smith before too, and you couldn’t wipe the smile off his face after racing through and, I think, finishing 12th in the Formula 3 Feature race from the back of the grid. That’s a great drive.

“I saw Jack Doohan go extremely well last year, and I know he’ll go extremely well in races this year, and let’s hope he gets the consistency that he deserves and, most importantly, he needs.”

The Australian Grand Prix is contracted to run until 2035, and many innovations are planned for future years. Over the weekend, there was plenty of talk about an extended pitlane and new facilities, but aside from saying the current facility is 25 years old, Westacott said he didn’t know of any plans for that.

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PIASTRI SOAKS UP THE HOME ATMOSPHERE

OSCAR PIASTRI HAS SETTLED INTO HIS ROLE AS A HOMETOWN HERO, TAKING IN THE HYPE AND PERFORMING ON THE TRACK. FELLOW MELBURNIAN ANDREW CLARKE GOT SUCKED INTO THE OSCAR VORTEX ...

WE’VE WRITTEN a lot about Oscar Piastri over the years. He’s been a columnist on our pages (and will be again soon). We’ve ridden his journey from a young karter who left Australia to win titles in karts and Formula Renault Eurocup, FIA Formula 3 and FIA Formula 2 before earning a drive in Formula One. His signing last year with McLaren was controversial and went through the courts, but he knew what he wanted and where he wanted to be. And now he’s there on the next part of his journey.

A few Formula One drivers get to race near their hometowns, but only Lance Stroll and Oscar Piastri get to race in the city of their birth. The young Australian didn’t seem to get too carried away with Oscar fever as papaya again became the colour of choice for Albert Park.

To score his first points in his home race will live with him and us for a long time.

“Definitely happy to get my first points on the board, especially here at home,” he said after the crazy triple red-flagged race.

“A positive day and still some learning to do. The first two races couldn’t have gone that much worse, so it was nice to be on

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the good end of things going wrong for other people.

“The crowd has been sensational with me all week. They have turned out in their droves to support me, and I’m really grateful. All of the messages that I’ve had and the cheers that I’ve received making my way down the Melbourne Walk in the mornings have meant a lot.

The week was a bit of a whirlwind for the 21-year-old. From the moment he arrived in Australia, he knew this trip was different from any other homecoming.

“The reception’s definitely gone up a notch from last year, which has been cool,” he said after qualifying. “I think in terms of workload and stuff like that, I think it’s been well managed.

“To be honest, at this point of the weekend last year, I was probably more tired than I am now, which is a good sign from the team. I think it’s been good.

“It’s been nice to have the home support, and even when I walked to the scales after Q1, there was a pretty big cheer, which was nice to have, even if it was for 16th. It’s been a cool experience.”

osCaR pias tRi MCLAREN RA CING FORMUL

A 1 DRIVER

2023 AUSTRALIA N GRAND PRIX

WELCOME BACK OSCAR!

ALBERT PARK MELBOURNE

Those of you that have been long term readers of Auto Action would have followed the wonderful story of Oscar Piastri’s rise through the ranks of international open wheeler racing – from his early karting days through to today as an F1 driver.

We are proud to say that for a large part of his journey, Oscar has been a columnist in Auto Action. And we are now excited to announce that he will be back as a columnist in our next issue, 1859, on sale April 20.

To celebrate we have a special collectable A2 poster that you can download and take to your local print outlet to have printed. Its a big file so it can be made pretty large!

Just scan the QR code or download at https://autoaction.com.au/2023/04/03/welcome-back-oscar CHAMPION 2019 EUROCUP - RACE GP

CHAMPION 2020 FIA FORMULA 3-

PREMA RACING

CHAMPION 2021 FIA FORMULA 2-

PREMA RACING

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES/ANDREW CLARKE

OSCAR FANS

ON TRACK FRIDAY FP1 1m19.777s (+0.987) 22 laps 12th FP2 1m20.380s (+1.493s) 24 laps 14th “IT WAS great to be out on track here in Melbourne and see all the fans. It was nice to have a bit of wet weather in FP2 as it was the first time running on the Intermediate tyres for me, so it was some really useful learning.

I think the first day was good and we’re in a decent place for tomorrow.

“There’s still prep to do overnight into tomorrow, but I’m adjusting to the track and getting used to it. All-in-all, a pretty solid day.”

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SATURDAY FP3 1m18.713s (+1.148s) 21 laps 14th Q1 1m18.517s (Softs) 16th “OBVIOUSLY, NOT quite what I wanted in Melbourne. The field is extremely tight, and there’s not a lot in it. I was reasonably happy with my lap – unfortunately, it just wasn’t quite quick enough by the smallest of margins. It is what it is and we’ve got tonight to look at everything to put us in the best position to make up some places tomorrow.

Hopefully, we will have a clean grand prix.”

SUNDAY STARTED 16th / FINISHED 8th FASTEST 1m21.335s on lap 53 (+1.100, 12th)

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PIT-STOPS 4, lap 8 [Medium/Hard] (during red flag), lap 54 [Hard/Soft] (3.95s), lap 55 [Hard/Soft] (during red flag), and lap 57 {Soft/Soft] (during red flag) “P8, I didn’t expect that at the start of the day! I’ll definitely take it. Obviously a crazy, crazy race but we stayed in there when it mattered.

“I’m so happy to get my first points in Melbourne and want to thank all of the home fans and papaya fans for all their support this week.

“Double points for the team is a great result and thank you to everyone who got us there.”

LUKE: I’m down here from Sydney, and I’ve been here all weekend. I like how Oscar has flown through the ranks in his rookie years – gone through F3, F2, and now into F1. And honestly, it’s truly pretty inspiring.

I’ve been a long-time supporter. It’s been good to see him carve a career so I can watch him race this weekend.

ISABELLA: I’m a McLaren fan, and Oscar’s talent has been proven. I’m really glad to see him here at his home track. I’ve been following for a year now. We stood at the gate at 7am, but people were there at five!

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Image: ROSS GIBB PHOTOGRAPHY

THE RACING GREAT, BUT… LAST WEEKEND, the Supercars at Albert Park looked stunning, with cars sliding and drifting through corners and often fourwide battles for corners as the short sprint race format produced some of the best action in recent years. But concerns still remain around certain aspects of the new Gen3 cars, with extensive crash damage, fires and parity complaints filling our notebooks at the end of the weekend.

While many of those concerns were valid, they didn’t completely overshadow the action that delivered on the new cars’ promise. The spoils for the weekend were evenly shared between Ereubus and Triple Eight, the two teams who seem to have the best handle on the new cars.

While suffering badly at times, Tim Edwards has been excited by the racing: “So, yes we’ve had dramas; that’s just the way it goes sometimes. But looking at the racing as somebody who has been involved in the sport a long time, the racing here looked pretty entertaining. It looked like it was a good show.

“I can’t remember an Australian Grand Prix round with Supercars that hasn’t been entertaining.

“I mean Friday’s race, even though it was only seven laps long ... but holy shit, that was an entertaining seven laps.”

Brad Jones summed up the weekend well: “This car sounds great, looks great and the racing’s exciting. We just need a tidy few areas up, and we will.”

PARITY

The facts are in, and, on raw data, there seems to be an imbalance in the parity between the Ford and the Chevrolet and the Ford teams believe they are racing for the ‘Mustang Cup’. Six races into the season, every race has been won on the

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track by a Camaro and the Thursday and Sunday races at the Grand Prix meeting saw five Camaros finish before a Mustang.

Not one Mustang driver stood on the podium in Melbourne and, of the 18 podiums so far this season, only three on the track have been won by Fords, and even the two Triple Eight disqualifications from the first race only adds one more blue oval to the numbers.

Tickford’s Tim Edwards says the problem is not just about engine performance or the aero of the cars. The centre of gravity, for instance, is a critical element that hasn’t been measurable until now.

Over the past three days, Supercars has assessed the COG of the cars by putting a car from each team on the rig at Tickford’s base in Campbellfield.

The results of that test have not been announced yet, but the Ford teams are keen to get to the bottom of what is wrong because they believe something is amiss.

Will Davison: “There’s some straight line difference, I think still a little bit of work to be done there. We are not doing it too easy around those guys. I think there’s a bit more to it than just the engine.

“I’ve got no doubt it’ll be sorted. We know the quality of the Ford teams, and there’s not much we can change in terms of the mechanical elements of the car. So when you’re losing in one particular spot, there’s not really anywhere you can make it up.”

Brad Jones: “Honestly, I don’t know if there is an issue. It doesn’t look like it based on speed, but I haven’t looked at it closely enough to be able to say to you with my hand on the heart, “There’s no issue at all.” It doesn’t look like it, but I don’t know.

Tim Blanchard: “I think there’s still work

that needs to be done, I think you’ve got to get through three or four events, different types of circuits before you get a true picture. I think it’s inevitable that there’s going to need to be some work done because it’s such a new formula and so many variables and stuff.

“It’s not like the Mustangs are the bottom 10 cars on the grid, so there is a level of parity there – whether it’s at the level that we would all like, maybe not, but I think there’s enough there that it’s not catastrophic. Maybe just a few little tweaks as we get going.”

Barry Ryan: “I don’t think so. When you look at some of the Fords this weekend, like Anton in that first race was really speedy, and then he had a bit of bad luck at the pits.

Chaz was up there, but I don’t know what happened in that last race. I think there’s been enough evidence from the Ford teams that they can do it if they stay up there, but they’ve just had bad luck.

“It’s easy for me to say no because we’ve won some races, but I honestly don’t think there’s an issue. The sport’s got to be good and I think every qualifying this year in every race has been Camaros and Fords in the mix and that’s all that matters.”

CHASSIS AND CRASH DAMAGE

Albert Park saw some relatively minor incidents end with big damage. Macauley Jones, early in the weekend, barely scraped a wall, yet the rear suspension mounts on his chassis were badly damaged, and it was a major repair. Others suffered a similar fate.

Tim Edwards: “I don’t believe we’ve got time to wait with this. We’ve got to get on to it now. I don’t know whether it needs to be stronger or in a slightly different style. It’s hard to say. I’m not a designer.

Is there a marginal performance advantage for the Camar BJR car. (below) At least the GM-powered product isn’t ca Image: MARK HORSBURGH

IS …

THE NEW GEN3 SUPERCARS PUT ON AN IMPRESSIVE SHOW AT ALBERT PARK, BUT MANY IN PITLANE THINK THERE IS STILL SOME WAY TO GO BEFORE THE PRODUCT IS RIGHT. ANDREW CLARKE AND BRUCE WILLIAMS LOOK AT THE WEEKEND ...

ros – such as Heimgartner’s atching fire ...

Chaz Mostert led races at the weekend, but his Mustang didn’t seem able to maintain the pace.

Image: MARK HORSBURGH

10 possible causes – 10 possible solutions seems to be the latest assessment of the worrying under-bonnet fires that afflicted Courtney (pictured below and left) and Percat’s Mustangs. Images: ANDREW CLARKE

“But roll the clock back a decade, to the first year or two of Car of the Future – as we had accidents, we changed the wall thickness of some of the tubes in the front of that car as well. So, the early CoF cars were different to the CoF cars from 2014 on.

“The virtual world’s a wonderful thing, but until you actually start physically crashing them, you don’t really know.

“I’d suggest there wouldn’t be a person in the pitlane that’s not thinking, okay, we’ve run two races now. There have been multiple accidents, and now several chassis have been damaged. It needs to be looked at sooner rather than later. 2024 isn’t going to be soon enough.”

Brad Jones: “When you talk about the accident damage we just had, the old car would’ve taken a hit better, will take better than this car – but we will fix it just like we did with the old car when it first came on board. No one really talked about it too much. The technical guys got together and we fixed it up.

“I think there’s work to be done with the cars – certainly the undertray. Lots of people have damaged clips here.

Fortunately, it’s not affecting the show.

We’re having good racing, different results, close competition.”

FIERY FORDS

When Nick Percat entered pitlane on fire on the opening lap of the Friday race, a few eyebrows were raised. When the same thing happened to James Courtney the next day, informal and formal crisis meetings were called to try and get to the bottom of the issue.

As best as we can tell, and despite some statements to the contrary, the issue is unique to Ford. The damage to both cars,

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however, was too extensive to accurately determine the cause of the fire and many factors were theorised.

While bouncing on the rev limiter at the start of the race, it looks like the Ford has some vapour blowback into the oil catchment tank. From there, something ignites that vapour and the fires start.

Both Percat and Courtney had power spikes from their tyre pressure sensors, as exclusively reported by Auto Action on Saturday night, but it is not known if that was the source of the ignition.

So, without a clear answer, the Technical Working Group put a risk mitigation plan in place – the most visible part of that solution was the tame rolling start on Sunday.

Tim Edwards: “I think the Technical Working Group had a solid meeting last night. Let’s just say there are 10 potential reasons for it [the fires]. They came up with a strategy to address all 10 of them.

“The team owners then met and were comfortable that for anything that could have caused it there was a strategy in place, including what you saw with the rolling start. So, now the work begins just to figure out exactly which one of those 10 things it was that caused it.”

Will Davison: “I don’t know a huge amount about it, but it’s obviously concerning. Not nice to see, but serious.

There was a lot of investigation going on, and, to be honest, it was scary. It’s the first time I’ve gone in before the race just to double-check I could get out quickly, with the net and everything.

“I think it’s caught everyone off guard.

No doubt they’ll be looking into that.

We had a big meeting about it and took some strict protocols. We haven’t had any issues at all, but I’m sure they’ll find out what caused it.”

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NETTLEFOLD WANTS AN AGP FUTURE FOR SUPERCARS? SOME SUPERCARS TEAM OWNERS ARE UNHAPPY WITH THE PADDOCK SQUEEZE CAUSED BY THE ARRIVAL OF F2 AND F3 IN AUSTRALIA, AND SOME THINK IT IS SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH TO STOP RACING THERE. BUT NOT THE CHAIRMAN OF RACE, THE OWNERS OF SUPERCARS BARCLAY NETTLEFOLD, SAID HE IS ADAMANT THAT SUPERCARS MUST BE AT THE AGP. MANY SUPERCAR team owners remain unconvinced by rumours of an expanded pit facility at the Albert Park Grand Prix track as they question whether Australia’s premier racing category should remain on the AGP undercard.

With the arrival of the FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 categories to this year’s AGP, there was no room in the paddock for the team transporters, which were parked outside the precinct.

The F2 and F3 teams also expressed dissatisfaction with the arrangements, which had them in tents, without direct access to the pitlane.

One solution being proposed during the Grand Prix weekend was a third pitlane and set of garage facilities, although Australian Grand Prix Corporation CEO Andrew Westacott, in an exclusive interview with Auto Action on Sunday night, said there were no plans yet for that development.

He did, however, concede that the 25-year-old main pit facility may need an upgrade.

It is believed the Victorian Government is keen on the idea of the facelift and the third pitlane, and is also open to exploring a night race, which

Barclay Nettlefold (right) on the F1 grid last weekend with Olympic gold medalist Kyle Chalmers (left) and Formula 1 Head of Race Development Torben Olsen (centre). Image: ANDREW CLARKE could allow for an expanded role for Supercars at the meeting.

Supercars missed the Grand Prix meeting in 2007, but a backlash from team sponsors prompted a rethink. A

dedicated pitlane was built in 2011, and in 2018 the race weekend was added to the championship calendar.

While some teams are saying they’d rather not be there under the current

conditions, some team owners are as adamant as the ones who don’t want to be there that Supercars must race at the Grand Prix, arguing that the ability to race in front of a bumper crowd is not just good for their sponsors, but also allows Supercars to reach a new and expanded audience.

The teams, however, now have little say in where they race after selling their shares to Racing Australia Consolidated Enterprises in 2021.

Speaking to Auto Action this week, The Chairman of the RACE Board, Barclay Nettlefold, gave little indication that Supercars is considering walking away from the biggest annual sporting weekend in Australia.

“It’s an important showcase event for our teams and our corporate partners; it’s a massive show and we should be part of it, no doubt at all.

“As long as we’ve got the ability to race and race professionally, we believe it’s the right thing because that’s what our fans want,” he said.

“They want us to be with F1 and we are a big attraction for F1 as well.

“We’re very committed to being a part of the Australian Grand Prix program into the future.”

EARLY TRACK INVASION LANDS AGP IN HOT WATER AGP RACE ORGANISERS WERE CALLED BEFORE THE FIA STEWARDS ON SUNDAY NIGHT TO EXPLAIN HOW FANS COULD GET ONTO THE TRACK WHILE CARS WERE STILL TRAVELLING AT SPEED ...

THE AUSTRALIAN Grand Prix office has been asked for a ‘please explain’ for the early entry onto the track by fans after last Sunday’s race. AGP Corporation CEO Andrew Westacott said the early access to the track was of concern but that he was confident the AGPC would be able to determine the weakness in the system and put a revised strategy in place for 2024.

“There was a safety issue at the end of the race,” Westacott said on Monday morning. “As spectators would know, it’s a synonymous part of Grand Prix racing where there is a controlled, and I emphasise the word controlled, access to the circuit, post the race.

“Unfortunately, a couple of hundred metres before Turn 1, there was an uncontrolled ingress of people onto the grass verges, and a couple of people went onto the asphalt.

“Myself, my general manager of operations and others met with the FIA and the stewards last

night. The stewards were quite rightly already onto it, and we are going to conduct an investigation to understand the cause of this.

“We work every year to allow the fans to access the track at the end of the race after the cars have passed. This was clearly a breach of what is a very robust protocol, a protocol that’s been developed and improved every year.

“Something hasn’t gone quite right, and that investigation’s already started. We’ve gone out and had a look at the area this morning, and we’re going to make sure that we do a thorough investigation as we’ve been requested to do by the FIA and the F1 stewards.”

Westacott was uncertain what the sanction could be from the infraction and is hopeful that it doesn’t mean in future years that fans will not be allowed on the track after the race. He said the system the AGPC has in place should deal with the issue and plug the holes in the safety processes.

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There were also concerns that fans could get close to this expired Haas ... Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES “I think with the combination of infrastructure, modified and reviewed plans, which we always do, then next year it [crowds entering the track after the race] can happen. But clearly, what happened yesterday was not a good situation. But what I also say is thank you for common too

sense as well, because the fans probably realised the issue.

“It was somewhat confusing for everyone at the end of the race.

“Confusion isn’t an excuse whatsoever; I just think there was a level of exuberance and excitement, given the large crowds and the great race we

had, that people wanted to get out onto the track, but they did so in a manner that wasn’t safe.”

Westacott’s team will also examine claims that a crowd member was hit by debris from Kevin Magnuson’s late-race crash. Andrew Clarke

Image: MARK HORSBURGH-EDGE PHOTOGRAPHICS

EREBUS EYES TITLES COCA-COLA RACING BY EREBUS LEFT THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX MEETING WITH THE LEAD IN THE DRIVERS’ AND TEAMS’ TITLES. ANDREW CLARKE SPOKE WITH BARRY RYAN AND BRODIE KOSTECKI ABOUT BEING CONTENDERS TWO ROUNDS into the 2023 Supercars Championship and Coca-Cola Racing

by Erebus leads both the Drivers’ and Teams’ titles after a successful weekend in Melbourne. Brodie Kostecki won the Larry Perkins Trophy for the weekend with two wins and podiums in each race of four races, pushing the 25-year-old to a 32-point lead in the championship.

“It’s just an awesome outcome for the whole team,” Kostecki said after Sunday’s race. “They put in a lot of effort throughout the off-season and even last year leading up to this point.

“It’s great to reward the team with trophies.

We’ve got a whole bunch over there, which is really cool.”

Kostecki recorded his first win in the series in Friday’s controversially shortened race, and he backed it up immediately on Saturday with his second.

“I was pretty happy after I won my first race and, obviously, the one yesterday, but crossing the line third from 14th felt more emotional today. I was happy after that race, knowing that we got the championship lead and finished the whole weekend really strong.

“I’ve sucked on champagne the last four

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races, so that’s fantastic for Erebus. To be on the podium every race is really cool.”

Kostecki is now in his third full-time season in the main game and has upped his fitness regime on the back of a desire to trim down his weight to help performance.

“I’ve had the same attitude since I first signed with Erebus – even as a co-driver, you go out there and do the best job you can. I know that the team put in a massive amount of effort into this new Gen3 car, and it’s definitely paying off.

“I think everyone’s stepped up their game, including myself. I’ve done a lot over the offseason trying to make myself better. So I think everyone’s just stepped up at the same time, and we’re ticking boxes slowly. We need to be on our game to take it to those front guys.

“I’ve been serious about my racing the whole time. With Gen3, the driver weight came down for a period, and then it got raised back up a little bit. It was going to stuff a few guys over, like Chaz, me and Shane, but Supercars were really accommodating to that.

“I just tried to get my fitness better going into the season. The team put in a massive effort, and I wanted to show them that I could do the same.”

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He hinted that he had shelved some of his plans to race in the States because he doesn’t want to run himself thin as the season progresses, giving up on the idea of running the NASCAR street race in Chicago, for instance, because it is only one week before Townsville.

“I’m pretty serious about this year. I don’t want to do a race and then have to fly straight back and jump into a Supercar. I want to make sure I go into every round with plenty of rest and make sure I’m a hundred per cent. I’d love to do a NASCAR race, but I can’t do anything that’ll take away from or compromise what I’m doing here.”

Barry Ryan said the results from the weekend in Melbourne and the dual Championship lead was vindication for its approach to the season, with Erebus building as much of the car itself as it could in the time frames, including its own chassis.

“When we look over there, and we’ve got a heap of champagne bottles, 10 trophies including the LP trophy, and a couple of race wins, how can you not be satisfied with that?” he said before talking about Erebus’ huge off-season build.

“I’d like to hope it made a difference because that’s why we did it. There was a

lot of good planning in the background with the engineering group and the mechanics, the way they’ve been putting things together, and then pit stops and the whole process.

“It’s been a team effort. I can’t pinpoint one thing, but the process we put in place to build the cars was important. Now every other team will probably think ‘we wish we’d done it like that,’ or ‘how can we buy an Erebus car?’ But no one’s going to buy a car off us. No matter how much they offer us, we’re not selling cars. It’s not what we do. We race cars.”

Kostecki and Will Brown have stepped up this year, and Ryan says part of that is their confidence in the car and the team.

“I think the biggest thing is there’s no fear of another team being better. It’s a positive mindset of both our drivers; we’ve got equal equipment now; we’re the best drivers; so we’re going to win. That’s how they both look at their racing and have very good selfconfidence.”

Erebus leads the teams’ title by 101 points over Red Bull Ampol Racing, while Kostecki holds a 32-point lead over Chaz Mostert, with Will Brown in fifth spot 131 points off the pace.

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HAZELWOOD DISQUALIFED OVER ‘HONEST ERROR’ BLANCHARD RACING Team’s Todd Hazelwood was excluded from Thursday’s Supercars qualifying and race sessions due to a technical issue.

The team discovered what was believed to be an incorrect drop gear (final drive ratio in the gearbox) and notified the Supercars Technical Department of the issue itself after the first race at Albert Park.

BRT team principal Tim Blanchard described it as an “honest error” that is “part of the Gen3 learning process”. After a tough first three races, Hazelwood finished the Australian GP on a high by scoring his first top 10 with BRT on Sunday.

FEENEY DELIVERS ON DREAM PODIUM QUESTIONS WERE being asked last year about whether or not Broc Feeney was going to cut it.

He was in the country’s most prolifically victorious team, and under the shadow of one of the most celebrated drivers of the Supercar era.

That all changed at the Adelaide 500, and on the weekend he reiterated that by becoming the sport’s youngest ever polegetter at 20 years, five months and 14 days.

He then cemented a dream victory on an F1 podium with a smart team strategy – and his father then joined him on the top step to accept the Teams’ trophy.

Regarding the podium, Feeney relayed his passion at overcoming a poor Q3 before making good over Chaz Mostert by 0.189 immediately after for his maiden pole.

“Man ... the highs and lows … 22nd and then first, I was pretty fired up in between the sessions,” Feeney said.

“It’s about time, I’ve been so close so many times. But credit to the team, the timing was perfect. I nearly stuck it in the

fence on that last lap … Crazy conditions.

“I was fired up, and I was screaming at the top of my lungs when the red flag came out.”

You could be forgiven for forgetting the #88 Camaro was on the track in the finale. He pitted on the first lap (to swap Hards for Softs) whilst the ‘Soft’ battle went on up front, before blowing past the last pitting cars to take it home over Heimgartner and Kostecki.

“When we knew we could pit on the first lap and it was going to be a rolling start, it made more sense to elect that strategy.

“It was a much easier race than my first win in Adelaide, but I still had to work for it.

“I’ve dreamt of standing on top of an F1 podium since I was a little kid, and hearing the national anthem was a very cool moment.

“To have my dad there accepting the Team’s trophy meant a lot as well.” TW Neal

TEAMS HELP PREMIAIR PERFORM A MIRACLE THE SUPERCARS paddock came to the aid of PremiAir Racing to help the team perform a “miracle” and get Tim Slade’s car ready for the first race of the Melbourne SuperSprint.

Slade suffered a heavy crash in opening practice which created heavy left-rear damage to his Camaro.

This forced the team to undergo a major repair to get the car ready for the opening race later that afternoon after missing Thursday’s back-to-back qualifying sessions. The likes of Triple Eight Race Engineering, Grove Racing and Brad Jones Racing all lent a helping hand and Slade was able to finish 13th.

PAYNE PUTS HAND UP FOR MULTI-CAR CRASH GROVE RACING rookie Matthew Payne has learned a lesson after an up-and-down weekend at Albert Park.

The Melbourne SuperSprint provided not only a positive, with Payne’s first three 1op 10 qualifying performances, but also his first penalty.

Officials adjudged Payne as the instigator of a three-car crash, which put Anton De Pasquale and Macauley Jones out of business in Race 5 at Turn 5.

Payne received a pit lane penalty and put his hand up for it, saying “I probably stuck my nose in when I should have waited – but that is racing.”

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FULLWOOD: MELBOURNE’S UNSUNG HERO THE RESULTS may not reflect it, but Bryce Fullwood was one of the top performers of the 2023 Melbourne SuperSprint and he is a big fan of the Gen3 Supercars.

Arriving at Albert Park 13th in the championship Fullwood, in his second season at Brad Jones Racing, looked destined for a tough weekend.

Car #14 struggled in the short back-to-back qualifying sessions for Races 3 and 4 of the championship, P25 and P20 respectively.

Despite the short nature of the sprints offering little opportunity to make moves, Fullwood maximised his chances to rise 14 positions on Thursday and 13 on Friday, with the latter an impressive top 10 result.

After sorting out his qualifying issues, Fullwood showed he had the race pace to challenge up the front. In Race 5 he finished third on the road, while he even led four laps in Sunday’s finale after passing former teammate Chaz Mostert.

But on both occasions the strong results disappeared due to costly unsafe pit release penalties.

Following the 15-second time penalties Fullwood had to settle for P12 and P18 and a second career podium never eventuated.

Despite the painful blow, Fullwood is upbeat after one of the more promising weekends of his career.

“It was a solid weekend. We finished on track really well, but unfortunately the name did not stay there after the race which was a bit of a bugger,” he told Auto Action.

“The boys did a good job (in the pits) – unfortunately in the that last race I made the wrong call and did not realise ‘Frosty’ (Mark Winterbottom) was actually pulling into the box right in front of me.

“That was a real shame, but it is a good sign of what is to come.

“We can take plenty of confidence out of

this weekend because we have been fast and shown that when we can qualify up there, we can definitely race up there.”

Fullwood is also relishing the challenge of driving the new Gen3 cars, which are much easier to race in than their predecessors.

“I am enjoying driving the car – I think it is awesome,” he said.

“I think passing is definitely easier. I felt last year it was quite difficult to pass here, but I have done a lot of passing this weekend.

“This is a high-speed aero tack and we are still able to pass, which was the idea behind Gen3 and it is working pretty well so far.”

Bruce Williams and Thomas Miles

WAU OPEN TO SUPERCARS COST CAP WITH GEN3 cars proving to be more expensive than their predecessor, Walkinshaw Andretti United is open to Supercars implementing a cost cap, but believes payments will scale down over time.

As a result of a huge summer building the cars from scratch, scrambling to get them ready for testing and assembling enough parts to go racing, the roll out of Gen3 has been a costly exercise for all involved.

WAU team owner Ryan Walkinshaw confirmed the Gen3 program is proving to hit the balance sheets harder than Gen2.

“The cost of the car so far is more expensive than the previous one as a whole car,” he said.

“There are more expensive parts in certain areas of the car and cheaper ones also.

“We are going to be working with Supercars on a sustainability plan to bring

Ryan Walkinshaw (left) and WAU partner Zak Brown. some of those costs down going forward.”

When quizzed about the possibility of a cost cap being implemented in Supercars, Walkinshaw was open to the idea.

“Another sport I have been involved in is Rugby Union in the UK where the salary cap makes it more of an even playing field,” he said.

“Potentially a cost cap (in

Supercars) would make sense and could add value if done the right way.”

One category that has recently introduced a cost cap is F1 and WAU co-owner Zak Brown has

seen it first hand at McLaren and is impressed, “Anything you can do to control costs is excellent for all sports because cost containment is important,” he said.

“It definitely works in F1. If you look at the grid this year it is Red Bull and then everyone else with no back of the grid and that is a benefit of the cost cap.”

Despite the immediate cost concerns that have surfaced since the summer, Walkinshaw is adamant there will be smoother times ahead.

“Teams are working with Supercars for a more sustainable cost model for these cars and it will happen,” he said.

“Even Car of the Future was more expensive initially than we thought, but eventually over time we made it work, so I don’t see any real difference now.”

Thomas Miles

TEAM 18 EMBRACING ITS INDEPENDENCE TEAM 18 has now entered the manufacturer ranks by building two new Chevrolets for the Gen3 era. The Charlie Schwerkolt-led team was previously a customer team of Triple Eight Race Engineering but has progressed to the next step, and Schwerkolt now feels his team has arrived.

From the paddock in Melbourne, Schwerkolt says it was a pretty special moment to see his signature on the build plate of the two cars.

“It’s a lot easier to have a turnkey operation and being in a customer programme,” he said. “However, the satisfaction for the whole team of building our own cars was a very rewarding experience for all of us.

“To have T18-001 and T18-002 and my

signature on that nameplate is pretty special.”

With former HRT engineer Richard Hollway as the Head of Engineering, the team took on the build process with a plan to learn from others and bring its uniqueness into play.

“I think we were one of the last to build the cars. We followed a lot of people with their mistakes, and our cars have come up extremely well. We’ve got the speed now, too, they’re a good quality car, and I’m really proud that we’ve built them, and we know how they work and how to repair them safely.”

For the start of the build, Team 18 employed three more people who will remain with the team now as the season progresses.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done with Gen3, and we’re still having trouble sourcing parts and getting things on time. It was a hassle building the cars, but we got there.

“We’re manufacturing some of the control parts where we can and saving a bit of cost instead of buying everything. But the majority we get off other teams.”

What Team 18 does lose now is access to data from Triple Eight, which they previously had as a customer team in much the same way as Peter Xiberas’ PremiAir Racing does today.

“The old saying is you copy someone; you’re only ever as good as them. And that’s what we thought with Triple Eight.

We were copying them; we’d throw their

set-up in, and it didn’t work. Where are we going with this? Now we are on our own, it’s very early days, but we’ve got to explore, and as you know, if you don’t change anything, nothing will change.

“They’ve got more resources and more clever people, so we’re just going to have to figure it out and dig deeper and try and make it work. And so far, we are okay.”

With Team 18 joining the manufacturer ranks, only PremeiAir Racing remains as a customer team, although the extent of each team’s manufacturing varies.

The differences between PremiAir at one end of the field, and Erebus at the other is explored on pages 30-33 in our ‘Different Strokes’ feature.

Andrew Clarke Built in-house: more control, more potential ...

Image: MARK HORSBURGH

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SKETCHY TIMES AROUND ALBERT PARK SUPERCARS DRIVERS KEPT ON THEIR TOES AT THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

By Paul Gover, News Editor ALMOST EVERY driver in the Supercars garages was using the same word to describe their cars at the Australian Grand Prix meeting.

“Sketchy,” said Broc Feeney.

“Yeah, sketchy,” said David Reynolds.

“They’re pretty sketchy,” confirmed David Reynolds.

Is was the same story, and the same keyword, from the top of the field down to the tail.

“Man, it’s SO sketchy,” said Macauley Jones.

But what, exactly, did they mean?

“No aero,” said Jones.

“The car is moving around all over the place, especially in the fast corners over near the golf course.”

Some drivers were spooked by the low-grip aero package of the new Gen3 cars, lacking the feel and confidence they wanted – and sometimes needed – to get the job done.

But others were pressing ahead, something proven during the times when the Albert Park street circuit was damp or fully wet.

“Our blokes are just getting on with it,” said Erebus boss, Barry Ryan, of the speed shown by Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown.

“That’s what they’ve got. There is no point complaining.”

Getting to the bottom of the ’sketchy’ feeling was not easy, with many drivers waving their hands around like a boat floating in a rough sea.

“There’s no aero. Nothing to balance the car,” said Reynolds.

“Sometimes the front moves around, sometimes it’s the back. You can’t predict it.

And it’s not always the same from one lap to the next.”

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Image: MARK HORSBURGH

Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES The instability was good news for fans, who could see the cars moving around and the drivers fighting the wheel to maintain speed and control.

The new Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro both suffered with the same problem, which proved that the aero parity was pretty close on the Melbourne circuit.

“And we can run close together. That’s good,” said Reynolds.

For Chaz Mostert, who maintained his place in the Top 10 battle pack, the new feel of the Gen3 cars was just another challenge in his Supercars career.

“It’s not sketchy, it’s just a bit … unpredictable,” Mostert said.

His team-mate Nick Percat, whose Friday fire in the WAU Mustang had just been traced to a faulty tyre-pressure sensor that sent a spike which triggered the blaze, had more detail.

“You just don’t have any feel. One lap

there is no grip at the front, then it’s the back,” Percat says.“It’s just hard to get a handle on it.”

Mostert admitted he had driven cars that felt worth than his Gen3 Mustang, and said the new feeling is similar to the feedback from a TCR front-wheel drive car, like the Audi he raced to win the Australian championship.

“They both move around. But they (TCR cars) have a grippy tyre, so you can hang on and drive through it. You just keep your foot down,” he said.

While the drivers adjust to the feel of the Gen3 cars, there are predictable complaints from engineers in many teams about the lack of ’tools’ to tune the new racers.

Many are hopeful of some extra freedom from Supercars in coming months, not wholesale changes but minor tweaks to allow extra adjustment of the suspension and aero settings.

CAMARO CUT, BUT WON’T STOP RACING DESPITE CHEVROLET announcing it will retire the Camaro next year, the new Gen3 car will continue in Supercars for at least the next three years.

Chevrolet revealed the model will “come off” its Michigan plant in January 2024 and has not announced when it will return, but said the ZL1 was “not the end of the Camaro story”.

The news arrived less than a fortnight after the Gen3 Chevrolet Camaro made its Supercars debut at the Newcastle 500 where Shane Van Gisbergen became the first driver to win with the golden badge since Kevin Bartlett’s triumph at Oran Park in 1982, 990 races earlier.

The Camaro replaced the Holden ZB Commodore as the face of General Motors in Supercars after the former ceased production in 2020.

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Image: MARK HORSBURGH Although the news is untimely, Supercars CEO Shane Howard has reassured fans the Camaro will continue Supercars racing until “at least the end of 2025”.

“While the General Motors news will have an impact on our racing product, we respect and acknowledge that change is sometimes inevitable,” Howard said.

“We will continue our strong partnership with GM into the future.

“GM has been an integral part

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of our heritage and has played a significant role in shaping Supercars to become what it is today, the greatest touring car category in the world.

“Ever since Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland famously won in a Holden Monaro at Bathurst in 1968, GM has helped shaped the careers of some of Australia’s and New Zealand’s greatest drivers.

“For fans, the Camaro will continue to proudly represent Chevrolet Racing in

the Supercars Championship until at least the end of 2025.”

The announcement has been rumoured for years with the next Camaro likely to be an electric SUV – a major change from its muscle car identity since it arrived on the scene in 1966.

However, Chevrolet vice president Scott Bell said the Camaro story is not at the end of the road with an immediate successor still unclear.

“As we prepare to say goodbye to the current generation Camaro, it is difficult to overstate our gratitude to every Camaro customer, Camaro assembly line employee and race fan,” Bell said.

“While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story.”

Thomas Miles

WINTERBOTTOM URGES MORE CAUTION DRIVING GEN3 CARS

SUPERCARS VETERAN Mark Winterbottom has urged drivers to show more caution when racing the new Gen3 cars otherwise there may be “no cars on the grid”.

Winterbottom made the plea over social media for drivers to show more “respect and etiquette” when racing the “fragile” Gen3 cars following a disappointing Saturday.

The 2015 champion, closing in on 600 race starts, rose from ninth to fifth before his promising progress was cut short at Turn 5.

As cars jostled for position on the opening lap, James Golding lunged down the inside of the right-hander, but clipped the rear of the Team 18 Camaro, sending ‘Frosty’ hard into the barrier.

Matt Payne, Macauley Jones and Anton De Pasquale all got tangled up in a separate incidents at the same corner just one lap later.

Golding was not given a penalty for the crash, but was spun himself at Turn 4 later on in the dramatic race.

Reflecting on the opening-lap incident, Winterbottom, who has been racing Supercars for two decades, had a clear message to send over social media.

“I was committed to the corner when I was then hit in the side and sent into a concrete wall. My car (was) so damaged,” he wrote.

“These cars are so fragile we need to have etiquette and respect for each other, our crews and cars.

“Just wait a corner and we all would have got through cleanly.”

When speaking with Auto Action on Sunday morning at Albert Park, Winterbottom backed up his point and hopes drivers show more respect with the new cars, which seem more prone to sustaining heavy damage.

“There are rules you abide to in the sport, but there is also common sense,” he said.

“The cars are more fragile and if people are tearing up the cars week in, week out, teams just cannot afford it.

“You just got to race clever. If you don’t win the battle this corner, you can win it at the next corner – but unfortunately at the moment there is a bit of a lack of common sense.

“If you race like that there is going to be no cars on the grid.”

Thomas Miles

SUPER 2

ALLEN OVERCOMES INJURY SCARE KAI ALLEN emerged a fighting fifth from the Super2 opener at Newcastle, but it almost never happened dueto a last-minute pre-season scare.

Just 10 days before the Newcastle 500, Allen was mountain biking down the steep and picturesque Valley Lake trails at his hometown Mount Gambier until it all went wrong and suddenly his anticipated Super2 debut for Eggleston Motorsport was in severe doubt.

“I was going down a trail I have been down 100 times, but this one time, being safe, I went over the handlebars and snapped my collarbone,” Allen told Auto Action.

“It was a tight turnaround and I had a lot of doubts. The doctors and nurses did not think I could do it (Newcastle) but my surgeon ‘Kip’ was great.

“I went straight into surgery and slept the night in Mount Gambier with a little bit of pain. I then flew to Melbourne the next day and was on the simulator flat-out to get some movement to have a crack at it.”

Having utilised the contacts of his sisters Nyah and Sienna Allen, who both play Super Netball for Collingwood, to gain expert advice, Kai Allen was able to defy the odds and be on the grid at Newcastle.

Despite struggling to tighten the belts when he first sat in his ZB Commodore post surgery, the 17-year-old actually felt no pain during his maiden drive at the notoriously bumpy and physical Newcastle street circuit.

“I could barely tighten the belts over the cut when I first sat in the car and there was always that doubt in my mind that I could even drive,” Allen recalled.

“When we got to the track we had to use a Simpson Hans device because the normal one put on too much pressure.

“I was a bit nervous coming out of pit lane, but it was pain free, which blew me away.

“Once the adrenaline starts pumping and you are driving on the streets of Newcastle, it all vanished because there were a lot more scarier things to worry about.”

Despite the dramas, Allen finished the first practice session second before scoring P4 and P6 in both competitive races.

To continue Allen’s whirlwind 2023, he ventured off to Europe for a special driver-coaching session with the esteemed Rob Wilson – Allen’s take on it will appear in a future edition of Auto Action.

Thomas Miles

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SINNI TAKING BIG STRIDES WITH SUPER2 MOVE JORDAN SINNI made his Super2 debut at the Newcastle 500 with Eggleston Motorsport, with the 20-year-old Victorian experiencing his first taste of on-track V8 powered racing in the #54 ZB Commodore.

Aside from racing Excels back in 2019, it was his first proper outing in the serious tin-top stuff after three years of racing in Formula Ford, where he took wins and podiums at the national level to finish sixth in a strong field, and also finished second in the Victorian Championship in 2022.

Following an end of season test at Winton with Eggleston, team owners Ben and Rachel Eggleston were highly impressed, despite his lack of experience, and his ticket was stamped for the daunting task of the Newcastle street circuit and a full debut season.

Unfortunately for Sinni, his first outing was cruelled by heading unsighted into Jason Gomersall at Turn 7, but he managed a class P8 in Race 2 after qualifying 16th, to then survive the mayhem that cut the race short after 15 laps.

“It was definitely challenging being on a pretty tight circuit like Newcastle,

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especially as it was my first time on a street circuit,” Sinni told Auto Action.

“It was a crazy experience being so close to the walls with 30 drivers out there – it definitely made it pretty intense for me.”

Aside from the daunting experience of racing a 2022 Supercar for the first time, there were some pretty stark and new experiences for Sinni after years in open wheelers.

“The grip of the slick tyre was the first thing that grabbed me. I’ve pretty much run on grooved tyres most of my life, and that was a bit of a wow factor in qualifying.

“And obviously being inside a cabin was the other major factor. In Formula Ford your head’s out in the open, and being in a cabin in a big heavy powered Supercar definitely got my attention. It was a lot to take in.

“I could move my head around in the open wheeler and could see who’s around me, but with the nets and mirrors and on a tight track it was far more limited at Newcastle … but it was coming to me.

“The main thing after the weekend in terms of team advice was that I had to work on my braking … going into corners harder, and braking later and applying more brake pressure, and that’s all just a part of the confidence factor for me.”

Sinni’s next challenge is at Wanneroo in Perth on April 28-30, where he’ll have some more familiar terrain to deal with.

“I’m feeling 100% more confident now for Perth, and we’re doing a lot of testing at Winton, so at a more open track like Perth where there’s not the tight walls and you get the run off areas, it’ll definitely help me settle in more.”

He also told AA that this kind of team environment is also a relatively new experience for him.

“Ben and Rachel are honestly the best people I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve never raced in a team like this before.

“They really make sure you’re doing okay and fitting in, as well as keeping an amazing level of positivity around the whole team, it’s been awesome so far, and I can’t wait to settle into the season.”

TW Neal

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REIGNING CHAMP TO LEAD NEW GT TEAM

EMA MOTORSPORT is expanding its reach Downunder to race in the GT World Challenge Australia series in 2023 and it will have the #1 on its door.

The Melbourne based team with connections with German Porsche outfit Manthey will take on the national GT championship with reigning champion Yasser Shahin at the wheel of a Porsche GT3 R. Shahin will lead the team alongside Garnet Patterson – the pair have recent driving experience together in the LMP2 class in the recent Asian Le Mans Series.

The first race of the GT World Challenge Australia season is at Bathurst this weekend. ç

WAU EXPANDS TO T86 WALKINSHAW ANDRETTI United has expanded its footprint to the Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia 86 Series.

The front-running Supercars team has returned to the Super2 Series in 2023 and will now embark on a maiden T86 Series campaign.

Spearheading the assault behind the wheel will be young Victorian Matt Hillyer.

Hillyer has been part of the WAU Foundation Academy and also moves into the Australian Formula Ford Series having won the Victorian title last year.

The team will be run by Nick Bates and staffed by WAU with Hillyer already part of the furniture having been working at the team for the last 18 months.

Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

PENSKE KEEPS THE POWER RUNNING

WILL POWER has extended his Team Penske contract via a multi-year extension, which will keep him in IndyCar past the age of 44.

The reigning Astor Cup champion is currently in his 15th year with the North Carolina team, and has taken 39 of his 41 IndyCar victories in the Dallara Chevrolet outfit, as well as taking out two championships.

“I’m so fortunate to have had Verizon on the car for more than a decade and for those guys to re-up, and to re-up with Penske, as well, is a great feeling” Power said.

“I always look back, and I say it often, I’m very fortunate. It’s where you want to be as a driver, in a team where you’re given a car that can win week in and week out.”

MAX MCRAE FOLLOWS THE FAMILY PATH INTO ERC

LYNK & CO TO LAUNCH AUSSIE TCR TILT THERE WILL be a newcomer arriving on the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series scene with Lynk & Co joining the field.

Ashley Seward Motorsport will race with the Lynk & Co badge, which is expected to make its first appearance at Phillip Island in May to become the sixth manufacturer in the category joining Peugeot, Audi, Hyundai, Honda and Alfa Romeo.

British Touring Car Championship race winner Tom Oliphant will drive the Lynk & Co 03 TCR, having raced at the Tasmanian opener in an Alfa Romeo.

The brand itself was founded in 2016 in Sweden with car production taking place in China.

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Power also re-wrote the record books last season when he took out a record 68th pole position, overtaking IndyCar legend Mario Andretti as the sport’s most prolific time setter.

His 41 victories also put him fifth in history for the most ever wins, as well as winning at least one series race in each of the last 16 seasons, which is the second longest streak of all time.

The 2018 Indianapolis 500 winner hasn’t started his title defence exactly as he’d like, finishing the Texas Speedway in P16. He moves on now to the scene of his first ever IndyCar win in 2008, at the iconic Long Beach Grand Prix, California.

TW Neal

MAX MCRAE’s maiden FIA Junior European Rally Championship campaign has been strengthened by joining the Portuguese, Porto based team, The Racing Factory (TRF).

It also represents the reunion of the Opel and McRae name back in Europe, and as the youngest seed of the famous rally family, he also becomes the third generation McRae to compete in the ERC. The ERC has had three of the famous Scottish/Australian family members

in its ranks: Max’s father Alister McRae (British and Asia Pacific title winner), his late great Uncle Colin McRae (WRC Champion), and his Grandfather Jimmy McRae. It’s the latter of which holds a record five British Rally Championships, and took to the European scene in an Opel rally car, winning plenty of rallies, and going close to winning the 1982 championship in a Opel Ascona 400.

The 18-year-old will race the Opel Corsa Rally4 for TRF, a 1.2L, front wheel-drive 12-valve turbocharged goer, at 208 horsepower.

McRae will call the town of Lanark his home – a town in Scotland that is synonymous with McRae name.

“Coming back to Lanark is so cool, the family are all there and the rally family are there too,” Max said.

“I’ve got a place all sorted, I can’t wait. But the thing I really can’t wait for

is to meet everybody from TRF and, of course, to drive the Opel Corsa Rally4 for the first time.”

His first ERC round comes in Poland on May 20-21, and the former ARC competitor can’t wait to get going.

“Poland is going to be something of a baptism of fire. I land from Australia and go straight into one of Europe’s fastest gravel rallies.

“And just when you think the roads around Mikołajki (Poland) are quick, you take a look at the second round in Latvia and understand what fast roads are really all about.”

The Corsa Rally4 is a great vehicle for McRae to start in, it was the winning Junior ERC car in 2022, and also took out three ERC Rally4 rounds.

“I’ve heard plenty about the Opel, the car looks sick and it’s got some real speed,” he continued. “Rally4 is superclose, we know that, but we believe the Corsa is the way forward and TRF is the team to deliver the car to help us deliver the results. It’s going to be a fantastic year.”

TW Neal

DOOHAN STAYING TRUE TO HIMSELF ALTHOUGH JACK Doohan’s first ever race weekend in Australia didn’t quite go as hoped, the Alpine F1 Reserve Driver and Formula 2 Virtuosi racer, is more than happy with where he’s at in life.

The Melbourne weather went against him in Qualifying at Albert Park and, after having the quickest car on track in Free Practice, he fought hard from P15 to finish in the points for the Feature race.

Auto Action spoke to a happy Doohan behind the scenes at the Australian Grand Prix, and he explained that whilst it hasn’t been as smooth a start as he’d like, prospects are good, and things are going along nicely with Alpine in the F1 shed.

“Not the smoothest start that I’d like, but that’s all a part of it – it’s never going to be easy, and we’re hoping to get those curve balls out the way early,” Doohan said.

“We are in a good way … I’m here racing at home, and things couldn’t be going better in all honesty. I’m privileged to have a home GP so early in my career.

“Everyone’s talking about the pressure of racing here, but I feel the opposite – I could possibly have the worst weekend of my career, but everyone will still be behind me. And I’m going to use that as a positive.”

Image: BRUCE WILLIAMS-AUTO ACTION When AA asked about where he feels he’s at in his career having gone through karting all the way to securing an F1 reserve seat, he explains that despite

the gains, he’s just trying to embrace the journey whilst being diligent to his goals.

“It’s obviously very difficult to get into F1, and it’s about more than having the talent

and opportunity – you also need things to go your way a bit. From an early age I was really trying to Europeanise myself and be super professional, and whilst I’m keeping that drive, I’m really trying to embrace who I am at the same time.

“I’m an Aussie, and I’m proudly born on the Gold Coast, and I’m not this uptight person! I’m talkative and open and I’m trying to embrace all this and get as many people behind me as I can.

“When I started doing that it kept me calmer and it made me happier, and if what I’m doing works best for me and it brings results, I don’t think anyone can really complain about that.”

He also gave an insight into his developing relationship with Alpine.

“I’m always leaning on them for support and they’re always there for me.

They’re never pushing me, but giving me helpful guidance, and giving me advice whenever I need it.

“I super grateful for them, to have this opportunity and be in the position I am…I wouldn’t be here without them.”

Doohan’s next F2 race is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on April 28-30, and at some point this year, he’ll get in the A523 for two guaranteed F1 Free Practice sessions. TW Neal

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www.autoaction.com.au I 15

LATEST NEWS

FORGING FRESH TIES STEVE SHELLEY, THE NEW OWNER OF WAKEFIELD PARK, SPOKE TO AUTO ACTION ABOUT RE-FORGING TIES BETWEEN THE SURROUNDING RESIDENTS AND RACEWAY TO FIX THE ISSUE FROM ITS LOGICAL SOURCE. TIMOTHY W NEAL REPORTS …

SHELLEY HAS started a pro-active campaign in fixing the disconnect that has developed between the surrounding residents of Wakefield Park Raceway in the Goulburn region.

The Cronulla-born owner recently purchased the raceway from the Benalla Auto Club (BAC), after the Pheasant Wood Circuit owner had been proposed as the ideal person to invest in, understand, and reinvigorate the raceway by Darrell Weekes – the CEO of Goulburn’s Chamber of Commerce – who organised a meeting with then Liberal MP Wendy Tuckerman, with the pair introducing Shelley to the BAC. Shelley explains that there’s a lot of passion for NSW’s second major circuit, as he strives to fill the missing void that is both an important

contributor to the local economy and the motorsport community.

“What I found was that there was a very big disconnect between the management and owners, and the local residents,” he explained.

“Not only that, but that disconnect had started a lot of animosity, so I set about trying to understand how deep that issue is, and I’ve since spent a lot of time with those residents trying to understand that, because those issues are very real.

“What created those issues was that there was no genuine sympathy for the problems that the track was causing.

The new owner explained that some of those residents were generational owners, with one family having lived there for six generations, and that they had to be heard.

That’s why Shelley, who has a long history with the track and good knowledge of the area, has been listening to the people who need to be heard.

“Some people presumed, and overtly stated, that the residents moved in after the track was built, which is simply not true. One family has been on the same property for six generations, and those people need to be heard.

“They weren’t listened to and they weren’t respected, and their concerns were never addressed. Their main gripe, apart from being ignored, and I’ve heard it over and over, is the level and frequency of noise, and that’s what we’ll address … from the source of the noise.

“I’ve been speaking to the neighbours,

and most of them aren’t against Wakefield at all. They all recognise the financial benefits that the floating population brings to the area, and that people have set up their business around that.

“Not only do the local residents recognise that, but they are supportive of reopening Wakefield! And apart from using things like attenuation barriers, new technologies and barrier walls to combat the noise, we’ll also go to the source to tackle that issue, which also includes restricting noise modified vehicles. ”We’ll also look to re-utilise the land we have available, so that the areas that cause the most noise are used more infrequently.”

BATES TAKES ARC OPENER IN THE TASSIE HILLS 2022 CHAMPIONS Lewis Bates and co-driver Anthony McLoughlin have won the opening round of the Australian Rally Championship at Rally Tasmania in Launceston.

After taking out the first day’s proceedings with three stage wins to start their title defence in fine form, a consistent Heat 2 saw the Toyota Yaris GR AP4 team take P2 across Sunday’s 87 km finale.

That was more than enough to take the outright honours over Lucas Anear and Malcolm Read in their Skoda Fabia R5 – who finished third in Heat 2 – with the evergreen Nathan Quinn with Ray Winwood-Smith taking third overall.

Quinn came home the winner of Heat 2 in his Hyundai i20 G4, and after a tough Heat 1 on the Saturday the 2017 ARC champion fought his way back onto the podium, which also gave his experienced co-driver Winwood-Smith his first ever ARC Heat victory.

But it was the near faultless Toyota carrying the coveted #1 that was too clean for the field overall, taking out the final

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Power Stage to cap off the Tasmanian opener in style.

“It’s been an amazing weekend – almost faultless from Anthony and me – it’s been a great performance,” Lewis said.

“It’s been tricky; we haven’t been here in March before so I wasn’t used to the slippery roads. Absolutely over the moon to take the win today. It’s amazing.

“Took it a bit steady this (Sunday) morning. It was easy to get caught out on the loose roads, but I wanted the points on the Power Stage, so we had a good push.”

Things didn’t fare so well for his brother, Lewis Bates, who had a difficult Heat 1, where he and co-driver Coral Taylor failed to finish, but they too fought back

to finish fourth in Heat 2 to gain some championship points.

The Bates team won the first day comfortably to set up Heat 2 with a 20 second lead, with the surprise local duo of Bodie Reading and co-driver Mark Young taking second, just ahead of the WRC2 experienced Anear.

It was also a strong outing for local rally driver Eddie Maguire and co-driver Adam Kudra, who secured two top-five finishes in Heat 1 and 2, which was enough to give them victory in the Production Cup. Reading’s strong Day 1 had him finishing second overall in the Production Cup after managing to finish Heat 2 in P8.

Taking out the ARC 2WD Cup were Victorians Ben Hayes and Catherine Hayes, while Trevor Stilling and Jon Thomson ran out as ARC Classic Cup winners.

The next ARC round is scheduled for Western Australia, for the Make Smoking History Forest Rally on 19-21 May, based out of Nannup near Busselton.

TW Neal

BEZZECCHI ATTRIBUTES VR46’S FIRST WIN TO ROSSI VALENTINO ROSSI’S protege Marco Bezzecchi has secured Grand Prix glory for The Doctor’s own MotoGP team in just their second season in the premier class.

Bezzecchi was an untouchable figure at Circuit Termas de Rio Hondo on Sunday, leading every lap of a soaked Argentina Grand Prix to give not only himself, but the VR46 racing Team an emotional maiden win in the premier class.

The young Italian led every lap of the dramatic wet race where reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia slipped from second to 16th due to a crash at the penultimate corner.

Australia’s Jack Miller showed strong form on his KTM, climbing from 16th to sixth to continue his solid start to the season.

The wash-up leaves Bezzecchi on top of the championship table by nine points over Bagnaia, while Miller sits sixth.

The victory produced many wild celebrations within the VR46 Racing Team, which only graduated to MotoGP last year.

It started at Moto3 level in 2014 before taking on Moto2 where it won the Teams’ title in 2020 with current MotoGP stars Bezzecchi and Luca Marini in action.

Fast forward to 2023 and Bezzecchi

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announced himself to the world with a dominant wet weather ride that reflected some of Rossi’s finest rides in rainaffected races.

Bezzecchi paid tribute to Rossi for the success, which gave the seven-time world champion a MotoGP Grand Prix win as an owner in addition to his 89 as a rider.

“For Vale (Rossi) ... without him and the support of my family it was almost impossible,” an emotional Bezzecchi told Crash.net “Vale gave me the possibility to grow as a person, as a rider and step up in the world championship and step up to MotoGP. Thanks to him!”

Despite the dominant ride, Bezzecchi was worried he was in for a difficult time in the wet, but he felt “at one” as soon as the lights went out.

“I did not expect this (result) when I left home,” the emotional Italian Ducati rider said after the win.

“As soon as I started riding here I felt very well and I was at one with my bike.

“I felt incredibly well since the first moment and yesterday (Saturday) was also very nice so when I saw the rain (Sunday) morning I was really sad because I said ‘no, I was so good in the dry, for sure it will be difficult in the wet’.

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“But when I jumped on the bike in warm-up it was amazing. I started believing again and thought I could do this. I enjoyed riding and was really, really focused.

“Everything went well (but it was a long journey.”

All eyes will be on Bezzecchi to see if he can defend his championship lead at the

next MotoGP round at COTA on April 16.

Thomas Miles CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS AFTER ROUND 2 1 Marco Bezzecchi 50 2 Francesco Bagnaia 41 3 Johann Zarco 35 4 Alex Marquez 33 5 Maverick Viñales 32

www.autoaction.com.au I 17

NEWS

TARGA EVENTS SET TO START AGAIN WITH BIG CHANGES TO VEHICLE REGULATIONS IN A POSITIVE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE SPORT, ‘TARGA STYLE’ RACING IS BACK ON AFTER A SHORT LAY-OFF FOR MOTORSPORT AUSTRALIA’S ‘HARD RESET’ OF THE CLASS. ENTRIES FOR the Targa Great Barrier Reef and Targa Tasmania events have been opened by Targa Australia Pty Limited, kick starting the action for the popular events which were put on hold until 1 July 2023 following a report into multiple fatalities during Targa Tasmania in 2021 and 2022.

Motorsport Australia said it needed time to consider the recommendations of the report and appears to have taken all of them on board with the new regulations for these two events, which will be held in September and October this year.

Motorsport Australia’s ‘hard reset’ for Targa-style events has resulted in a myriad of changes to the cars, categories and driver eligibility.

In the Entry Application forms for both events, Targa Australia has outlined the changes to vehicle compliance and the minimum safety standards defined in the newly released regulations.

Whilst the entry document for Targa Tasmania still has many ‘yet to be released for TARGA Tasmania 2023’ sections, it does outline some changes to the structure of the event as well as changes to some of the categories.

The document confirms that the ‘Rookie Rallye’ will be re-introduced to TARGA Tasmania to provide a suitable training pathway for new competitors. A choice of seven competitions, plus the Rookie Rallye, are available to ensure large quality competitions are retained for all TARGA competitors to enjoy. It reads: ‘Full and speed-limited competitions will be directly aligned for the first time to provide a clear pathway between the two levels. Categories and classes within each competition will remain as they have been in previous years and the full TARGA Tasmania plate awards system is also retained.’

While minimum requirements to driver licensing standards do not seem to be finalised as yet, other major changes are outlined in the event entry applications.

Major changes to the competition classes (some of which are detailed below) include changes to the minimum requirements for the design of the Safety Cage and upgrades to the side intrusion protection.

These minimum standards will see significant improvements in protection of the occupants for ‘Competition’ class vehicles.

Other significant changes to the Targa regulations include an increase to the number of tyres that are permitted, to 10 (to be used without penalty during the event) and a setting of the minimum tread depth of the tyres to 1.5mm.

It was identified that in previous events, competitors had used heavily worn tyres with minimal tread.

Regulations specified six tyres were available to competitors, making them reluctant to fit new tyres due to the time penalties being applied if more tyres were used than the allocated six.

This specific change comes following the identification of issues in events that saw wet surfaces and worn tyres being a possible contributing factor to crashes.

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Significant regulated changes to the minimum head clearance within the vehicle have been introduced, as is the strict addition of approved ‘winged’ racing seats, as well as compulsory fitment of ‘approved’ impact safety foam to the doors.

The TARGA Great Barrier Reef and TARGA Tasmania events – with its new price of entry and safety requirements – will take place on September 1-3 in Queensland, and on the Apple Isle on October 23-28.

The detailed changes surrounding the Safety Cages, each with strict fitting, shape, and placement guidelines, include: • Reinforcement to the structure above the competitors • A-Pillar Reinforcement to triangulate the forward edge of the cage • A diagonally reinforced Main Hoop Cross • A Safety Harness Bar to that extends the full width of the main hoop • Two Anti-Intrusion door bars and Windscreen Pillar reinforcements • Side protection foam for all full competition vehicles, fitted to each front door and in the bodywork rearward of the door aperture.

Winged Race seats have also been made compulsory, which will affect the possible entries of smaller style sports cars with confined cockpit spaces not allowing sufficient room for the seats and safety cages.

A minimum of 50mm headspace clearance to the top of the main safety cage hoop and the helmet has also been enforced, with the report identifying that some smaller compact cars didn’t provide taller competitors with a safe amount of headroom.

Other changes also include the Fire Safety regulations, that now require vehicles to carry a minimum of 4 kgs of fire suppression material, which covers either extinguishers or a plumbed-in fire suppression system.

Auto Action has contacted head of Targa Australia Pty Ltd, Mark Perry for further comment but as yet we have not had an opportunity to speak to him.

To read the 2023 TARGA Vehicle Changes and Competitions Guide, scan the QR code or enter the link below. https://targa.com.au/wp-content/ uploads/2023/03/2023-TARGAVehicle-Competition-Changes.pdf To read coverage and the Targa tarmac rallies in Australia following the release of a 282-page safety report commissioned by Motorsport Australia. https://autoaction.com. au/2023/03/01/targa-futurelooks-different

BATHURST 6 HOUR

AMBROSE TO MAKE RACING

RETURN AT BATHURST

MARCOS AMBROSE will make his racing return at the Hi-Tec Oils backed Production Car enduro at Mount Panorama this month. The two-time Supercars champion and NASCAR Cup Series race winner will make his on-track comeback in a Garry Rogers Motorsport Ford Mustang.

He shares the car with George Miedecke and Tim Brook with the squad determined to hit the grid after withdrawing on the eve of the 2022 event due to unresolvable car issues.

Last year’s near miss has fuelled Ambrose and the rest of the team with ambition to take on Mount Panorama as a competitive force in Class A2 having completed a shakedown at Queensland Raceway.

“I am looking forward to finishing this story of the GRM Mustang that we built for the Miedeckes,” Ambrose said.

“It was supposed to run last year but we had issues with the transmission and the car just wasn’t ready.

“They have been working on it in Queensland for a while, been testing and it’s now ready.”

Ambrose has done little racing since his last Supercars stint in 2015 and has spent time recently as GRM’s competition director.

But this drive is a continuation of a special partnership forged when George Miedecke drove for Marcos Ambrose Motorsport in the NASCAR Late Model series in 2011 and 2012, when the

Australian was winning races for Richard Petty Motorsports.

Ambrose said racing with George behind the wheel and former Bathurst regular Andrew providing support at an “old school” event will be a lot of fun.

“I’m really looking forward to teaming up with George and Andrew – we’ve been good friends for a long time and it should be a good weekend enjoying the car and the race,” he said.

“It feels old school to me ... private teams, working on their cars all year for the one big race.

“There’s lots of speed difference between the cars, different configurations and 6 hours is the perfect length for the race.”

Despite dominating Supercars with

back-to-back titles for Stone Brothers Racing in 2003 and 2004, Ambrose could never conquer Mount Panorama.

But Andrew Miedecke believes the Ambrose-led Ford has the ability to create an “upset” and beat the fancied BMWs. “I’ve been to Bathurst many times and I see the Bathurst 6 Hour as being the race that I first started competing in 1986,” Miedecke said.

“To me it’s nostalgic and a really good race.

“I think there’s opportunity for an upset.

The Mustang won’t be as quick up the hill as the BMWs but we’re hoping with our reliability, strategy and our drivers we hope to be in the fight at the end.”

Thomas Miles

DJR DUO HEADLINES BUMPER BATHURST FIELD A FULL grid will take on this (Easter) weekend’s Bathurst 6 Hours with 60 cars confirmed across the eight classes.

At the time of print a total of 156 drivers signed up, but this figure should approach 160 by the time the green flag drops on Easter Sunday morning.

Headlining the long list of drivers is current full-time Dick Johnson Racing duo Will Davison and Anton De Pasquale.

Davison adds a star element to one of the event’s most successful combinations of Beric Lynton and Tim Leahey.

The pair won the 2019 race in dominant fashion, leading every tour of the 6.213km circuit to win by an entire lap, plus set a race distance record in the process.

Lynton and Leahey returned in 2021 to defend their crown and finished second, just seven seconds behind the winners.

Last year they were joined by Davison and qualified sixth before mechanical gremlins curtailed their day to eventually finish 27th and 11 laps down.

They will drive a BMW M3, which has recently undergone a significant rebuild

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Ben and Michael Kavich will contest the Bathurst 6Hr for a special cause. after it caught fire at Queensland Raceway last year.

Lynton and Leahey hope to become the first pair ever to win multiple Bathurst 6 Hour crowns.

De Pasquale will also drive a BMW at the event for a special cause alongside Anthony Soole and Adam Burgess.

The trio took on the Mountain in the

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same car last year and started third, but the race ended in the gravel after fuel pressure issues.

In addition to chasing for a Bathurst 6 Hour trophy, Soole is racing in support of Destiny Rescue - a charity working to free children from sex trafficking.

Another driver line up not only looking to compete, but also raise awareness for

a much-needed cause is the Ben and Michael Kavich entry.

The brothers will hit the track with Tickford Supercars driver Thomas Randle in their bright yellow and pink liveried ‘Race For A Cure’ BMW M2 Competition, hoping for donations in support of Breast Cancer Trials.

‘Race For A Cure’ is close to the Kavich’s heart having been founded by Ben’s wife Toula Kavich following her breast cancer diagnosis in 2016.

Other family combinations include Tony and Ryder Quinn, brothers Grant and Iain Sherrin, who hope to repeat their 2018 success, while cousins Ben and Jude Bargwanna will be the third generation of their family to take on the Mountain.

Other big names taking on the event will be two-time Bathurst 1000 winner John Bowe and Great Race podium finisher Tony D’Alberto.

Reigning winners Cameron Hill and Thomas Sargeant will not return to defend their crown.

Thomas Miles

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LATEST NEWS

LECLERC LAMENTS “WORST START TO SEASON” IN FERRARI CAREER

BROWN APOLOGISES

FOR “THROWING AWAY” FINAL AUS GP RACE ONE YEAR after being triumphant, Ferrari suffered a miserable Melbourne Grand Prix with neither Charles Leclerc or Carlos Sainz scoring points in 2023.

Leclerc’s defence of the Sir Jack Brabham Trophy lasted just three corners, which was the latest blow in a 2023 season that is already starting to spiral into despair.

Car #16 sits 10th in the championship with just one points finish at a penalty affected Saudi Arabia race.

A podium went begging at the opener in Bahrain due to a power unit failure, while the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll bumped Leclerc into the gravel in Australia.

The only time Leclerc has suffered a worse start was in his rookie season of 2018 when went pointless in the first three Grands Prix for the then struggling Alfa Romeo Sauber outfit.

“It is just extremely frustrating,” Leclerc told F1.com.

“I mean, it’s the worst start to the season ever, really.”

In regards to the first-lap incident, Leclerc refused to blame Stroll, stating a lack of vision created an unfortunate chain of events.

“I’m not pointing the finger at Lance because I think he had no choice once Fernando (Alonso) slowed down the car the second time,” Leclerc said.

“For me it was just impossible to see whether Lance was staying behind Fernando or if he was just in between. I obviously didn’t think he was there.

“Turn 1, I took it easy and Turn 3 I wasn’t really planning an overtake at first on Lance.

“Then I saw that he had to brake very early because of Fernando in front that was braking early, so I released the brakes and put myself alongside Lance. “(But) then Fernando had to brake even more, so then Lance found himself between me and Fernando – and he couldn’t turn in and we had contact.”

Thomas Miles

THE 2023 Melbourne SuperSprint will go down as one of the highlights for Erebus Motorsport, but Will Brown knows it could have been even better.

The two Coke Camaros headed into the fourth and final race of the weekend high on confidence having already recorded the team’s maiden double podium and front row lockout in the team’s 10-year history.

Although Brodie Kostecki had already recorded two victories, Brown was in the mix in Sunday’s 13-lap finale.

Chaz Mostert and car #9 negotiated their way past eventual winner Broc Feeney on the opening lap, and the Walkinshaw Andretti United Mustang and Erebus Camaro thrillingly engaged in wheel-towheel combat for the lead.

Brown made his move on Lap 4, diving down the inside of Turn 12, but Mostert tired to perform the switchback at the following right-hander.

This meant the one-time winner bravely tried to hang tough on the outside and did his best to survive, but could not control his Camaro.

Brown spun across the track and hit the inside wall, relegating him from the front down to an eventual P23 finish two laps down.

With the Hard tyre starters of Feeney, Andre Heimgartner and Brodie Kostecki eventually going ahead of the early SuperSoft runners to jump on the podium, Brown could have finished fourth where Bryce Fullwood crossed the line before his

15-second penalty for an unsafe release if he didn’t spin.

The result would vault him up to third in the championship, but instead he sits fifth, 131 points behind leader Kostecki.

Reflecting on the costly Race 6 incident, an honest Brown said it was a simple driving error he will look to learn from ahead of round 3 at Perth on April 28-30.

“What a weekend it was here at the Australian Grand Prix. I got two podiums, but I absolutely threw it away in that last one,” he said.

“I am so sorry to everyone at CocaCola Racing and all of our fans. That was completely my fault, I just stuffed up and will learn from it and move on to Perth.”

Thomas Miles

S5000 OFF THE GOLD COAST BILL? THIS WEEK’S announcement of confirming the the addition of the National Sports Sedan’s at the Gold Coast 500 in October, follows the withdrawal of the S5000 from the event.

Last October, S5000 contested a successful three-race Tasman Series round at the GC, without a single yellow flag/Safety Car interruption-around what can be a car-wrecking circuit, with Nathan Herne taking the series’ first ever clean sweep.

Teams were expecting to line up at the event again in 2023, however AUTO ACTION understands that discussions between ARG and Supercars has resulted in S5000’s removal from the 2023 GC programme.

The 2023 Gold Star championship will now be reduced from seven to six rounds, as no replacement event is likely to be considered. The grand finale for the series is still penned in at the prestigious Adelaide 500 event.

For the National Sports Sedans, it’s a high-profile round, with the category also provisionally competing at the Bathurst 1000 event in October – although recent

MA decisions and policy in relation to power:weight ratio for race cars at Bathurst may ultimately have some impact.

Bruce Williams

RICCIARDO SLOWLY RETURNING TO HIS FORMER SELF

DANIEL RICCIARDO returned to the Formula 1 paddock at Australia last weekend where Red Bull revealed he has developed from “unrecognisable” to being within “10 minutes” of becoming race ready again.

Ricciardo made his first Grand Prix appearance since leaving McLaren at the end of last season and fans had to adjust to the sight of seeing the Aussie at the track on the pit wall wearing a headset rather than a helmet inside a car.

Having raced Formula 1 for 10 and a half years between 2011 and 2022, Ricciardo is spending 2023 on the sidelines as Red Bull’s third driver after a tough time at McLaren.

Despite the regrettable way the eighttime Grand Prix winner’s post-red Bull career went, fans loved the return of the 33-year-old and cheers could be heard whenever his smile appeared on the big screen.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner also revealed Ricciardo’s presence has lifted the team, with its former driver “embracing” his new position despite the obvious pain of not racing on home turf.

“It is great to have him back in blue and be back in the team,” he said “This is the first Grand Prix he’s attending this year, and he’s really throwing himself into it. Sitting in all the briefings, working hard on the simulator as well in the UK doing some race support and some development work on that.

“Daniel is just a positive energy to have

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around and it’s great to see him getting his mojo back, to see that big smile on his face and he lights up a room when he walks in.

“Hopefully, he’ll rediscover his love for the sport. He’ll do a bit of testing for us later in the year and we’ll see how that goes for him.

“I think it’s a different experience. It must be very tough for him not being a race driver this weekend, but he’s thrown himself into this role and embracing it.”

Although neither Ricciardo or the team can fully explain why the #3 driver battled so much in papaya colours, Ricciardo’s former boss Zak Brown revealed both

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he and McLaren are “thrilled” to see the “Honey Badger” back in the F1 world.

Brown said he hopes Ricciardo can make a comeback from a season away such as the likes of Alain Prost, Fernando Alonso, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen.

“I am thrilled he is here this weekend.

I think we are all big Daniel fans and as Christian said, he lights up a room whenever he walks in and smiles,” he said.

“I don’t think he knows exactly why it (Ricciardo’s time at McLaren) did not click. Sometimes drivers just need to recharge their batteries. Fernando did,

Alain Prost did over the years.

“Hopefully Daniel will get an opportunity to go and try to win his ninth Grand Prix and many more, because I think we would all love to see him back on the grid on a regular basis.”

After leaving Red Bull at the top of his game in 2018, Ricciardo appeared a shadow of his former self for the most part at Renault and McLaren.

The “Honey Badger” showed glimpses of his best with fine drivers to two podiums at the Nurburgring and Imola in 2020 for the French team, plus his unforgettable triumph against the odds at Monza in 2021 for McLaren.

However, Ricciardo’s last Formula 1 season was a tough one, scoring just 37 points compared to his teammate’s haul of 122 in the “unpredictable” MCL36.

Having left Red bull as hot property, only to return three years later after his lowest ebb at the top level, Ricciardo appeared to be a different driver to the late-braking master of before according to Horner.

But the team leader said the old Ricciardo is slowly starting to return as he refamiliarises himself with the Red Bull setup.

“I guess when he first turned up after Abu Dhabi (2022) we didn’t recognise the Daniel that had left us two or three years earlier,” Horner said.

“I think the problem is when you drive a car that obviously has its limitations, you adapt and you try and adjust to extract the maximum out of that car and it was clear when he came back, he had picked up some habits.

“But having had time off over Christmas, and a chance to reset, he has hit the ground running and I think he likes the feel of the car in the virtual world which seems to correlate well with what we’re seeing in the actual world.

“I think he’s desperate to get a run in the car at some point to validate that, but we’re certainly seeing him getting back to being far more reminiscent of the Daniel that we knew.”

Whilst testing is the priority in 2023, there is a small chance Ricciardo could make an unexpected 233rd Grand Prix start if one of Max Verstappen or Sergio Perez are unable to race.

When asked how race ready Ricciardo is, Horner believed he is “10 minutes” away, despite being in the middle of a sabbatical.

“I would say he is about 10 minutes away from being ready,” Horner said of Ricciardo.

“He’s in good shape. He has kept himself fit and well.

“I think that he is training hard and he is ready to go given the chance.”

Thomas Miles

LATEST NEWS

NATIONAL SPORTS SEDAN SERIES GETS A BIG BOOST A REVISED calendar for the 2023 Precision International – National Sports Sedan Series confirms five rounds, including a trip to the iconic Bathurst 1000.

The series also now includes a highprofile trip to the Supercars Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 on October 2729 and features two Supercar Rounds, the series will visit Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

The highlight of the series being six on track sessions for the fifth round at the 2023 Bathurst 1000 Supercars event in October and The Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.

The addition of the Gold Coast brings the series back to a five-round calendar after the cancellation of the Symmons Plains Supercars support round.

The October 5-8 Bathurst 1000 event will mark the first ‘Great Race’ visit for the National Sports Sedan series in recent decades and will showcase the popular series to the huge Bathurst audience following the event, both at the venue and via the Foxtel coverage.

With the addition of the Supercars Boost Mobile backed round on the

Gold Coast, Sports Sedans will again be showcased to big crowds and high-profile events.

The National Sports Sedan Series last raced on the Surfers Paradise streets during the Gold Coast Indy Carnival days in the early 1990’s.

Director of the National Sports Sedan series Michael Robinson expressed his delight with the revised calendar.

“This is an unbelievable opportunity to continue showcasing our category and help set the series up for next year and beyond,” he said.

“To be competing at two of the biggest motorsport events in the country with live Foxtel TV coverage is a massive boost to the series.

“With the Bathurst 1000 event locked away and now with confirmation of the Supercars Gold Coast 500 event being included, I know that the competitors are really excited with the future for the category.”

“The competitor interest is high as we head to our first round at Winton in June, and I expect very solid fields for the whole series.” Robinson said.

“It’s a big opportunity for competitors to deliver real exposure for their sponsors as the series has solid

media exposure with coverage across Foxtel, Stan Sport as well as live and delayed coverage on free to air TV across both Channel 9 and the 7 Network.”

Robinson announced the 2023 calendar and confirmed that performance engine components supplier – Precision International will continue as the naming rights sponsor for the 2023 series. Robinson also talked about the resurgence in the Sports Sedan ranks.

“It’s going to be an exciting 2023 season, and it builds on what has been a very positive 2022 Precision International – National Sports Sedan Series,” he said.

“Obviously the faith that they are showing us is being rewarded by the invitation to race on the Bathurst 1000 event and now the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 event.

“I have to thank the drivers and teams for being so committed to this year’s season and proving that Sports Sedans have a place on some great high-profile events.”

“With the updated series starting in early June we expect plenty of cars being capable of racing, with several competitors returning to the series, as well as several new cars being built now that are getting close to the finish of their builds,” he said.

“We look forward to our 2022 series champion Jordan Caruso to be at the front of the field again but expect him to be challenged with lots of competitive equipment in the field.

“We think we will see several new cars appear during the 2023 series, and hopefully most of them being close to finished in the time for the first event.

Bruce Williams

2023 PRECISION INTERNATIONAL – NATIONAL SPORTS SEDAN SERIES CALENDAR ROUND 1: June 9-11 SpeedSeries Winton VIC Motorsport Aust-Stan Sport & Ch 9 ROUND 2: August 4-6 Trophy Series Queensland Raceway QLD ARG/Motorsport Aust-Ch 7+ ROUND 3: September. 9-10 Master Blast Sydney Motorsport Park NSW BlendlineTV livestream ROUND 4: October 5-8 Repco Bathurst 1000 Mt. Panorama NSW Supercars with Foxtel coverage ROUND 5: October 27-29 Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 Surfers Paradise QLD Supercars with Foxtel coverage

HIBBERT TAKES NAILBITING TRIPLE CROWN

GEELONG RACER Andy Hibbert has enjoyed many successes across his career, but a Pro Sprint feature win remained elusive until Saturday night.

Hibbert scored the breakthrough victory at Warrnambool’s Sungold Stadium Premier Speedway, but it almost did not happen with the race being decided by the slimmest of margins.

Just 0.030s separated Hibbert and runner-up Jordan Rae when the two Domain Ramsay owned cars crossed the line ahead of Matthew Symons.

As a result of the thrilling win, the Geelong driver has vaulted up to second place in the C & H Trucking Series and into the lead of the A Plus Powercoating Triple Crown series.

Despite falling three hundredths short, Rae still put in an inspired drive to defend his lead of the C & H Trucking Series.

He started down in 12th, but quickly soared his way up the order and even hit the lead momentarily.

Rae made a pass for the lead stick after finding the rubber in Turns 3 and 4, but a caution relegated him back to second for the restart.

This put Hibbert back in front and he took the opportunity to stay in the top groove and hold on by the skin of his teeth.

Post race the victor reflected he got lucky with the late race yellow, with Rae working the bottom well and falling agonisingly short.

Former Pro Sprint champion Brett Milburn almost made it an all Domain Ramsay owned podium having fought up front during the back half of the race.

Milburn reached third, but had to settle for fourth being unable to regain ground after the hard-charging Rae flew past.

Completing the rest of the top 10 were James Hennessy in fifth followed by Sam Wren, Dennis Jones, Shaun Lyness, Shane Steenholdt and Brett Smith.

Jamie May went back to back in the annual Super Rod Cup in the other racing action at Premier Speedway over the weekend.

May pulled away to glory after fending off some early race challenges by Troy Gleeson, who had to settle for second in the #W21 car.

Gleeson did his best with the inside line, but May found extra pace, carrying speed across the high line

and made the strategy work.

After his challenge for victory failed, Gleeson found himself fighting hard for second with Jacob Pitcher joining the party.

Pitcher quickly moved his way forward in the A-Main and stole second, only for Gleeson to regain the place with five laps to go.

Eventually current Victorian champion Pitcher had to make do with third with Paul Verhoeven and Pitcher rounding out the top five in the 25-lap feature.

Todd Hobson led every lap en route to victory in the Wingless Sprint A-Main.

Although the results point towards a crushing win for Hobson, he had a mighty battle with Mount Gambier’s Mitchell Broome.

The pair shared the front row and Broome made the better start, snatching the lead only for a red flag to halt the race before a lap was recorded.

The race was marred by big crashes affecting Carly Walsh and Kasey Garlick, but both were able to walk away.

When racing resumed Hobson showed strong race craft by moving up the track to stop Broome from repeating his earlier move and defend the lead.

From there, Hobson was untroubled with an ailing engine not enough to stop him from entering victory lane emitting strong fumes.

As Hobson nursed his car to victory, a mighty threecar battle occurred for remaining podium places.

Both Chris Temby and Nicholas Ryan made their way past Broome to jump into the top three.

Ryan had started down in sixth, but showed patience and made two positions inside the final 10 laps to get onto the podium.

Broome was forced to settle for fourth, while Blake Walsh finished fifth.

The next stop on the Sungold Stadium Premier Speedway calendar is the Easter SprintCar Trail, which begins at Avalon this Friday night, before heading to Mount Gambier’s Borderline Speedway on Saturday and wrapping up in Warrnambool on Sunday.

Thomas Miles

VIDAU PREPARED FOR CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHT AFTER MAIDEN WIN MAX VIDAU has his sights set on a Porsche Carrera Cup Australia championship push after scoring his maiden win at Albert Park.

Vidau shares the championship lead with Jackson Walls after the pair mirrored each other’s results in the first round supporting the 2023 Australian Grand Prix.

Just like last year the TekworkX Motorsport driver is at the top of the points table after the Albert Park opener, but this time it is more special.

In 2022 he was a picture of consistency, being a frontrunner in each race without standing on the top step.

But in 2023 Vidau secured his maiden win at the first time of asking after excelling in tricky wet conditions.

After the first race was declared a non event, the #72 driver enjoyed a fine start in race 2 and took the lead into Turn 1 and was never troubled from there.

Vidau did his best to repeat the result on

Saturday night and even hit the lead after reeling in early bolter Walls.

But this time Walls emerged victorious after a thrilling scrap for P1 across Turns 3-6.

Despite falling just short of a clean sweep, Vidau was still ecstatic with his

Australian Grand Prix output.

He said a strong start was the secret behind his maiden win, which has fuelled him with confidence to launch a championship attack after finishing 10th last year.

“I am so stoked to get the first win under the belt,” Vidau said.

“We have been working so hard to get here for a long time now so it’s really special.

“Converting off the line was important, I was able to get out in front and then just used our pace to build a good gap.

“Once I had it out to about seven seconds the boys told me I should probably save my tyres, so we just managed it from there.

“Mentally it was quite tough, but it felt easy, probably looked easy.

“We won the round outright last year and we’re at the top of the table again this year, but I feel that we’re better prepared with a good package to fight for the championship this season.”

Vidau hopes to continue his good form at round 2 in Darwin on June 16-18.

Thomas Miles

LATEST NEWS

JORDAN LOVE JOINS MERCEDES AMG FACTORY AUSSIE GT3 racer Jordan Love has signed up with the Mercedes-AMG factory as part of its Junior Driver line-up.

Love will officially enter the ranks of the Affalterbach based AMG team, situated north east of Stuttgart in Swabia, Germany.

The talented WA native has already racked up plenty of mileage in a Mercedes GT3, having competed in the GT World Challenge Europe for various teams, and is currently competing in the Nurburgring Endurance Series (NLS) for the Haupt Racing Team.

Jordan’s next big challenge in the NLS is the iconic ADAC 24h Nurburgring on May 18-20, he will also be competing at some rounds of the GT World Challenge Australia.

It’s a great reward for Love, and represents a huge step in a career that’s about to significantly ramp up.

“I’m delighted to be joining the Mercedes-AMG family as a junior driver!” Love said.

“This is a huge step in my career and something that not only myself but my supporters, partners and family have been working towards since this crazy journey began.

“I can’t thank everyone involved enough, especially Stefan and the entire team at Mercedes-AMG for this incredible opportunity, and the team at MB Partners for their continued support.

“I look forward to sharing my programs for the 2023 season. The hard work is far from over, in fact it’s only just the beginning, and I cannot wait to get the season underway!”

Love’s management team at MB Partners, piloted by its CEO

Mark Blundell, is ecstatic to have Love join the AMG team.

“We’re very excited to announce that Jordan has been selected as part of the elite Mercedes-AMG driver line-up for 2023,” Blundell said.

“This is testament to Jordan’s commitment and racing prowess, and to be given the opportunity to represent this iconic brand in the world’s biggest GT racing events is fantastic.”

In 2019, Love became the youngest ever champion of the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia, beating home Dale Wood and David Wall is a remarkable come-from-behind charge up the standings, competing for Sonic Motor Racing.

Stay tuned into AUTO ACTION, as it follows the on-track action from both Jordan, and his brother Aaron Love, who’s racing for BRT in the Super2 Championship this season.

Tim W Neal

FAMOUS GERMAN BRANDS TO RACE THE MOUNTAIN MOUNT PANORAMA is the stage for the opening round of the 2023 GT World Challenge Australia season where three famous German brands will battle for supremacy.

Porsche, Audi and Mercedes account for no less than 16 of the 20 cars on show at Bathurst, and will fight for bragging rights across a pair of 60-minute races at Bathurst.

Porsche comes into the category in a big way, with reigning champion Yasser Shahin behind the wheel of a 991.2 GT3 R. Shahin is spearheading the new EMA Autosport Pro-Am outfit, which is completed by the internationally experienced Garnet Patterson.

The brand will also be represented by Marcos Flack, who will drive a Sonic Motor Racing Services 991.2 Cup car in the GT3 Trophy class. He will be in a two-horse race with Stephen Coe’s Ferrari 458 GT3.

The Mercedes-AMG army can never be discounted with Prince Jefri Ibrahim and Broc Feeney looking to replicate their commanding performance to take victory when the category last took on The Mountain in November.

A late charge with Feeney behind the wheel helped the duo take out a three-hour Bathurst International race that was not decided until the final 30 minutes.

The team that was overhauled by the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG at the end was Schumacher Motorsport, which is looking to go one better.

Brad Schumacher will be on his own in an

Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo and hopes to be the leader in a competitive Am field.

He will have plenty of other Am Audis for company with Michael Kokkinos, Ash Samadi, Marcel Zalloua, Liam Talbot, Geoff Emery, Matt Stoupas and Paul Stokell all driving with the four rings.

Hoping to get in their way is an expanded Mercedes field, giving Feeney and Ibrahim plenty of allies with the three-pointed star.

Once again seven-time Supercars champion Jamie Whincup and Prince Abu Bakar join forces in the #88 GT3.

RAM Motorsport has an expanded program featuring Pro-Am and Am entries for the first time.

Michael Shergold and Garth Walden will drive the Am Mercedes, while the #96 ProAm is in the hands of Mike Bailey and Brett Hobson, with the latter parting ways from his popular Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3.

Completing the field are three Invitational MARC cars driven by Darren Currie, Geoff Taunton and Grant Donaldson.

The weekend begins with two hour-long practice sessions on Friday before back-

to-back qualifying sessions on Saturday morning.

The first 60-minute race begins at 14.55 AEST with the second and final race at 9.20 AEST Sunday morning.

2023 GT WORLD CHALLENGE AUSTRALIA CALENDAR Round 1 Bathurst April 7-9 Round 2 Perth April 28-30 Round 3 Phillip Island May 12-14 Round 4 Sydney July 28-30 Round 5 Queensland Raceway August 11-13 Round 6 Adelaide 500 November 23-26

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LATEST NEWS

TYRE LIFE HURTS MOSTERT ONCE AGAIN

FOR THE second round in a row, Chaz Mostert’s hopes of a Supercars race win were hurt by tyre life, which is an area Walkinshaw Andretti United has targeted ahead of Perth.

Mostert relinquished his championship lead to Brodie Kostecki after a short, but eventful Melbourne SuperSprint.

Car #25 still had the orange stickers in the fourth and final race of the weekend on Sunday morning with a slender onepoint advantage.

Mostert started strong, having overtaken Broc Feeney and held off a challenge from Will Brown to lead the first seven laps of the 13-lap race.

However, the Walkinshaw Andretti United driver soon found himself on thin ice, having used too much of his SuperSoft

rubber and suddenly lost seven places within three laps.

This was down to poor tyre life as the #25 Mustang eventually slumped to a P15 finish, while Kostecki’s charge from 14th to third created a 75-point swing, which was enough to not only bring the Larry Perkins Trophy to car #99, but also the championship lead.

It was a blow for Mostert, who had not finished outside of the top five in any of the first five races of the season.

“Bit of a disappointing finish in the end there,” Mostert said.

“We were running strongly in the lead until late in the race, and we just didn’t have the tyre life to hang on to the position.

“Thank you to everyone for their hard

work, we will regroup and go again in Perth.”

It is the second time this season Mostert’s victory hopes have been hurt by a lack of tyre grip, with Shane van Gisbergen charging past in the closing stages of Sunday’s Newcastle 500.

After finishing second best in the tense finish, Mostert told a similar story, having also pointed towards tyre degradation as a weakness of his Ford.

“I left it all out there (in race 2 at Newcastle) and tried my hardest to make my tyres live, but in the last 10 laps of each stint I started to hit a cliff in degradation,” he said.

“My car just really maxed the early throttle pickup which is where I hurt the tyre a lot.

“I am good for the first 20 laps, but after that it was a bit of a battle once I start hurting the tyre and braking starts to struggle.”

Despite losing the championship lead, Walkinshaw Andretti United believes it can wrestle back the orange stickers at the next round at Perth where tyre life will once again play a big role.

Wanneroo has not been the happiest of hunting grounds for either WAU or Mostert.

The pair’s only WA trip together last year netted tough results of P22, P12 and P19.

Mostert’s only success at the short track occurred in 2014 in his first victory for FPR, while the Clayton based team’s WA drought is even longer, stretching back all the way to 2006 when Mark Skaife collected the trophy.

However, WAU team principal Bruce Stewart believes the team has the tools to reclaim the championship lead at Perth on April 28-30.

“It clearly has not been the weekend we had hoped and planned for, but we continue to learn a lot about the new Ford Mustang,” Stewart told Supercars.com.

“That means both the set-up needed for speed in qualifying and to race strong at the front.

“We now look forward to going to Perth, another very different track with superhigh degradation of the tyres.

“We’re pushing forward with the Mustang and looking to move back to the lead in the drivers’ championship with Chaz.”

NEW NAME FOR THE BEND AFTER HUGE OTR SALE THE BEND Motorsport Park will have a slightly different appearance in the future after the sale of the OTR Group, which is a South Australian based retail fuel and convenience store chain.

Viva Energy, which operates with the famous Shell brand in Australia, has struck a deal with the Shahin family-owned Peregrine Corporation, the owners of The Bend motorsport facility, to buy the OTR Group for $1.15 billion.

As part of the purchase of the OTR fuel outlet business from the Peregrine Corporation, a deal has been done for a decade-long naming rights partnership with The Bend Motorsport Park.

The South Australian motorsport facility has been run by the Shahin family, with OTR banding commonly seen all over the pit straight since it opened in 2018.

But under a new deal, which rolls into action on July 1, new Viva Energy branding, most likely to be Shell, may appear at the state-of-the-art facility.

The new signage at The Bend will likely be seen from July 1, ahead of the Supercars event on August 18-20.

“This is an exciting time for The Bend,”

said managing director of The Bend Motorsport Park, Sam Shahin.

“I expect the partnership with Viva Energy will further build on The Bend’s reputation as a world class motorsport facility and will accelerate the venue’s next phase of growth as a top tier destination for both corporate and private clients across motorsport and non-motorsport events.

“There is a natural synergy between The Bend and Viva Energy as a supplier of high-quality Shell fuels and lubricants in Australia.

“I am looking forward to a long term association with Viva Energy as we work to expand the facility and uses of the venue.

“The announcement today marks an incredibly exciting time for our company,

delivering on several core objectives; to see OTR national, to be the leading convenience brand in Australia and to remain true to our roots headquartered in Adelaide,” said OTR founder Yasser Shahin.

The announcement arrives as speculation builds surrounding the development of a new motorsport facility at Avalon in Victoria on land that is adjoining the Avalon Airfield, which is leased to the Linfox organisation, the owners of Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.

Industry rumours suggest that the new facility would likely cost beyond $500 million, will see the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport Limited run the venue for some years, with ownership then reverting to the Linfox organisation.

It is believed the facility will be co-funded by the Victorian State Government and the Linfox Property Group, which may seek to sell the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit to fund their part of the Avalon project.

Should the venue be for sale, industry chatter suggests that one of the potential buyers is the Shahin family’s Peregrine Corporation.

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LATEST NEWS

TRANS AM INVESTIGATION HIGHLIGHTS OFFICAL SHORTCOMINGS. AN INDEPENDENT tribunal established by Motorsport Australia has released its findings into Race 2 of the Trans Am Series at Race Tasmaniaon March 1 at Symmons Plains Raceway.

The tribunal was established following confusion at the event – where a red flag was initially shown following a two-car collision and rollover, before being withdrawn.

The tribunal looked at the circumstances surrounding the confusion, and was critical of the role some senior official played in it.

The tribunal, made up of senior motorsport identities Roland Dane (Chair), Greg Crick and Steven Richards, firstly determined that the minimum number of laps were not completed before red flags were first shown.

As such, the official race result has been amended and no points awarded.

The tribunal was however also critical of the senior officials and medical

staff’s response to the incident, on lap 11 of the second race of the Race Tasmania event.

James Simpson ploughed into Ben Grice’s slow-moving machine coming out of the final corner, which sent Simpson airborne and into a roll.

Grice was in the lead, but James Moffat was deemed the winner after he was led to the chequered flag by the Safety Car. However, it was established that red flags were shown for 40 seconds after the incident before the Safety Car was called into action.

The tribunal established the “correct call” for red flags to be displayed immediately and was highly critical of officials actions in bringing out the Safety Car, which led to the confusion surrounding the result.

At the same time, it took more than three minutes before either of the affected drivers were attended to by paramedics, and the tribunal was thus also critical of the response from

marshals and medical personnel alike.

“The lack of direct attention by marshals/officials to the drivers of cars #03 and #782 in a timely manner could have had serious consequences,” read the tribunal’s findings.

“The medical personnel in attendance appear to have lacked clear direction and leadership in the circumstances where they were confronted with a potentially serious incident.”

Thankfully neither driver was seriously harmed in the incident, but after the “Stewards failed to operate as a panel in the course of the Race” the tribunal has made no less than 12 recommendations to Motorsport Australia.

These range from implementing an “intensive training program for all volunteers and officials in Race Control” to conducting a recruitment drive for new volunteers.

Motorsport Australia CEO Eugene Arocca said the governing body

will take the report on board and decide whether or not any of the recommendations should be implemented.

“We have received the tribunal’s findings and will now carefully consider their recommendations and any further changes or initiatives that may be required both in the short and long term,” Arocca said.

“It is now confirmed the official race result has been declared, meaning no points will be awarded from the category’s second race of the event as it did not meet the minimum race distance.”

To read the full Motorsport Australia Investigatory Tribunal - Findings, Decision and Recommendations, click on the link below. https://autoaction.com. au/2023/04/05/motorsportaustralia-investigatory-tribunalsurrounding-an-incident-duringtrans-am-race-2-at-symmons-plains

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

HUGHES USF2000 SHOW ROLLS ON LOCHIE HUGHES has continued his dominance in America taking out Race 1 of the USF2000 at Sebring.

Having won the F4US championship in 2022, Hughes found himself atop the table after Round 1 with a win and a podium at St Petersburg, Florida.

He was also fighting up the front in Race 2 with the more experienced Simon Sikes, before he ran wide and made slight contact with the barrier, but held onto P4 to finish the round in second outright.

The Jay Howard Development racer qualified in P3, 0.159s back from the polesitter Sikes for Race 1, with Sikes eventually taking the Round 2 win and championship lead, with Hughes just three points off in second.

Both Hughes and Sikes traded the lead several times over the course of the 12-lap race, but Hughes’ aggressive and attacking style of driving was enough to overcome the Georgia born American, who had the slipstream advantage on the wide Sebring straights.

“The race was pretty solid. I managed

to get into the lead at the first corner. I just sent it in there and hoped for the best,” Hughes said.

“I was able to pull a gap and then the red flag came out, which was a bit annoying, and I tried to get the best restart possible.

“I managed to do that and pulled a little bit of a gap again but the slipstream here is so big that Simon was able to catch up.

“It was tricky out there because the track was so slippery compared to how it has been all weekend. It was good to just make

Image: GAVIN BAKER PHOTOGRAPHY no mistakes, which was hard because Simon was starting to catch me.

“He passed me and I was able to pass him back and then hold him off on the last lap, so it was good racing there in the end.”

Round 3 of the three-tier USF Pro Championships heads to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in Indiana on May 12-13.

TW Neal

EVANS GP BUILDING PACE WITH WEBSTER IN GB4

Image: GAVIN BAKER PHOTOGRAPHY

ARMSTRONG STORMS USF JUNIORS OPENER

QUINN ARMSTRONG has taken an impressive victory at the opening round of the UFS Juniors at the USF Pro Championship in Sebring Florida.

The young Aussie from Newcastle, NSW, is contesting his first full season for DEForce Racing after making his debut in the bottom tier of the USF Pro Championships last season, a feeder series for the IndyCar. In Race 2 Armstrong finished in P10, before hitting back with a P5 in the finale, ending the opening round fourth in the standings, just 27 points off the leader.

It was his first podium – let alone victory – in the US series, after contesting four rounds in 2022.

Armstrong qualified his #16 Tatuus JR-23

20 I www.autoaction.com.au

in P6 after topping the Practice session earlier in the morning at the famous Florida Track.

The young Aussie ace started well, moving up to third early early, and wasted no time in moving into P2, to start putting pressure on the pole getter in Joey Brienza, who had built an early lead.

Taking advantage of an obscure technical glitch as Brienza’s steering wheel went blank, Armstrong drew alongside the American to move into the lead as Brienza also experienced gearchange issues.

After taking the lead, the #16 DEForce racer didn’t look back in charging home, as well as collecting the Tilton Hard Charger Award after making up five positions from the start.

“I started sixth and we knew we would have to work to go forward, but that we could go forward,” Armstrong said.

“We showed the pace in practice, and we put that into practice in this race. I had an amazing start and was able to get to third pretty much straight away, so just chipped away at second and managed to get to first.

“Then it was just qualifying laps for the rest of the race. This is the exact way you want to start the year. There’s no better place to finish the race and I’m happy about how this season has begun.”

The next round of the USF Juniors is on April 27-28 at the Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.

TW Neal

FORMER S5000 jet Cooper Webster and his Aussie-run Evans GP team, are building fast momentum heading into the British GB4 Championship.

After two practice sessions, the team gained valuable ground in the Tatuus F4-T014 with tests at Donington Park and Snetterton.

Webster managed P5 in Derby, just 0.919 in arrears of pace-setter Tom Mills, before netting P3 at Snetterton, just 0.218s short of the benchmark in his second outing in the machinery,and with the Pirelli tyres, completing 44 laps.

“Excellent first day in the new car on a new track, for a new team and a new country.

Loved the track and the grippy Pirelli’s, just want more laps now,” Webster said after Donington.

Everything is also new for team owner Josh Evans, with everyone having made the leap to move to the UK for the endeavour.

“It was really good – the team has been working really hard over the last couple of months to prepare for this” Evans said.

“To have such a smooth test day on our first outing in the UK has been great, Cooper got a lot of laps; it was a good day.”

“We’ve had to find a workshop, staff, tools, equipment ... everything has been from a blank canvas. Then there’s things like insurance, and of course a big change personally in moving here.

“We’ll building from our side and Cooper’s learning the car and tyres. By Round 1 we should be competitive.”

TW Neal

CAPO LANDS PRIME EUROPEAN LAMBO DRIVE RICKY CAPO has landed a seat with Austrian team Grasser Racing for the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, racing a brand new Lamborghini Huracan EVO2.

Capo will pilot the #58 Huracan with Italian Fabrizio Crestani, and Brit Sam Neary for five endurance rounds.

The experienced Victorian born racer and PRAGA test driver, raced in the German DTM Trophy series (GT4) in 2022, taking out a podium in a luckless season with KUS Team Bernhard.

Capo is thrilled to be joining Grasser, with the first hit-out coming at the legendary Monza, a track where Capo has already experienced victory at the European Le Mans series.

“I’m so thrilled to be joining the Grasser Racing Team,” Capo told AUTO ACTION. “Gottfried (Grasser) and the team are very experienced and made me feel right at home when I was in Europe for

testing at Paul Ricard.

“They’ve won just about everything they’ve competed in, so I’m very proud to come onboard. I’m mostly looking

Image: TRENT GOWER

MCFADDEN CRUSHES TEXAS DEVILS BOWL

JAMES MCFADDEN has turned a minor World of Outlaws form slump around with a 30 lap lights-to-flag victory at Devil’s Bowl Speedway in Texas.

It was his 7th career victory in the world’s pinnacle Sprintcar series, and his second of the season in the Toyota Racing Development 410 Engined #83 Roth car.

After starting the year with four straight top-10s and the Volusia Speedway triumph, the NT native then went on a four straight 13th or worse form slump, and the Aussie dirt-tracker was doubting himself.

“I’m just pumped – the last few races have been tough for us as a team,” a clearly emotional McFadden said at the podium.

“You start to doubt your abilities and what we’re doing with the car.

autoactionmag

Auto_Action

We’ve just been working really hard … I give credit to my guys.

They’ve been working pretty hard, and we’ve been pretty terrible, tearing up race cars and doing silly things, so to reward them with a win tonight is great.”

It was a smart race from the experienced racer. On a devilishly fast surface, he ripped around fellow front row starter, Buddy Kofoid, and built an early lead before a yellow, where he negotiated heavy traffic, before jumping again, and didn’t look back.

He got in by 1.542s over Kofoid, with Californian gun Carson Macedo taking P3 (70th career podium).

How did McFadden celebrate his $20,000 WoO victory? With a shoey!

TW Neal

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forward to the 24 Hours of Spa, but equally keen for more pre-season testing to get comfortable in the Huracan.

“The first round is at Monza which gives me a little bit of a confidence boost. I won the 4 Hours of Monza in the European Le Mans Series in 2017, so I’m hoping we can have the same level of success this time around.”

Capo credits his time in the PRAGA R1T EVO, helping him stay sharp with its downforce similarities with the Huracan.

“Driving the Praga R1T EVO in 2022 really helped me get up to speed in the GT3,” Capo explained further.

“The downforce is similar, and overall it felt like a very natural progression.”

The season starts at Monza on April 21-32 before the 1000 km of Circuit Paul Ricard in June, with the Spa 24 coming in late June/July. Late July sees the series heading to the Nurburgring, before the GTWCE Endurance campaign ends in Barcelona at the end of September.

TW Neal

PROMISE TURNS TO HEARTBREAK AT SAN FELIPE 250

A SHATTERED Toby Price and Paul Weel had to retire from the San Felipe 250, as Weel’s newly aquired Team Australia Quad Lock Trophy Truck broke down after 80 miles of racing.

The pair got off to an incredible start in qualifying outside the Mexican town of San Felipe, as Price dominated his run, laying down a 0:5:196 to take a resounding pole by 2.246s over local racer Tavo Vildosola.

It was a vindication for Weel, the former Supercars racer, as he’d purchased the big money truck from retired Baja 1000 legend Andy McMillin, of ‘Big Blue M’ family fame.

Price, who currently leads the FIM World Rally Raid Championship, joined back up with the same team that finished fifth at the Baja 400, before Weel’s newly purchased truck disastrously burned to the ground in the 1000.

After that effort and expense, the fault

came down to a $35 dollar component.

“Well, not much I can say ... gutted is an understatement. I’ve done something wrong on this planet to not get any luck on our side,” said a dejected Price.

“Had a smooth 80miles of racing, holding my own and basically a $35 manifold pressure sensor shut the truck down.

“Didn’t risk anything, stayed smooth on the road, in the speed zones ... I was just cruising into them “Thanks to Kellon Walch (co-driver) sitting right side of me, your work was perfect, and to Paul Weel for having faith in me to drive his million dollar machine.

We can’t catch a break ... I want this so bad and it’s just not happening.”

The next SCORE World Desert Championship round is the Baja 500 on May 31-June 4, and here’s hoping Weel can get a break, and Price has a gap in his enormous calendar.

TW Neal

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

COULD WRC LEGEND WIN AN IMPROBABLE TITLE? SEBASTIEN OGIER took his second win of the 2023 WRC season in Mexico as a part-time driver for Toyota – but can the French legend make it to nine titles?

After winning the Rallye Monte Carlo in the opening round to surpass Sebastien Loeb’s record of eight wins in the famous opener, Ogier also surpassed Loeb for the most wins in Mexico (seven).

As it sits, Ogier is on top of the WRC table after his two-from-two, despite sitting out Rally Sweden, and if he collects enough points from his limited rallies in 2023, he will equal his old French foe for the most ever WRC titles –nine.

But does the French master, born in the southern region of Gap, Hautes-Alpes, even want to win the world title … a la, the strange but legendary German pilot Walter Rohrl?

Okay, so his situation is very different from Rohrl – who was regarded as one of the best ever, but was only interested in the prestige of certain events – and Ogier already has eight titles to his name!

(Rohrl also captured the 1980 and 1982 championships, but he very much didn’t want to).

The point is, if he wanted to win the title, he very much, and most likely could and would.

Ogier made it clear at the start of the year that he would prefer to be with his family more, rather than travel the globe as full-time driver at the age of 39 … and he has more than earned that position.

“I’m not going to say that I’m never 100% going back and competing fulltime, but right now you know that’s the same thing I’ve been saying for a long

Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES time. I love my family and my son and want to spend time with them,” Ogier was quoted as saying last year after a six race season, with two podiums and a victory in Spain.

Although he’s not committed to a calendar in the Rally1 GR Yaris this season, there is the chance he may race 7-8 rallies out of the 13 available rounds.

Plenty would need to go right for this to happen, and plenty has been going right in 2023, with both his wins being utterly dominant … although Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi was looking very good before collecting a utility pole in Mexico.

The seemingly open nature of the

field this season could also lead to the possibility, should Ogier win 5-6 rallies, with Toyota having openly said they want him there whenever possible.

There are three drivers that are almost certainties to win one or more rallies this year, and one already has, with Ott Tanak winning in Sweden.

2022 champion Rovanpera will win more than one this year – it’s almost guaranteed – and so too will Thierry Neuville, with the likes of Elfyn Evans and Lappi also looking a very good chance to steal one or two from the big front-three.

Ogier has already committed to the next round at Rally Croatia on the Asphalt,

one of his favourite surfaces, though he will be leading off. But if conditions are good, it shouldn’t disadvantage him too greatly.

Has a part-timer ever won a WRC championship?

No … but yes. Almost all WRC Rally drivers were essentially part-time back in the not-to-distant past. Miki Biasion did it by winning five from six in ’88 in a 13 round season, and an injured Loeb missed four rallies due to injury in ’06 and still got it done.

So it is entirely possible … if a certain amount of very probable things occur.

TW Neal

BUTTON CHALLENGED BY COMBATIVE NASCAR DEBUT JENSON BUTTON’S debut in the NASCAR Cup Series ended in a P18 at the COTA circuit in Texas, with the 2009 F1 champion admitting he felt somewhat overawed by its combative nature.

Button (right) even got a shunt from another former F1 champion in Kimi Raikkonen, who finished in P29 in his second Cup Series outing.

He also suffered from heat exhaustion, which nearly ended his race, but with three more to come – which includes the 24 Hours of Le Mans NASCAR entry – he weathered the storm.

“You get to Turn 1 and everyone is in the way. People are braking later than me and they just hit a car and use that to slow down!” Button described.

“I enjoyed the race, but I’d say 60% of it, or

22 I www.autoaction.com.au

Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES maybe 40% of it kind of felt a bit silly with the amount that we were hitting each other.

“Turn 1, I would turn in and get whacked.

Luckily it didn’t spin me round and on the exit I got a big whack back. The revenge is enjoyable but there’s points where it feels

that we could do better.

“The action’s amazing, don’t get me wrong ... I have to give it to these guys. The first 10 laps, it just destroyed me … every time I was in a corner I had someone overtaking me.

“I’ve never hit a car intentionally, and then after the first stint, when I changed tyres, I was like, ‘Guys put me in clear air, I need some laps on my own’ … and then on the next stint I’d had a whack from Kimi and it just felt so oversteery. And I also had heat exhaustion. I said ‘guys, I have to stop’ ... it was that bad.”

Next up, Button will take on the Centenary of Le Mans on June 10-11, returning to NASCAR for the Chicago street circuit on July 2 to continue his first return to racing after 3 years.

TW Neal

GRAVEL RASH THE AGP HAD AA’S COLUMNIST WEEPING FOR THE FUTURE OF MOTORSPORT

Image: MARK HORSBURGH AS SUCCESSFUL and engrossing as last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix meeting undoubtedly was, the Albert Park extravaganza also set some dangerous precedents. A series of incidents across the weekend merely served to highlight just how many issues motorsport needs to sort out. Fast.

The thing troubling me most is that ‘risk management’ clearly has officialdom tied in knots and is destroying motorsport as we know it. Actually, a good many things troubled me across the AGP weekend, none more so than red-flagging a race due to gravel sprayed across the racetrack from Alex Albon’s early race crash.

Seriously? Officials couldn’t sweep up some kitty litter under a Safety Car like they have hundreds of times at tracks over the decades?

The decision to red-flag the AGP after a handful of laps not only robbed George Russell of a possible win, it created a silly spectacle of everyone having a break and attending to their cars before a full restart. But aren’t race starts the most dangerous time of a F1 weekend?

How is this scenario safer than controlling the race under a

with Luke West

REVVED UP Safety Car? Don’t me wrong, the full restart had me enthralled, but don’t tell me this was a less risky option than a single file restart once the SC pulled into pitlane.

It seems to me that attempts to mitigate against disaster actually have the opposite effect by creating an opportunity for a bigger incident off the startline.

Will we now see races redflagged for gravel on the track in Supercars, which likes to follow F1’s lead on most things?

Little brother looks up to big brother and so often copies his behaviour.

Speaking of Supercars, Race 6 of the championship on Sunday was an absolute ripper, thankfully, after the fiascos that played out on Friday and Saturday. Sunday’s affair showcased the category – and Gen3 – at its very best, enabling it to save face after a series of

embarrassing occurrences. It was good timing, with the biggest crowd of the racing year on hand.

Friday’s affair was a very poor look for the category, especially drivers racing flat-out under Safety Car conditions past Jack Le Brocq’s stricken Camaro, the car for which the SC was called.

Equally troubling was that, for all the time, 37 minutes, that Supercars were on track Friday, from exiting pitlane pre-race to returning to it after the cooldown lap, there was just six minutes 50 seconds of green flag running.

What nobody is talking about is the time wasted getting the AGP sprints underway. Almost 11 minutes of Supercars’ Friday race window was taken up by cars weaving at a snail’s pace on the pit exit lap and then the formation lap? Do we really need gboth of these laps? I say send them out, line ’em up and go racing.

Come on Motorsport Australia, find a way to cut out the unnecessary over-officious rubbish that’s ruining the sport, especially at the AGP. The five minutes saved by cutting a lap pre-race would have given fans two extra laps of Supercars racing that day.

The wobbling around pre-race was even worse on Saturday, when it took 14 minutes 45 seconds to get Race 5 of the championship underway after the first Supercar exited pitlane.

This is the same amount of time the Supercars actually spent racing on Saturday in the allotted 45 minutes on track. The rest was under Safety Car or on the cooldown lap. Not good enough.

Things need to change ahead of Supercars’ 2024 AGP appearance, presuming the category strikes a new deal with the Australian Grand Prix Corporation. But will that new deal be as lucrative in terms of sanction fee and support race pecking order with Formula 2 and Formula 3 now on the scene as the AGPC’s shiny new playthings?

A few years ago, in the pre Drive to Survive era, Supercars were an important drawcard for

the AGPC. Now I’m not so sure.

Would Saturday and Sunday still be sell-outs if Supercars were not on the support card? I suspect Supercars needs the AGP more than vice versa.

That said, Supercars did provide some compelling and unexpected storylines both on and off the track at Albert Park.

Gen3 has truly been manna from heaven for tin-top enthusiasts.

I noted last issue that Newcastle (Episode 1) gave us some intriguing reality television and I pondered what drama, interpersonal tensions and plot twists would be dished up in Melbourne. I was not to be disappointed. Who could have predicted spontaneously combusting cars in Episode 2?

Credit where credit is due; Supercars came up with a sensible workaround – a rolling start Sunday – to keep the show on the road until this latest teething issue for Gen3 is overcome. Which it will soon be. More concerning than racecars mysteriously catching fire is officialdom’s increasing propensity to hit the panic button for innocuous reasons … like gravel on the track. Seems a bit rash.

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www.autoaction.com.au I 23

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR PUBLISHER

Bruce Williams bruce@autoaction.com.au 0418 349 555 EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Bruce Williams STAFF JOURNALIST Timothy W. Neal STAFF JOURNALIST Thomas Miles NEWS EDITOR Andrew Clarke FEATURES WRITER Paul Gover PRODUCTION/SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Caroline Garde SENIOR DESIGNER Neville Wilkinson NATIONAL EDITOR Garry O’Brien HISTORICS EDITOR Mark Bisset SPEEDWAY REPORTER Paris Charles ONLINE EDITOR

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For more of the latest motorsport news, reviews and features, PLUS additional breaking news.

Go to autoaction.com.au or scan below

email: letters@autoaction.com.au Postal: Suite 4/156 Drummond Street.

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TRANS AM AND T2 MORE ENTERTAINING THAN GEN3 SUPERCARS

I believe the Gen 3 cars are a waste of time and money.

The Trans Am or T2 Mustangs, Camaros and Dodges are much cheaper, sound better, slide around more and are more entertaining.

As expected in the Gen 3 cars, the winning driver and winning team has not changed.

What a waste of time and money!!!

I do like that are less “gadgets” in the cockpit for the driver to alter though.

Greg Downes

THREE NAMES TO ADD SPICE TO TOURING CAR MASTERS Touring Car Masters has long been my favourite and, along with Lloyd Fisher (AA# 1857), I also agree that something has to be done.

To invigorate the category one driver that comes to my mind is Paul Stubber, who I have seen in action at a Sandown historic meeting. In my 74 years I have never witnessed a harder charger than this guy. He is a pleasure to watch and if he can’t shake up this category then nobody can.

Two other drivers that come to my mind are Aldo De Paoli and P. Oliver.

Put all these guys in the mix. I think it would be worth watching.

Colin McPhee, Benalla.

IMPORTANT TO HAVE LOT OF ALTERNATIVES TO SUPERCAR SERIES Agree with Lloyd Fisher about the poor Touring Car Masters fields this year.

Not so long ago TCM was the best thing going at Australian race meetings.

SOCIAL DISCOURSE

Always racing on the limit, Aldo De Paoli and Paul Stubber both in Group NC Historic Camaros, Colin McPhee says they should be in TCM. Image: IAN SMITH Now it’s just a shadow of its former self.

We really need a category like this to be strong and an alternative to the processional Supercar series.

When ARG (Australian Racing Group) came along a few years ago it seemed as though it was going to be a terrific and viable alternative to Supercars, but now it appears to be withering on the vine. We need to have variety at race meetings and tracks.

By the way, pity there wasn’t more local content on track at the Grand Prix, but when we look at how TCM and the ARG programmes are, can see it would be hard to justify having them at the GP the state they’re in.

Des Campbell, Bacchus Marsh, Victoria

HAVE FORMULA ONE AND GRAND PRIX LOST THE PLOT? I am in Melbourne for the Grand Prix and, even before the Formula 1 cars are on track, I am almost vomiting.

When F1 first came to Australia – Adelaide 1985 – there was a real magic about the drivers competing (Senna, Prost, Mansell, etc), the cars (especially the noise they made) and the on-track show.

In other words, the racing.

Now, reading the local paper in the lead-up to this GP, it’s about WAGS (wives and girlfriends), influencers, football commentators – everything AutoActionMag

except the drivers, other than a bit about our new Aussie driver Oscar Piastri, and the cars, let alone the on-track show, with expectations of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez ‘wiping the floor’ in the Red Bulls.

Hope it turns out to be a whole lot more competitive than that.

Perhaps F1 was just a whole lot better in Adelaide and on the mighty Adelaide circuit with V10 engines.

Russell Savage, Henley Beach, South Australia

If what Skaife claims is true the Supercars organisation would be rolling in money from international television rights.

Is it? Bet not.

Too much sizzle and not enough substance in ‘Supercars’.

Pity we don’t have a better alternative.

Frank Moore Kyneton, Victoria

SURELY THEY’RE JOKING - NO PORSCHE CUP ON MAIN RACE DAY

What a flaming load of crap these Gen3 ‘Supercars’ are.

The guys responsible for the ‘development’ of these cars should hang their heads in shame.

What we’ve seen at Newcastle and Albert Park, in terms of damage, has been disgraceful.

Where is the professionalism we – team bosses, drivers, fans and sponsors – should be able to expect from those running Supercars and signing off on cars that clearly are not fit to be on track yet.

And today (Sunday) I hear that Mark Skaife reckons the world is watching these new ‘Supercars’ because of the popularity of the Grand Prix.

What planet is this guy on?

Skaife was a damn good driver in his day, full stop.

But, seriously, how many people outside Oz give a rat’s arse about our ‘Supercars’?

I arrived at the Albert Park track this morning knowing it was a jammed-packed program.

Walking to the track I heard cars running around the track well before 9am and when I arrived the F3 cars were already racing.

The F3s are great to watch on the TV and I know we have some local kids competing, but why they were here I don’t know.

Anyway, to my point. The Carrera Cup cars didn’t race on Sunday!

What the hell is going on?

I watched Saturday’s late race get stopped because the pit lane was closed. Why? Because of an F1 pit lane walk!

I should have checked the event guide in your latest issue, I might have realised that the Porsche’s weren’t on on Sunday...

It was a sad sight walking through their pit area with no excitment, no teams to speak of and no buzz.

Carrera Cup is one of the top classes in Australia with lots of corporate sponsors who deserve to be showcased in front of the massive crowd. So why do they put up with this type of treatment?

We (Victorian) taxpayers pay for all these overseas racers to come here and take all the track time and now we have a situation where our local categories are missing out.

It’s not good enough!

Craig Johnstone.

Malvern, Victoria.

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GEN3 SUPERCARS ERA GOING UP IN FLAMES

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There was no shortage of taking points over an eventful Australian Grand Prix weekend on Auto Action’s social channels.

GEN3 PARITY DEBATE

Jay Smith Camaro has been first to the chequered flag in every race, got fastest lap in every race, every pass on the straight has been made by Camaro and tyre life is better for the Camaro.

By now in 2019 they had already started chopping up the Gen2 Mustang.

So let’s see how long they wait to even the cars.

24 I www.autoaction.com.au

AUS GP CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

Scott Moy So glad for Brodie to add wins to his copy book but we seriously have to look at the way these races run. Brodie has picked up 150 points for about 140km of racing and the same is awarded to someone who wins a 250km race. Has to be looked at to make effort equal reward. He’s played the game the same as everyone

and the rules aren’t his fault. The organisers just need to work on making sure that each point for a result equals the same amount of effort per race

bar one (in Race 4). That is the difference with 888; they know who they are racing and that is all they care about.

TRIPLE EIGHT RACE SMARTS

Paul Hewitt Why standing start re-starts?

Blind Freddy could see what was going to happen with two laps to go. Single file rolling would have been better and, to be fair, when was the last time this happened?

Peter Colson SVG knows he is really racing five cars this year for the championship in Waters, Mostert, Kostecki, Feeney and De Pasquale and he finished in front of all

AUS GP FINISH CHAOS

HOORAY FOR THE SWEARING MAN

Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

THE TRUE SUPERSTAR AT THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX IS ...

By Paul Gover MAX VERSTAPPEN is not the most popular person in Formula One. Fernando Alonso? Nearly, thanks to his Latin movie star good looks and the career resurgence and reemergence provided by the pacy new Aston Martin.

Lewis Hamilton? Not even close.

Oscar Piastri is popular and his hometown fans cheer and hoot every time they see him at Albert Park.

It’s a similar story when the other Aussie, Daniel Ricciardo, emerges

with Paul Gover

THE PG PERSPECTIVE for the first time in his new Red Bull Racing kit.

But the true superstar in the grand prix world is not even a driver.

Who then?

It’s Guenther Steiner.

“Guenther, Guenther, Guenther,” the crowd chants when he emerges from the Formula One paddock.

Every time he appears on the Champions’ Walk – the pathway

from the carpark to the paddock at Albert Park – Steiner is mobbed.

“Guenther, we love you,” a group of young female fans yell to him.

This is rock star treatment. And it’s great to see it.

Steiner seems more than a little embarrassed by all the attention, but he still copes easily with the requests for signatures and selfies.

It’s the same story every time he hits The Walk, which seems to be permanently 10-deep with the

keenest fans at Albert Park.

They arrive from 7am, or earlier, and the real diehards stay until 9pm or later to soak up the atmosphere and catch a glimpse of their heroes.

Even mechanics, leaving the track after a long day’s work, get smiles and cheers.

So why is Steiner the superstar?

It’s as simple as one word – honesty.

Through his appearances on Drive to Survive, the Netflix series on Formula One, Steiner has no filter.

When he is happy you can see it.

When he is unhappy, you can hear it – and often see it.

“Now I have to call Carl,” is Steiner code for another rubbish weekend, as he has to report the bad news to Haas team owner, Carl Haas.

For Aussies, the potty-mouthed Italian is like one of us.

Steiner has never met a swear word he didn’t like, and his f-bombs – and an occasional See You Next Tuesday – spice his conversation and make him real and honest.

It’s a sharp contrast to the other team bosses, who are also now seen through the lens of a Netflix camera.

In reality, most of the team principals – including Zac Brown at McLaren and Otmar Szafnauer at Alpine – are just mid-level motorsport managers. In the business world, they would hardly rate a mention as the real power – and money – is controlled by giant corporations like Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz or billionaires like Laurence Stroll.

In the F1 paddock, often called the Piranha Club, there is always something happening and somebody driving an agenda.

It’s great stuff for the Netflix cameras, even if the action and the chat sometimes has to be put in a different order – or a different light – to follow the soap opera-style scripting of Drive to Survive.

Toto Wolf has emerged as the master F1 puppeteer, Christian Horner is a bit of a whinger, and Szafnauer is the sort of bloke you’d invite to dinner with a good bottle of wine.

Steiner is just Guenther. Open, emotional, insightful.

He has become so polished in television land he has even gueststarred as a commentator – at the NASCAR road-course race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, not far from his current base at North Carolina to be close to Haas headquarters.

“I found out it’s not an easy job,” Steiner admitted during the telecast.

“But I wanted to try different things.”

Could you imagine Wolf or Horner joining the NASCAR circuit, even as a guest commentator?

Nah. Yet Steiner fitted right into the team, before arriving in Melbourne and his surprising support from the fans.

As always, he was direct and open when he fronted the media to discuss his Haas team’s performance through the first two races of season 2023.

“In Bahrain, we were not good, I must say. In Jeddah we were alright. It was okay for us,” he admitted.

“We are happy where we are. But we cannot be too comfortable.”

So, there you have it, blunt and honest. No swear words this time, but just the sort of performance that has made Guenther Steiner a superstar.

SVEN BURCHARTZ LIVES MOTORSPORTS LAWYER AND PARTNER

Know your position.

sburchartz@kkilawyers.com.au • Teams • Series owners • Manufacturers

T +613 8825 4800 kkilawyers.com.au

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www.autoaction.com.au I 25

TIME TO COOL F1 DOWN A BIT STEFANO DOMENICALI is a man in a hurry, no doubt about it. Since he took over from Chase Carey as the CEO of the Formula One Group, the Italian has pushed the calendar to a record number of races, with at least 24 Grands Prix guaranteed for next year, and has been also pushing very hard to get different formats into the season, being a strong believer that “every session should count for something”, as he recently re-iterated.

Now, in the last couple of weeks, there have been rumors, fuelled by the Italian or those surrounding him, that Saudi Arabia will get two races from 2025; Madrid will take over from Barcelona as the host of the Spanish Grand Prix; South Korea could be soon back in the calendar with a race in the outskirts of Seoul; South Africa has essentially agreed to the commercial rights’ holder terms and will get its Grand Prix back in 2024; and, more recently, following a quick trip Domenicali made to Hanoi, the Vietnamese Grand Prix could

with Luis Vasconcelos

F1 INSIDER finally happen in the next two years.

Given how hyperactive Domenicali is, I’m not ruling out the possibility he has been talking to other prospective Grand Prix promoters, as he recently revealed that, “we could easily go up to 30 Grands Prix per year, because the amount of interest all over the world is so big that we could put a much bigger calendar in place almost immediately.”

At the same time, the man is full of ideas to change the weekend format and seems very happy to have as many formats as possible during the season, with different Grands Prix giving different numbers of total points to drivers and teams.

Already for Baku (see separate story), it’s almost

certain the FP2 session will be scrapped and replaced by the regular qualifying session that will determine the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix, with a separate Saturday qualifying for Saturday’s Sprint race, but the Italian wants more, and would like to see both Friday Free Practices hand points to the fastest drivers and the sprint race events spread even further.

His plans, however, are starting to get complicated by the fact that a few of the six promoters who have agreed to hold sprint races this year have already informed him they have no intention of doing the same next year. Already this year, the Brazilian Grand Prix promoter has refused to pay the extra fee required to those who host short races on Saturday,

according to very reliable Brazilian sources, making the most of a technicality in the contract.

On getting wind of that, a couple of other promoters have already informed the Formula One Group that they won’t pay extra for sprint races next year, removing the only attraction those events have for the teams in what could be a potential blow for Domenicali’s plans.

As for the constantly changing of format, it’s worth knowing that a good chunk of the drivers – and essentially everyone else who works in the field – would prefer the format to stay as it is, with double World Champion Max Verstappen having a very strong opinion on the subject: “I’m not a fan of it at all. When we’re going to do all that kind of stuff, the weekend becomes even more intense and we’re already doing so many races.

So I think that is not the right way to go at it. I understand, of course, they want to have basically every day exciting, but

then I think maybe it’s better to just reduce the weekend, only race on Saturday and Sunday and make those two days exciting.

“That’s the DNA of the sport and I don’t understand why we should change that because I think the action has been good.”

And in conclusion he added that, “if they keep extending the calendar and making constant changes I won’t stick around for long…”

While the search for the ideal format is commendable, maybe it’s time for Domenicali to take a breather, listen to the teams, the drivers, other workers that have to attend all the races and, very importantly, the fans.

Stability tends to be a condition sine qua non for growth so it would be helpful to get a couple of full seasons with one single weekend format to get a proper reading of how it works instead of constantly changing it in search of a magic solution that, most likely, it’s what we already have in place…

Korea could be back in the championship if Domenicali gets his way. Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

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FORMULA 1 NEWS – LUIS VASCONCELOS

F1 TO TRIAL DOUBLE QUALIFYING SESSION IN BAKU Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

FORMULA ONE is set to introduce a second qualifying session to determine the starting grid for its Sprint races this season, setting up two different grids for the two separate races in one weekend.

The proposal from Formula One was floating around the paddock in Melbourne and seems to have tacit approval from the teams and should be rubber-stamped in time for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix which is the next race on the schedule.

F1 boss, Stefano Domenicali has proposed

the new qualifying system to determine the different grids for the short and the long races.

Friday afternoon’s ‘normal’ qualifying (instead of FP2) will set the grid for the Sunday Grand Prix alone, and a new slightly shorter qualifying session on Saturday will set the grid for the Sprint race later that day.

The innovative plan has come about because of a desire to shake up the irrelevance of Free Practice 2 and the limitations on the tyre supply for Baku which has already been locked away.

The tyre allocation for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix is already in transit and has the new allocation for sprint weekends – six sets of soft tyres, two sets of mediums and another two sets of hards, per car – which means the teams will need to allocate tyres for the Saturday Sprint qualifying.

A full three-part qualifying often uses a car’s full allocation of soft tyres.

A proposal to go with a single lap ‘Shootout’ format for Sprint qualifying looks to have eased back to a normal three-part session.

With almost everyone already on board with this experiment, the 10 teams, the FIA and Formula One will participate in an online vote to fast-track this change to the Sporting Regulations.This is likely to be the only change made in-season, despite Domenicali and Liberty Media being determined to try as many different formats as possible in the hope of finding a magic solution that will make the weekends more attractive for the fans – even if the current qualifying format is unanimously liked by drivers, teams and fans.

FERRARI PUSHES WITH IMOLA AERO UPGRADE FERRARI IS leaving no stone unturned in its push to get back to the front of the field as quickly as possible, on the back to disappointing outings in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia.

While the original plan for the development of the SF-23, chartered under Mattia Binotto’s leadership and detailed by David Sanchez, was to have an aerodynamic upgrade ready for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with a modified floor and diffuser as the major changes, new Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur is making the Scuderia react a lot quicker and stronger than originally planned.

As a consequence, a modified floor that was briefly seen in FP1 in Jeddah was brought to Australia to be tested again, this time by both drivers, but the big upgrade is now planned to be introduced in the third weekend of May, in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, and includes a lot more than what was in the original plans.

As we reported before, a major change will be made to the rear suspension

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design, forcing the team to build new gearbox casings, adapted to the new suspension pick-up points that will be necessary, and the changes on the floor will also be more vast than it was at first thought – now redesigned to work in tandem with the new characteristics

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the SF-23 will have with the new rear suspension.

Showing how much the technical team in Maranello is pushing to get, at least, ahead of Mercedes and Aston Martin, while, at the same time significantly cutting the gap to Red Bull, it has now emerged

that the sidepods of the red car will also be seriously modified, the aerodynamic department now deciding there’s more potential on another shape, but unable to go as far as copying Red Bull’s solution.

That would necessitate moving some mechanical parts inside the sidepods and that would, effectively, require designing and building new monocoques, something that under the Budget Cap regulations is almost prohibitive.

In any case, the decision to dispose of the concept the team was committed to just shows how hard Vasseur is making everyone push at Maranello. But only after the Spanish Grand Prix will it be clear if the changes introduced on the SF-23 have really gone in the right direction or not. If they have, then further upgrades are set to come for the Austrian Grand Prix; if they don’t, then the development of the SF-23 will be terminated and the team will put all its resources into next year’s car, as the pressure is on to mount a title challenge as quickly as possible.

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FORMULA 1 NEWS – LUIS VASCONCELOS

MCLAREN RECALLS OATLEY

WHILE WAITING FOR SANCHEZ MCLAREN HAS called back veteran Neil Oatley (right) into its Formula One structure, the 68 year-old engineering stepping up to assist the Vehicle Concept department for the next nine months, until the recently hired David Sanchez is free to start working for his new team, Team Principal Andrea Stella revealed in Melbourne.

While explaining how the new team concept will operate, with three Technical Directors leading different departments and taking decisions as a group, the Italian engineer was asked who would step up to do Sanchez’s job until the Frenchman became available. Stella explained that: “Definitely there is a transition period with David not being able to join, so, we are creating some measures to compensate this vacancy. There’s groups that in the future will report to David, like the Vehicle Performance group, but some other performance analysis competencies we have in race engineering they will step up in terms of contributing to the concept and performance analysis.”

Going into further detail, Stella explained that, “I’m even more involved myself in supporting the technical side from car concept point of view, but we have also deployed Neil Oatley to help in this transitional phase. We have strong resources available at McLaren, so we are going to make in the short term a bit of a tactical use of this resource, while the long term is a strategic foundation obviously.”

Oatley has been with McLaren since the end of 1986 (really) when the Haas/ Lola team folded and has filled almost all possible roles in its technical department.

For the last decade, the British veteran has taken a step back in his daily activities but has been asked to step up his efforts on the occasions there has been a void in the technical structure of the team – due to the several changes in the leadership of that department.

Now, Oatley will be essentially taking on the newly created Vehicle Concept department and will join Peter Prodromou

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES (Aerodynamics) and Neil Houldey (Engineering and Design) as they will take all the key decisions regarding the development of the MCL60 and the definition of next year’s project, with Stella also giving a helping hand when necessary.

Sanchez, as we reported previously, will only join McLaren at the start of 2024 and, after a brief transition period, Oatley will go back to his role as Executive Director of Engineering, a hands-off role in which the veteran effectively operates as a consultant to all departments of McLaren’s race team.

“CONCEPT IS MORE THAN JUST SIDEPOD SHAPE,” SAYS ELLIOT THE REVELATION Mercedes is working flat out on a development of the W14, that will put it very much in line with the outlook of the other leading Formula One cars, caused a big stir in the Melbourne paddock, with everyone pointing out that this decision will leave Ferrari as the only team running a car that doesn’t follows Red Bull’s lead in terms of design concept.

At the end of another disappointing Grand Prix (Saudi) for his team, the highlight being that both its drivers finished ahead of the Ferrari duo, Mercedes’ Technical Director Mike Elliot played down the importance of the change of concept of his car, pointing out that, “concept means different things to different people.”

The British engineer admitted that, “after Bahrain we had to accept we weren’t where we wanted to be, so we had to look at all the things that make up our car and work out what could we be doing differently; how could we get more performance; because there is a significant gap for us to catch up to the front. So, the engineers are busy looking at aerodynamics, they are looking at

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the shape of the car, things like the sidepod geometry, the floor geometry ... have we missed a trick?”

Elliot then elaborated on the kind of work that is currently being done back at the factory in Brackley: “We are also looking in the simulation world; are we targeting the right things, are we pushing the aerodynamics in the right direction, looking at the mechanical setup of the car? Are there things there that we are missing? What else can we bring to the car that is going to add performance, and can we try to do that as fast as possible, because we want to get back to the front, we want to be competing at the front, and the only way we are going to do that is by accepting we are not in the position we want to be and fighting and working really hard to get back there.”

Admitting that, “Bahrain was a real reality check, meaning we now find ourselves in the position we find ourselves in, not being competitive, was a real disappointment. A disappointment for the whole team. But you have to get yourself through that and you have to turn that into what we are going to

do about it? How are we going to bring the sort of the energy and what we are capable of doing? How are we going to move ourselves forward? How are we going to get ourselves back in the fight?”

For the Technical Director of the British team, the team spirit gives him the confidence the W14 will soon become a winning car, as he explained in conclusion:

“Walking around the factory there is huge amount of energy; there is a huge amount of work going on; we are starting to see some of the development come through already that is going to get us back into this championship fight.

“And all we can do is just keep pushing and actually I’ve been really pleased to see the attitude in the team. “

PORSCHE CALLS OFF WHY LD

HONDA’S 2026 PLANS ON HOLD UNTIL MID-JUNE

HONDA IS still considering an official return to Formula One from the start of 2026, but a final decision won’t be taken until the middle of June, this being considered the final deadline for the technical department in Sakura to be able to get the personnel it will need to develop a brand-new Power Unit that could be competitive and reliable right from the start.

In spite of Honda having officially retired from Formula One at the end of 2021 (following a decision taken by the company’s board more than one year before), a group of engineers from the Grand Prix program has remained at work on the project of the 2026 Power Unit, even if the vast majority of the designers and other technicians have been moved to the development of future electrical engines – as Honda wants to stop producing combustion engines by the end of this decade.

However, Honda’s former Technical Director, Toyoharu Tanabe, has remained in charge of that small group of engineers and has represented Honda in all the meetings of the Formula One Technical Group regarding the definition of the 2026 Power Unit regulations, showing the Japanese manufacturer has clearly kept the door open.

The Sakura-based technical group will now get a very important new element, as Masamitsu Motohashi, who replaced Tanabe at the end of 2021, has in Melbourne fulfilled his last Grand Prix as head of Honda’s track operations and has returned to Japan to bring his trackside experience to the Formula One group.

While Honda Racing has been pushing the board very hard to get the green light to go ahead with a full budget and group to prepare for an official return in 2026, the question remains who will be the potential partner the Japanese manufacturer will be able to work with. According to sources close to Honda, the only two likely alternatives are McLaren and Aston Martin.

A third option, with McLaren, could be complicated from a political point of view, as Zak Brown was already running the British team when he decided to terminate the contract with Honda at the end of 2017 – the collaboration being almost doomed from the start with, possibly, some scars that could make it impossible for a future collaboration so soon.

Aston Martin, on the other hand, may be a more attractive proposition, as the huge investment made by Lawrence Stroll and his partners is starting to pay off; and with the new factory fully functional from the end of this year the future looks even brighter for the British make. Given the two companies do not fight for the same segment of the automobile market, an Aston Martin-Honda link wouldn’t cause any commercial or marketing problems and the partnership could evolve to technology exchanges in the production department that would be beneficial for both parties. First, though, we’ll have to wait just over two months to know what Honda’s board decides regarding the company’s future Formula One plans.

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F1 PROGRAM PORSCHE IS believed to have shut down its prospective Formula One program, according to British sources, after failing to find a suitable partner to share the design and development of what would be its 2026 Power Unit.

Having been so close to signing a longterm partnership with Red Bull until July of 2022, the German manufacturer was caught out when the management of the Austrian team decided against such a move and opted, instead, to go solo, eventually finding a commercial deal with Ford – the American car manufacturer branding the future Power Units from Red Bull Powertrains but having no involvement on the technical or sporting side of the operation.

Having then approached McLaren and Williams, to try and keep its Formula One dream alive, Porsche was never close to agreeing terms with any of them and also realised that neither of the two historic British teams had the technology to help them with the design and development of the hybrid parts of the Power Unit.

Nevertheless, it is believed that, until a couple of weeks ago, a relatively small group of engineers were still working on the design and development of a V6 Internal Combustion Engine complying with the 2026 Technical Regulations,

Porsche’s last F1 involvement was the Porsche TAG turbo used by McLaren. Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES but now that group has been redirected to other categories of motorsport, after Porsche’s board of directors canned the Formula One program due to lack of a credible partner.

Porsche’s plan to enter Formula One was always based on controlling whatever team they would be partners with, but without going for the massive investment Audi made to eventually acquire 75 per cent of Sauber, which will be the case by the end of 2025. What Porsche wanted was to have

51 per cent control of its partner team, but with the minority shareholder also putting money into the company – something both the Muntalakat Group, that currently owns McLaren, and Dorilton Capital, William’s owner, refused to accept.

Although no official confirmation has been given by Porsche, the fact there are no top teams available to partner it, matched with the company’s previous statements, makes it credible the program has been discontinued.

NIELSEN LEADS RULES CLEAR-UP IN THE FACE OF OPPOSITION STEVE NIELSEN’S impact as the new Sporting Director for the FIA has been immediate.

The very experienced Team Manager and Sporting Director for F1 teams including Tyrrell, Arrows, Renault, Toro Rosso, Caterham and Williams believes that a lot of regulations are poorly written and is setting about rewriting them, to make them immune to interpretation.

One of the regulations that is not clear is that when a penalty is being served in the pits, no tool-like front and rear jacks, can touch the cars. The British manager also trialled wider grid boxes in Melbourne, 20 cm wider than the ones previously used – and with a double white central line to help the drivers align properly in their starting positions, after Ocon, in Bahrain, and Alonso, in Saudi Arabia, were penalised for being marginally outside the boxes.

At the same time and with several teams – McLaren, Williams and Haas – working on new tools, like wind tunnels, CFD systems and so on, to replace their outdated ones, it was agreed by the Formula One Commission that those expenses, considered capital expenditures, will be partially exempted from the budget cap regulations, in a bid to help the smaller teams catch up with the bigger teams.

Finally, continuing his crackdown on

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all sorts of driver (and it now it seems team) behavior, Race Director Neils Wittich included in the Race Notes for the Australian Grand Prix, a reminder that, “it is forbidden to climb on pit wall debris fence at any time”, as it is clearly written in the Appendix H, Article 2.3.2 of the Formula One regulations.”

This has been highlighted in an effort to alleviate any potential OH&S issues – in the past we have regularly seen teams climbing the debris fence (above) to celebrate their drivers race win.

The German, who was ridiculed for his insistence in having drivers remove any jewellery while in the cars – a battle he lost with Lewis Hamilton – and even insisted on checking their underwear to make sure it was fireproof (leading to Vettel showing up with a set of underwear over the overalls in Miami, last year) continues his crusade with the drivers split between being frustrated by his draconian view of the rules or simply being amused by his pedantic stance.

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DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS EREBUS MOTORSPORT AND PREMIAIR RACING REPRESENT THE EXTREMES OF HOW TO GO RACING IN THE GEN3 ERA. ANDREW CLARKE TALKS WITH BOTH TEAMS ABOUT THE DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHIES. GEN3 WAS always meant to be a parity formula, one where brilliant engineering skills, in a manufacturing sense, wouldn't affect the racing outcome. It was an artificial way of introducing a limit on team spending while theoretically bringing the cars closer together on the grid. But it didn’t – and doesn’t – mean there is only one way to go about racing in 2023 and beyond.

Some teams were geared for manufacturing and will make their components, but few go to the same extent as Erebus with its chassis maker in Mount Gambier. Walkinshaw Andretti United and Triple Eight (after all, it did design the thing) made their own chassis and many of the components themselves.

So just as Erebus represents one end of the spectrum, PremiAir does the other.

PremiAir is essentially running a pair of Triple Eight customer cars in its second year of operation.

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Both have pros and cons, and the results from the first round weren’t as different as the approach.

BARRY RYAN – COCA-COLA RACING BY EREBUS You guys have one of the most in-house builds in the field. Why did you go down that path in such a controlled category?

“It’s to have the most control over every component; to know all your parts will always be the best. Because you know the components are better, you know they’re built properly, so there are fewer questions with the car. So that was our philosophy and has been for a few years.”

How much further do you think you’ve gone than the other teams?

“Walkinshaw and Triple Eight have built their chassis, so they’re similar to ours.

We bought the best jig you can buy; made all the best fixtures to make the car absolutely perfect. We thought, ‘Well, if everything else is the same on every car, why don’t we just make our chassis that little bit better than everyone else?’ And whether it makes a difference or not, it doesn’t matter. It makes a difference in our heads. We know it’s the best we can do.

“I think there is an advantage because if we grab the front clip, we can put it on either car, for instance. And on both chassis, both clips interchange. If you don’t do it to that standard, that may not happen.

From what I hear, some of them are a bit random in the way they fit. But we know ours fit because they come off the same jig.

“We want our own control. We don’t want to have to send a car to Queensland and maybe sit in a queue with others to get repaired when we can quickly turn it around.”

So yours are done in Mount Gambier still?

“Yeah, Jimmy’s been with us since 2016.

I think it’s probably cheaper long-term if you look at it over a 10-year plan. But we definitely would’ve spent more than everyone else over this car build purely because of the jigging.

“But we’re looking at the long-term and the long-term savings, and there’s probably long-term security too. When you crash a car, you can quickly fix it in-house. And if three people crash a car on the same weekend, they send their chassis to be repaired ... well, we don’t want to be third in line.”

You have to plan for crashes, don’t you?

“We’ve outsourced all the major CNC components, like spindles and stuff like that. But we build a lot of the fabricated rear arms and front arms for a lot of the field, as well as us. We supplied more than 60 rear lower control arms and upper control arms.

Brodie Kostecki leads the Supercars Championship in the Erebus built Gen3 chassis. Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES Below: Main chassis front view.

James White (left) and Barry Ryan with the first Erebus Gen3 chassis.

(Images: THOMAS MILES)

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I’m not going to lie and say there weren’t a few sleepless nights. A few nights, I questioned what I got myself into...

We were trying to save the whole field a lot of money, so we did it in a bulk order, and made the parts prices a lot cheaper.”

Main chassis Side view.

Barry Ryan, a proud team leader.

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Were you the control supply there, or did you just do that?

“We weren’t the control supplier, but we just did the parts cheap enough that many people didn’t bother making them themselves. And it worked out great for the teams that bought them from us, and for us.

"It’s one of the good things that’s come out of Gen3, I think we’ve seen a lot of good camaraderie between the teams. We’re all going to band together to get these things built. But then, when we go racing, you’ll be the enemy. I think it’s been pretty impressive to watch.

“People have understood that when it’s a controlled part, it’s no use keeping to yourself and hiding who’s making it and how you’re making it. We all got together and figured it was better to make 60 arms from one person, get the price down, and save money.

“It’s not always a performance thing – sometimes it is cost. We’ve had a couple of teams we’ve worked closely with, particularly MSR and Groves, and they have both been really good.

"It’s certainly nice for us to walk into a garage, stick our heads under things

with cameras and not have people push us away. There’ll still be a little bit of that because there’s still enough in the suspension settings that people don’t want you to see, but it is easier.”

Did you ever contemplate going for an offthe-shelf car?

“It was never really on the radar. Since we built our own ZB, and even before that our VF chassis in 2017, we’ve modelled our business that way. Jimmy’s an awesome fabricator; we wanted him to make everything of the highest quality.

And that’s not doubting anyone else. It’s just self-control. We want to know how it’s done, and why it’s done. There are no questions.”

Did building so much of your own car build your understanding and help you get up to speed quickly?

“It’s probably a little irrelevant in that way, but I don’t know. It’s so much of a mental game, this sport, that I guess we bounced out of the blocks. The drivers were really confident in what they were sitting in. The team, mechanics; everyone was confident because they’d built so many of the components themselves. They knew that the car was as good as it could be.

“We’ve just got to keep it up.”

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Peter Xiberas, owner of PremiAir Racing, says that being a customer of Triple Eight for his Gen3 build program is the way to go. Image: THOMAS MILES.

Spare parts: because you’ve built your stuff yourself, do you think you’ve got more spare parts than some of the teams that haven’t?

“Yeah, we probably do. But again, we went into a lot of those parts with other teams to make sure that we all saved dollars. So we’ve probably got a bit of excess. But it’s nothing that’s going to hurt any other team.

I don’t think it’ll give us an advantage. We know we’ve got enough stock for decent crashes, which we hopefully don’t have.”

What are your first thoughts on Gen3 as a racing car? Has it hit the marks that were set for it?

“I think the biggest thing is that the fans, the sponsors, and everyone loves the look of the cars. Not just our cars, but the cars look good on the track. They sound good.

“But they’re just race cars. I don’t care what the drivers don’t like about them or anything – I don’t care. Our drivers are

PremiAir Racing has been the big mover up the team performance ladder in the past 12 months – using 'customer' cars.

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the same. They say, “It’s a race car. We’ve got to race it. That’s the tools we’ve got, let’s just make the most of it.”

“I think that’s what it showed at Newcastle, but we probably didn’t make the most of it. We didn’t make the most of trying to repeat being on pole. But we know what we did wrong, and you move on and learn from it.”

What do you think the chances are of completely missing the mark on a setup, like DJR did? If you got it right for the first round, will you be okay for the rest of the season?

“It’ll be slightly more consistent than the old car, but you can still miss the mark.

There’s still so much adjustment that you can get right or wrong.

"So far, on the three tracks we’ve been to, we’ve been pretty happy with the car, how it’s rolled out the truck and how we’ve tuned it. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t go to any track and have the

Images from Triple Eight's assembly area for the number of Camaros being built for itself and customers ... same confidence, and bounce out the gate pretty fast.”

I was a bit surprised that you’re allowed to run different cooling systems for the drivers, what else can you do differently?

“You can’t really, that’s the thing. The only reason why they’ve carried the cooling system over is that they didn’t really have a solution for helmet cooling with the Chillout system, the electric system, like we’ve got. Triple Eight came up with a system, and that plan failed. But it’s probably the only thing that’s open in the whole car at the moment.

“But that will be closed soon, I reckon, and everybody’ll be running the same thing soon. But we’ve just got to come up with a good helmet fan system that cools, which we don’t run. Our drivers are fine without it.”

So finally, what are your thoughts about teams that have the complete opposite to you, like PremiAir? Is it just horses for courses?

“I think, in hindsight, we’d still do it again the way we’ve done it. We still think there’s an advantage in doing it our way and having total control.

Because that’s the main thing – just having control. I don’t think plug-and-play would work for us.”

PETER XIBERAS – PREMIAIR RACING So Peter, you are essentially a customer of Triple Eight, can you tell us why you have gone down that path?

“I’m not from the Supercars, touring car world. I’m from a different world of motorsports, so at the end of the day, there’s no point playing golf and tennis and using the same coach. To me, it was aligning us with someone that I felt could take us to the front. We looked at a lot of teams, and I firmly believe, for us anyway, Triple Eight is the way to go.

“Starting out on day one, it was always going to be extremely difficult for us to attract the right people because good, talented people want to be attached to success. I can do all the talking I like and say this is what we’re going to do, but sometimes you’ve got to do it first and

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“ ”

Every track, every meeting, everything is always moving. It’s just learning and trying not to make the same mistakes again...

prove to these people that you can do it.

“With that in mind, if I’m not going to get the right people, and without the right people, it’s almost impossible to get to where you want to go or where I want to go. So you’ve got to buy your way in, if that is the right way to say it. The best way for me to purchase the tools, technology and data was to do what we have done.

“There’s so many pieces of the puzzle that you got to put together.”

Where do you want to get to?

“Oh, the front. It’s why we’re here. Look, everyone’s here for different reasons.

Some people probably say they want to win and get to the front, but they don’t really. But that is my only reason for being here. I’m not really interested in just driving around at the back. I’ll get tired and bored and walk away. So no, we want to do it for results – that’s the only reason we want to do it. We want to win.”

How about the lead-up to Newcastle?

Was it nervous knowing you were totally in someone else’s hands with all the delays?

“I’m not going to lie and say there weren’t a few sleepless nights. A few nights, I questioned what I got myself into and, probably, my sanity. But I did it for a number of reasons, and one was the challenge, and anyone that thinks it’s easy or was going to be easy is fooling themselves. I knew we were in for a bit of a tough slog.

“I think the first half of last year was definitely that. It was tough where we were finishing, but I think we started to show some form in the second half of the year, and results are coming our way. I think we’ll continue to improve this year, and hopefully, that’ll lead us further and further up the field.”

So Newcastle and that fourth place, did it feel like a vindication of your approach?

“Yeah, 100%. Coming into Newcastle, the truth is I didn’t know where we were at.

So just like everyone, we had two new cars, we’d done X amount of shakedowns and testing and, after all that, if you'd said to me 'where do you think you are?' I honestly didn’t have a clue.

"I didn’t know whether our cars were fast, slow or in between; I didn’t know where we were; and I don’t think any team really could honestly tell you the same.

“So for us, Friday, when we were doing practice, especially the third session where I think the boys finished fourth and fifth, that was probably the moment where you went, 'Wow, we’ve actually got two top 10 consistent cars. This is pretty good. ' “Then, to back it up on Saturday and Sunday, it just cemented that, okay, we’re not just one-hit wonders for the day or the weekend.”

So what happens when something goes wrong, like the problem in Saturday’s race? How do you sort through issues like that? Do you have Triple Eight people in the garage to work through it?

“No, no, no. We’re two separate teams.

We do our own thing, do our own debriefs. We will share if we’ve got a question or don’t understand some data.

But the good thing is, we look at their data, and they look at ours. So there were some points where we impressed them, and then there were points where they impressed us. We just looked at the data and went from there.

“But we’re two different teams, and they want to beat us as much as we want to beat them.”

So do you have Triple Eight people sitting in your garage during the weekend?

“No.” So then it’s just a debrief with them?

You wouldn’t be in their formal debrief, but there’s some other form of debrief you would do with them?

“Yes. After the weekend, a few days later, when we all get back, we have a debrief with them. We have our own internal debrief, they have their own, and then we have one collectively together.”

And how did you find that?

“It was good. If you make 100 mistakes, you’ve got to try and work out how to make 90 the next time, and then 80 and then 70 and so forth.

"So it’s one of these things where the best way to describe it is that the goalposts keep moving. It’s not like, right, we’ve just got to do this and this and then just set it, forget it and we’ll be right forever.

“Every track, every meeting, everything is always moving. It’s just learning and trying not to make the same mistakes again.”

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PRODUCTS AND INDUSTRY NEWS

SAFETY, STYLE AND PERFORMANCE ALPINESTARS HYPERTECH V2 ALPINESTARS IS a premium brand in the motorsport driver safety apparel marketplace.

The brand is a world leader in style design and is constantly investing and developing new ways to improve driver safety, comfort and at the same time increase protection.

When it comes to a racing suit with style, comfort and safety it doesn’t come much better than the Hypertech V2.

The Hypertech V2 is a super lightweight and breathable two-layer suit with an athletic fit, designed and developed for drivers looking for professional levels of racing performance. The Hypertech V2 also meets the much stricter requirements of the new FIA Standard 8856-2018 while still managing to maintain its incredible lightweight feel, weighing in at an impressive 265g/sqm.

The outer shell is constructed from an aramidic Nomex anti-static outershell that provides optimal heat and flame resistance, while maintaining the lightest possible weight. The new internal lining is an innovative aramidic knit, that again meets the new FIA standard. The suit also incorporates thin, stretchable, superlight panels developed exclusively for Alpinestars which maximize the comfort levels on offer and also allows the suit to regulate the body temperature to optimum levels. These F1 derived stretch panels are strategically placed at the elbow area, lower back and sides, crotch and knee zones and provide excellent levels of flexibility and freedom of movement in all the key mobility areas.”

KEY FEATURES OF THE HYPERTECH V2 SUITE • Alpinestars exclusive shoulder epaulette construction provides an effective feature for the extraction of the driver in the event of a crash.

• Printed logos help maintain the suit’s material integrity and reduce overall weight.

• Premium YKK thin lightweight zipper personalized with Alpinestars leather puller, plus double slider for a versatile and customizable fit.

• Ultra fit design • Weight 265g/sqm.

• Super-lightweight and breathable two-layer suit incorporating thin stretchable panels for maximum comfort and effective regulation of body temperature.

• Innovative soft lining material technology ensures breathability and comfort.

CONSTRUCTION • Strategically positioned Formula 1-derived stretch panels at lower back and sides, elbow, crotch and knee zones for enhanced flexibility, both in and out the car.

• Alpinestars fully floating arm construction with stretchable knit fabric ensures minimal material resistance while driving.

• Soft and thin wrist and ankle cuffs for maximum comfort and reduced weight.

• Flat seam construction for reduced pressure points and improve strength.

• Specially designed soft collar incorporates leather details, knit fabric and secure hook and loop closure.

CERTIFIED PROTECTION • Certified to the new FIA 8856-2018 homologation standard.

• Sold with laundry bag for convenience and to protect material fibers.

• Nomex® anti-static outer shell fabric offers exceptional heat and flame-resistant proprieties.

For further information on the full range of Alpinestars car and kart racing safety equipment visit www. patrizicorse.com/alpinestars/alpinestars-auto/or call 07 5530 1583

A SMART STARTER – PROJECTA GROWS THE RANGE OF INNOVATIVE INTELLI-START JUMP STARTERS or for vehicle holding depots and car yards. When recharging is finally needed, this can be done back at the workshop, garage or home using the supplied 5V USB charger. A further benefit of the latest models is its ability to jump start vehicles and machines that use a variety of battery types including Lithium, Wet, AGM, Gel and Calcium.

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PROJECTA HAS grown its market-leading INTELLISTART (IS) range with the introduction of two new jump starters, the IS1400 and IS2000, both with patented Rapid Recharge Technology (RRT).

RRT adds efficiency and convenience for users and owners. Once the vehicle has been started, the INTELL-START Jump Starter can fully replenish the energy that was discharged during the starting process in just 40 seconds. Simply keep the clamps connected to the running vehicle’s battery and the INTELLI-START jump starter is ready for the next emergency.

This technology means INTELLI-START Jump Starters can be used time and time again before needing to be recharged, which makes the product ideal for applications such as roadside assistance

The IS1400 is suitable for 12V electrical systems and offers 500A clamp power and 1400 peak amps, more than enough to start petrol-powered vehicles up to 7.0L displacement and diesel engines as large as 5.0L. These capabilities along with a compact design makes the IS1400 an ideal choice to carry in the glovebox, for stowage with 4x4 recovery gear, or to keep on hand at workshops or car yards.

Other Projecta INTELL-START models in the existing line-up include the IS920, IS1220 and IS1500.

Projecta will further expand its INTELLI-START Jump Starter range in the months ahead with the launch of several industrial grade models that are engineered to suit heavy commercial vehicles and large mining, construction and agricultural equipment.

All INTELLI-START models are Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) compliant and Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) certified.

The latest additions to the INTELLI-START range are available from leading automotive, camping, trade caravanning and four-wheel driving outlets nationwide.

SPEEDWAY SYDNEY SUCCESS FOR QUEENSLAND YOUNG GUN Image: Zach Phelan/ZP Images

RYAN NEWTON (above) became the latest interstate visitor to join the list of Sprintcar feature race winners at Sydney’s Eastern Creek Speedway when the Queenslander blitzed the field of 34 fellow competitors, coming from the fourth row of the grid, to claim round 13 of the ECR Track Championship.

Lachlan Caunt started his campaign well as the top qualifier and started the 30-lap final alongside Dash winner Aaron Kelly.

Caunt led the opening dozen laps; Kelly then held sway for a brief period before Caunt reclaimed the prime position until Daniel Sayre found the front momentarily before Newton pounced using the high side to his advantage. From that point, he would hold sway for the final third of the final to claim the victory.

Sayre and the fast-finishing Sam Walsh (the big mover from 15th) round out the podium. Caunt and Kelly were next with Warren Ferguson completing the top half dozen. Further back was Luke Stirton, Kaiden Brown, Zac Pacchiarotta, Ben Atkinson Troy Little, and Luke Thomas the top dozen. The Attards, Alex and Jessie, were next, followed by James Thompson, Michael Saller, Brett Hobson, Jake Baines, Grant Tunks, Ashleigh Jack and Jai Stephenson completing the finishers.

The six qualifying heats were shared with singles to Thompson, Jesse Attard, Jai Stephenson, Michael Stewart and Little a pair.

A SUPER TRIPLE TREAT THE SOUTH Australian Super Sedan scene was a hive of activity with competitors coming from far and wide for a trio of successive blue ribbon events. The first two nights were staged at the Murray Machining and Sheds Murray Bridge Speedway.

The opening event was held in tribute to the late great Graham Cowland, the inaugural running of the Graham Cowland 42 Lapper, run to Graham’s iconic race number. The following night was the Blenk’s Automotive South Australian Super Sedan Championship before moving to Waikeire’s Sunline Speedway for the long awaited return of the Wally Francombe Memorial. The tri-events would produce three different winners – here’s how the nights broke down.

NIGHT 1 – GARTNER GRABS IT!

GOING INTO the 42 lapper, Dave Gartner and Ash Bergmeier lined up on the front row. At the green the latter would get the early lead before Gartner fought his way back just two laps later and held sway until just past the half way mark, Bergmeier reclaiming the prime position as they raced through slower traffic until the cautions were brought on, resetting the field with 18-laps to run.

Bergmeier set the tempo for the next dozen laps before Gartner slid his way back to lead with six to run, the top three running in close quarters as Callum Harper had closed the distance on the lead duo.

With two laps remaining the caution lights would again blaze, setting up a green, white and chequered scenario in the run to the finish. With clear track ahead, Gartner found the fast way home as Bergmeier, Harper and Lucas Roberts completed the podium.

Kym Hammerstien also finishing on the lead lap followed by Darren Giacometti, Travis Ramsdale and Michael Brown rounding the finishers.

Dave Gartner took out the 42-lapper. Image: RAY RITTER

SPEEDWAY NEWS with Paris Charles

Callum Harper – SA Super Sedan Champ.

Image: RAY RITTER Neville Nitschke. Image: TERRY SCRIVEN

NIGHT 2 - HAPPY HARPER!

THE SUPER Sedans returned for the state championship, and it was Tasmanian Sedans ace Callum Harper and Lucas Roberts squaring off on the front row for the 30-lap final with the latter setting the pace until Harper advanced forward with just five laps in the books, charging hard until the yellows were sprung as the racers approached the halfway distance.

As the cars rolled around, the race leader, Harper was penalised and moved back to third for the restart, gifting Jamie Collins, the reigning Victorian and Tasmanian champion, the lead and seemed poised to add the SA Title to his CV. With a dozen laps remaining Collins and Dave Gartner brought the race to a caution – both drivers were reinstated in their positions for the restart.

As the race narrowed, Harper pounced to lead the last seven laps comfortably, adding his second SA Championship in two different

divisions (Late Models) in a fortnight. Collins, Gartner and Roberts rounded out the top four podium. Following to the line were Paul Blenkiron, Kym Jury, Travis Ramsdale, Neville Nitschke, Corey Ramsdale and Darren Giacometti completing the field.

NIGHT 3 – IT’S BIG REV NEV!

THE DIVISION migrated to Waikerie’s Sunline Speedway for the returning Wally Francombe Memorial. Neville Nitschke made the most of his front row position to lead the 15-lap final from flag to flag. Kym Jury and Paul Blenkiron squared off the lead trio. Trav Ramsdale and Sarah Pope completed the finishers.

BIG WHEELS FOR LITTLE WHEELS AUSSIE TITLES IN EXCESS of 170 competitors, competing across nine different categories and representing all States and Territories of Australia ventured to the Avalon Raceway, Victoria, for the 2023 Big Wheels Truck Alignments Speedway Karting Association of Australasia Nationals.

The event was run over a two day/night period, with a massive three rounds of competition, consisting of 48 heats on the Saturday, culminating on the Sunday with a final round of heats and the allimportant finals run under lights.

A field of 17 Modifieds fronted for the final and with lead changes at both ends of the 20-lap race Kai Malley took the chequered flag – sharing the podium was Adin Robinson, Luke Geering and Tim Auton.

Andrew Roeser had an outstanding run in the final, coming from sixth to win the 20-lap Outlaw Title, doubling as the Michael Beetham Memorial trophy for

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the second time, having previously won the race 12 years ago. Rounding out the top four were Darren Holt, Alisha Fielder and Danny Smith.

Liam Niblock worked his way from position seven to successfully defended his 125cc Non Gearbox Championship.

Glen Tye dropped as far back as 12th before resurrecting his run for second and rounding out the top four of 17 chargers were Bradley Anstis and Brendan Hutching.

Ashleigh Moller proved the quickest of the fast females to win the Ladies division with Imogen McCallum, Larissa Manning and outgoing champion Rodin Blackman completing the podium.

Defending Aust 2 Tennille Marks had a nasty crash as she attempted to come through the field – thankfully she was later reported as just ‘sore and sorry’ after lengthy medical attention.

Kaleb Sims made the most of his pole position to win the Standards final from

Andrew Roeser, Michael Coad and Tim Auston. Fourteen of the 21 starters failed to travel the distance.

The Standard Heavy final went to Glen Trelor after fighting his way back from ninth. Clint Alderton, Craig Callow and Tony Williams shared the podium.

The Junior field was so large a B-Main was run to finalise the field for the final.

Cody Malley ventured from eighth to claim the final over pole-sitter Blaxx Caton. Roc Hughes went back-to-back in the finals as Australia 3 and Marli Sims rounded out the top four. Alexis Hart claimed the B Main.

From the front row, Cody Malley raced to the Junior Standard win and his second Australian Championship for the weekend over Brodie Debono, Charlie Gutsch-Berry and Tayla Stothard.

It was a Wood family 1-2 in the Sub Juniors – Tyraini claimed the title over brother Nate, Ryder Payne and Harrison

A1 Liam Niblock went back-to-back, Australian Champion in the 125cc NGB

Images: DAVID ZANNON / GRUMPY & SONS PHOTOGRAPHY

Andrew Roeser took the Outlaw title.

Stace. Cooper Marks was the early race leader but failed to travel the journey.

WICKED WHYALLA’S DUAL SOUTH AUSTRALIAN TITLES THE WHYALLA Speedway played host to dual South Australian Championships on the same night. A large field of 27 Wingless Sprint teams assembled for the JR Garden Maintenance South Australian Wingless Sprints Championship while 26 Junior Sedans representing New South Wales, Western Australia, Northern Territory and Victoria ventured to where the desert meets the sea to do battle against the local state in the Print Lord South Australian Junior Sedan Championship. The racing proved top shelf; there was plenty of passing throughout the night from go to whoa in all sections, and the crowd went home entertained and satisfied with their ticket purchase.

The 35-lap Wingless Sprint final proved an epic affair with three different race leaders over the duration of the journey as multiple dimensions were brought into the mix. Pole sitter Rylan Furler set the pace from the get-go until retiring on lap 21. Joel Chadwick

L51 Jaiden Santin celebrates with a victory lap.

Imafes: PARIS CHARLES then set the tempo for the next 10 laps before running out of tyre – this factor became evident for many of the competitors adding an extra dimension of drama and excitement to the race. The defending Champion Tyson Martin then inherited the lead and went on to capture back to back State championships after a thrilling late race battle with Mitchell

Broome. Sharing the podium (above) were the two Mitchells, Broome and Rigney, while Sam Martin and Tate Cowie were the final five finishers from the 20 to take the green.

Going into the 25-lap Junior Sedan final, it was a Paterson lockout with River and Linken sharing the front row. Sadly, the brothers would both fall by the wayside.

TRAVIS TAKES VIC TITLE! AGAINST 31 fellow competitors, Travis Millar (right) claimed victory in the Victorian Wingless Sprint state title in front of a brave crowd who did not let the threat of 38 degree temperature, or the possibility of rain, deter them from venturing to the Nyora Speedway for what proved a great night’s racing.

From pole position, Millar led from go to whoa despite a series of caution periods late in the race. Christopher Temby, who shared the front row, chased hard over the distance to take the runner-up position while Blake Walsh sliced his way from seventh to third after relegating Chris Ansell from third to fourth around half race distance to remain there for the podium, ahead of Jeremy Beddison who blasted from 13th to fifth. Just outside the podium were Gavin Fitzpatrick, Kim-loong Gosling, Blaine Densley, Troy Carey, Peter Logue completing the top 10. B Main winner Christopher

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Image: LONE WOLF PHOTOGRAPHY

SUPPORTS

Image: LOUISE NAPIER Halesworth was next followed by Scott Irons, Ricky Bailey, Coby Elliott, John Egan and Kasey Garlick, the 16 finishers all on the lead lap while Tyler O’Leary, Wayne Logue, Nicholas Ryan, Aron Lawrence and Dillon Siely had retired to the infield.

The nine qualifying heats were shared between Millar, W. Logue, Densley, Ansell, Siely, Ray Klemm, John Egan, Gavin Fitzpatrick and Elliott.

The VSC Sports Sedans plus three different variants of Junior Sedan racing filled out the program. Katie Meyer raced from seventh to capture the 15-lap final; making the top five were Bernie Franklin, Ray Gould, Steven Loader and Albert Fell.

The Speedway Sedan Australia Junior Sedans class was divided into two categories, the Top Stars and New Stars. The Paterson’s, Linken and River headed the Top Stars final, Bree Simpson, Maddy Capon and Jayden Lock completing the top five, while Zack Erickson, Steane Cosson, Chase Doherty, Jaylen Knight and Cruz Paterson made up the New Stars top five. The Victorian Speedway Council 1200cc Junior Sedan class was won

by Ella Sheedy after a late race pass on Xander Baxter; making up the top five were Dayne Murdoch, Chase Doherty, and Brad Marshall.

CARUSO CRANKS IT FOR PRO SPRINTS CHAMP AFTER TWO solid nights of action at the Murray Machining & Sheds Murray Bridge Speedway, South Australia’s Mark Caruso (right) claimed the 2023 Australian Pro Sprintcar Championship, a title in which he had previously finished in podium placings, but chasing the A1 for many years.

Against a field of 26 fellow competitors venturing from Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Northern Territory and the South Aussies on home soil, Caruso lined up against second generation Victorian speedster Rusty Hickman, who won the Preliminary A Main the night prior in convincing style with a flag to flag win, with Caruso, Keke Falland, Ryan Jones and Ricky Maiolo completing the top five.

At the drop of the green, Hickman pounced to the front as he did the night prior, Caruso quickly falling back to third as Ryan Jones pounced to follow Hickman in

Jaiden Santin made his way to the lead at the halfway point and would go on to claim the title over Bree Simpson, Cameron Smith and Tyde Lovell for the podium. Henry Brumfield, Evan Mcalister, Chase Faux and Sophie Santin remained on the lead lap while Ryan Burns and Max Richter completed the 10 finishers.

Supporting were the Modified Sedans – Heath Thorne took a flag-to-flag win in the final over son and father Trevor and Marty Raams with Paul Hayes rounding the top four.

close pursuit before falling back to third Image: PARIS place as a determined Caruso found his CHARLES forward momentum in the 40 lap final.

The race ran express for almost half the race distance, before Brendan Quinn came to stop after tagging the wall. Chad Ely and Ben Morris would also join Quinn on the infield.

This would be the first of three quick successive cautions, Ricky Maiolo and Scott Enderl also joining Maiolo on the retiree list as would Corey Sandow a few laps later. Jones was the final retiree, rounded out the podium celebrations, with tagging the wall to bring on the final caution Lachlan McHugh making it South Australia, period of the race with five laps remaining.

Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland Hickman led; however Caruso made the filling the top four placings. most of the restart opportunity after the Daniel Pestka, Keke Falland, Charles leader made a slight mistake coming out Hunter, Steven Caruso, Paul Solomon, of Turn 4, with four laps remaining to gain Brenten Farrer and Lisa Walker all finished the prime position and powered home on the lead lap. One lap in arrears were for the greatest win of his 18-year career Victorian’s David Donegan and Steven over Hickman and Callum Williamson who Loader to round off the field.

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GREEN IS GO FOR NOWRA SPEEDWAY

A REJUVENATED Nowra Speedway bounced back into life after a three year hiatus as the New South Wales township and surrounding areas, having endured Covid and harsh Australian conditions such as bushfires and flooding, used the time off to undergo some venue upgrades. The relaunch featured a wide variety of classes and the large crowd on hand were treated to a great day’s racing.

Gary Bowyer claimed round five of the Gulf Western Oil Super Series for GP Midgets, the 15-lap final running express to the line ahead of Adam Buckley and Riley Bowyer with Anthony Lea and Scott Moir rounding out the top five.

The AMCA Nationals ran in memory of Stephen Monkhouse. The 20-lap feature also ran flag-to-flag with Newcastle’s Darrell Kime taking a popular win ahead of Spano Gutierrez and Andrew Ash with Shane McPhee and Blake Cotton completing the top half of the field.

The Lightning Sprints contested the penultimate round of their country series.

The three drivers still in contention for the championship, A J McTaggart, Chris Davis and Danny Stone, shared the podium in that order with Pete Styles and Jack Selmes completing the first five home.

Australian Legend Cars Champion Rob Rawlings showed the fastest way home in the express 20-lap final over Darren Snowden and Brad Rawlings with Riley Flanagan and Brock Bolton tucked in behind.

The RSA 4 Cylinder cars saw Michael Barton take his Celica to Victory Lane ahead of Jacob Croker and Matt Cook.

The Classic Sprintcars provided a spirited display, reliving the sights and sounds of yesteryear.

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NATIONALS WRAP

BARNES WINS SECOND RX8 ROUND NATIONALS WRAP with Garry O’Brien SUPER TT/STOCK CARS Nind heads Tracey in the Supert TT/Stock Car contest, while (below) Robotham shows the way to Tomkins in the Excels. Images: NEIL HAMMOND A FORMER champion’s comeback and pace showed, but it was not enough to win the Yellow Express second round of the RX8 Cup Series at Winton Motor Raceway on March 18-19. That overall victory at the HiTec Oils Super Series opening round went to category stalwart Justin Barnes (pictured, top) over Justin Lewis and Luke Webber.

Ryan Gorton won the series in 2020 and 2021 and didn’t contest the one-make category title last year. Meanwhile Barnes has finished with two thirds and a second over the last three years.

Barnes qualified second behind Gorton and ahead of Round 1 winner Tom Shaw, and won the first race, despite a bent rear toe arm, while Gorton retired with an electrical misfire. Shaw was a close second and clear of Lewis and brother Terry Lewis,

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Webber and Jackson Noakes.

As he finished Tom Shaw suffered an engine failure that ousted him for the remaining races. Barnes won ahead Justin Lewis, Webber, Gorton from the back, Ben Shaw and Jack Pennacchia.

In Race 3 Gorton wasted no time in his charge to the lead and won from Barnes, Lewis, Webber, Pennacchia and Shaw. The last race produced the same top five as Terry Lewis displaced Shaw for sixth.

IN HIS former Xfinity Series Ford Mustang, Scott Nind took the overall and Stock Car honours with four solid race wins.

His nearest rival was Mark Tracey in his slick-shod Super TT Chev-powered BMW E36 with four second places, and in the last race he led Nind for three laps before being out-powered.

In the first race they were chased by Danny Burgess and Josh Hourigan in their OzTrucks, Brent Edwards (Ford Falcon BA XR6 turbo) and Robert Marchese (OzTruck). Burgess followed up with another three third places, ahead of Marchese in Race 2 and then Hourigan in the last two.

A fifth, a 10th and two sevenths enabled Mark Granger (Ford Falcon AU V8) to take out the Over 2.0 Litre Treaded Tyre class.

Michael Ricketts (Nissan Pulsar) was the best of the Under 2.0lt Treaded Tyre class as he diced with more powerful vehicles within the top 10 of each race.

VICTORIAN EXCEL TROPHY

AFTER FOUR races, overall honours at the second round of the series for drivers under 40 years-old, went to Harry Tomkins, ahead of Jaylyn Robotham and Cadel Ambrose.

After qualifying second behind Brad Vereker, Tomkins had the jump at the start of Race 1 and was never headed. He pulled away to take a comprehensive victory as Vereker was relegated to third behind Ambrose.

Tomkins also won Race 2 as Robotham quickly moved to second on the opening lap and fended off race-long challengers from Vereker and Ambrose to finish second.

Robotham won the final two races but it was not enough to overhaul Tomkins in the points. Vereker was fourth overall ahead of Brad James and Toby Waghorn.

VICTORIAN EXCEL MASTERS

THE OVER 40s Series second round win went to David Musgrave, who won three of the four races. He finished the weekend ahead of Adam Bywater who won Race 3, and Glenn Mackenzie.

Bywater qualified on pole but was beaten off the Race 1 start by Musgrave and also lost out to Mackenzie. In the second outing, Musgrave was able to turn the tables on Mackenzie for second place. Mackenzie edged out Daniel Webster for third in Race 3 before Webster headed Mackenzie in the last and took fourth overall in front of Tony Venier and Karl Neilson.

Garry O’Brien

SECOND SERVE FOR LANCER TEAM THE GT-40 TEAM of Bartek Kacperski, Cameron Lane, Peter Gatt and Chris Kacpersk dished out another Deputy 4 Hour win at Pheasant Wood on March 19.

After the Mitsubishi Lancer quartet of drivers won the opener by 4.0s, this time they had a little more time up their sleeve at the end of 198 laps, and had over a lap’s advantage on the Celican team that comprised Matt Davey, Ben Pritchett and Adam Foster in their Toyota Celica.

Both competed in the Group 1 class and vied for the outright lead throughout.

Celican led for the first 15 laps before the first of the 90s mandatory pitstops. GT-40 took over the lead until lap 72 after which

podium place by 33.7s.

Another lap adrift were 21 Red with Aaron Riches/Mick Cooper/ Jack Riches (Impreza), 8.7s ahead of Paul Watkin/ Marcus Rummler/Michael Hazelton/Andrew Gerrard (Nissan Pulsar). Seventh GT-40 and Craven Mild – side-by-side. Image: LYN COTTER and the best of the Group the teams swapped the front running over 3s (by 20s) was the Red the next 20 laps before GT-40 headed the Rocket Racing Peugeot 206, over the 22 event for the remainder.

Red Mazda 2 by 38s.

Three laps behind, it was tight between The day before, Dean Alessi won all four the Group 2 outfits of Craven Wild and races in the second round of the Excel Team Toyrolla as they competed for X3 Series where he downed Luke Croft third. A late stop by the Toyota Corolla each time. Luke Ferguson was third in team of Tony Nicastri, Rod Saville, Mark races one and two, before Andrew Felton Duckworth and Jacob Wolf enabled Gary and Ian Green netted thirds in the later Chick, Adam Bailey and Matt Channells encounters.

(Subaru Impreza) to snare the final Garry O’Brien

THE BIG RACE

A MARATHON TEAM EFFORT THE TEAM of drivers Brett Comiskey and Billy Geddes along with navigators Corry Cooper, Dan McKenzie and Luke Camilleri (right) won the inaugural McIntyre 900 off road endurance event at St George on March 18.

With the lure of $25,000 in prizemoney, they had a near faultless run in the 36-degree heat aboard their Class 4 Chev SB powered Geisler Trophy Truck and covered eight laps of the 115km course in just over 11 hours.

Organised by the South East Queensland Offroad Association for a 6am start, the Big Race catered for several classes – Ultimate (multi-driver/co-driver combinations), Ironman (single driver) and Marathon over five laps.

Second place went to Jason Richards, Steven Graham and Jay Mitchell (Class 1 Chenowth Millennium/Nissan) and third were Craig Barnett who was the leading Ironman, Meegan Barnett and Gary Hardie (Unlimited Southern Cross/Chev LS2).

Fourth outright, second in Ironman and first in Class 6 appeared destined to go to Zach Marsh and Ash Walsh (Class 6s Can-Am) until mechanical failure with just an hour to go. That elevated class rivals James and Michael Mogford, and Kye Floyd (Can-Am).

In fifth and sixth were Ironman runners Dave Hall/Corey

Image: TERRY HILL Hayworth/Gavin Chant (Class 1 Murphy/Nissan) and Kane and Maddie Prechelt (Class 6s Polaris) respectively.

It was at time a close-fought race with just 20mins covering the top four at the 600km mark. Bryce Chapman, Luke Ayers and Mitch Warren (Unlimited Jimco/LS2) led at times before hit with mechanical problems that put them out on the fourth lap.

Garry O’Brien

Image: TIM ALLOT

CLEAN SWEEP OF RALLYSPRINTS

WITH WINS on all stages, Mark Cates and Bernie Webb (above) were consummate victors of the 14th Make Smoking History Targa South West on March 18.

Held on the closed roads around Pemberton, three and a half hours south of Perth, the event was run as two rallysprints of eight short stages each with 30 competitors racing the clock over 72kms.

Second place went to Will White and Steph Esterbauer (Nissan GTR Nismo) with Doug Tostevin and Dan Adams (Subaru Impreza STi Spec C) third.

The modified format suited Cates and his Porsche 911 GT2 RS as they finish the first half (Sprint 1) almost 15s ahead White. A similar time away were husband and wife Bill and Glenys Stagoll in their Mitsubishi Evo 9.

The next eight stages (Sprint 2) saw Gates finish 21.2s ahead of White. Tostevin placed third as the Stagolls were forced to retire during stage 10 with a gearbox rollpin failure. Behind Tostevin overall came Dennis Heller and Keian Guy (EVO 9) and Chris Caruso and Seth Higson (Dodge Viper ACR).

In his return to Targa competition after eight years, Paul Moltoni, together with Lisa Read White (Porsche 911 RS) won Competition Classic over Greg Freeman and Mandy Lister (Chev Camaro) by 11s.

The Competition 165 category (limited to 165kmh) was won by Ben Pang and Brandon Chin (Honda Civic) by 5.0s from Smith and Hale (WRX). Meanwhile Competition 130 was taken by Nigel Ball and Morgan Ward (Tesla 3) who finished ahead of Hay Crawford (Toyota GR Yaris).

Garry O’Brien

REDHEAD’S FINAL ROUND, HEAFEY’S TITLE JOSH AND Matt Redhead steered their Mitsubishi EVO 5 to a win in the final round of the Whiteline Suspension Rallysprint Series at Sydney Dragway on March 16. After teething problems with the very new car earlier in the series, the Redheads had an untroubled run, and headed home Phil Heafey and Luke McFarlane (EVO 6) – pictured.

The two highly developed EVOs were the winners of all five round wins, with three to Redhead and two to Heafey. But it was Heafey’s greater consistency that gave him the series victory.

David and John Calabria (EVO 7) got a great start, second on the first run and fastest on the second, before a

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mechanical failure ended their night.

Lance Arundel and Luke Job (Subaru Impreza WRX) blotted their copybook, and crashed on the first corner of the first run. Damage was light and they recovered to be third at the end of the five runs.

Redhead equalled Calabria on the first run, was second again on the second, then took three fastest times as the sun set, and temperatures dropped. Heafey started with a fastest time on the first run, third on the second and then three second places.

With the best three runs counted, Redhead ran out winner by 4.4s. Arundel was a further 7s adrift in third, from Jack

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and John Hills (EVO 9), then Michael Caine and Tomas Vadoklis (RX7), first of the 2WD runners – and they were first 2WD on all series rounds.

Best of the Junior drivers on the night

was Bailey Ruston (with Brian Ruston in a WRX), but Amy Hine took the overall award, driving a Suzuki Swift, with father Steve calling the corners.

Story and Image: Bruce Moxon Image: ASORC

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MALLALA SA

Blake Miller (Elfin 630b) took out the points in Historic Sports and Racing.

DAY, TWILIGHT, AND NIGHT AT MALLALA

THE SA MOTOR RACING CHAMPIONSHIP GOT OFF TO A CRACKING START WITH GOOD FIELDS, AND GOOD RACING ACROSS MOST OF THE CLASSES AT MALLALA MOTORSPORT PARK ON MARCH 18. THE SPORTING CAR CLUB OF SA EVENT HAD ACTION THAT WENT FROM DAY INTO NIGHT AND SPECTATOR ENTRY WAS FREE. Jenkins able to grab top spot after three not-so-easy wins. That left King second just ahead of the ever present Lee Smith.

FORMULA VEES

Johnson and Johnston show rhe way in the Excel contest. Slade Orsmond (above right) took Sports Car honours, while Chessell and Thompson battled in 1200 Vees (right). Below: Milton and King run at the front in HQs.

IMPROVED PRODUCTION A CLEAN sweep of wins went to Andy Sarandis (Mitsubishi EVO 8) as Max de Meyrick showed some pace in his new Nissan Silvia to keep the white EVO honest. Brenton Faggotter (Silvia) kept the front runners in sight but only managed third at the end of the night.

Jaiwei Chen (Honda Civic) overcame Keith Wong (Honda DC5) in a hardfought under 2.0 litre battle.

SALOON CARS CIRCUIT EXCELS AS USUAL the catgeory had big numbers but with a new winner. Although the current champion Asher Johnston drew first blood with victory in race one, Victorian Joel Johnson shadowed him all the way. For the remaining two encounters, the order was reversed and that left Johnson on top for the round and Johnston looking for a little more speed.

Andrew Hobby managed to keep ahead of the growling pack all day to claim third

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for the round. Nick Scaife was fourth in the first, ahead of Shayne Nowickyj who then came out ahead of Scaife in Race 2. Scaife was also fourth in the last while Nowickyj was ahead until he fell down the order on the penultimate lap.

The Masters belonged to Brian Smith while Michael Nowickyj, Ivan Vantagiato and Bruce Martens fought for the right to be next best. Nowickyj hung on for second overall after a stellar performance from Martens in the 12 lap night race left him a close third.

SHAWN JAMIESON (Holden Commodore VY) dominated the field and although Scott Dornan (VY) led the early laps in the final race, a DNF put him out of contention. John Goodacre (Commodore VT) chased Jamieson home in the final and elevated himself to second in the points and comfortably clear of James Jaeschke (VY).

HQ HOLDENS IT WAS a two way exchange between Darren Jenkins and Wayne King with

IT LOOKED like a fairly easy day for Daniel Westcott (Jacer F2K5) in 1600s with Kaylan Hill (Elfin Crusader) staying in the garage after a good showing in Race 1. Westcott was top scorer with three wins while Rhys Rollond (BeeCee) had a good showing on debut with second place for the day. It was all Frank Chessell (Elfin Crusader) in the 1200s with the Spectres driven by Jay Thompson and Nathan Clifton tied for the runner up spot after Andrew Mutch (Stag) had mechanical problems and failed to start Race 3.

SPORTS CARS NEW SOUTH Welshman Slade Orsmond (Porsche 991 GT3) took the honours with Joe Sommariva (Maserati GT4) a distant second, but comfortably ahead of Emanuel Palyaris (Porsche 911 RSR).

Ian Wilson (TVR Tuscan) was Orsmond’s closest challenger and even managed to get in front of the silver Porsche for a short time but a DNF in the last race ended his chances for an event podium.

HISTORIC SPORTS & RACING TWO WINS by Blake Miller (Elfin 630B) meant he topped the points. Phillip Lane (Elfin 700) narrowly squeezed into second ahead of Keith Williamson (Farrell Clubman). The other race winner was Andrew Ford (Reynard 893) before a DNF, and a DNS meant he didn’t bother the point scorers much.

Story and Images: David Batchelor

MORGAN PARK QLD

HOT ACTION AT CHAMP OPENER

COMPETITORS AND SPECTATORS AT THE OPENING ROUND OF THE MOTORSPORT AUSTRALIA QUEENSLAND CIRCUIT RACING STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS AT MORGAN PARK ENDURED OPPRESSIVELY HOT CONDITIONS ACROSS THE MARCH 18-19 WEEKEND ...

IMPROVED PRODUCTION/ SPORTS SEDANS

GEOFF KINSTON (IP Mazda RX7) qualified fastest ahead of Craig Neilson (Group A Mitsubishi Starion) and Guy Gibbons (IP Holden Commodore). Neilson won the first two races, ahead of Gibbons and Kingston respectively. George Kulig (Chev Monte Carlo Sports Sedans) missed qualifying and the first two races before strong victories in the final two. Overall though Neilson topped the Sports Sedan points while Kingston nailed the top IP result.

HQ HOLDENS/GEMINIS

THE FOUR wins went to Joe Andriske who took the round ahead of Jake Madden and Peter Coleman in an HQ whitewash. In the first two outings Andriske showed the way to Scott Andriske – the first by over 3.0s and the second by 0.5s. The latter was forced to retire from the third encounter with an oil leak. He returned for the last, but the oil leak persisted and while in the pits, caught fire.

Madden was sixth in the opener behind Coleman, Nick Rangeley (Gemini) and Justin van Twest (HQ). Despite a frontto-rear contact between the HQs of Tye Gray and Glenn Deering, both managed to finish. Deering was a DNF in race two with gearbox issues as Coleman was again third from Van Twest, Madden and Rangeley.

Madden came out strong in the last two with a pair of seconds. Coleman was third in Race 3 but lost third gear in the last and struggled home fifth behind van Twest and Deering after the latter pair were fourth and eighth earlier.

RACING CARS & SPORTS CARS

FOR MOST of the weekend Grant Green and his Wolf Tornado were untroubled with four race victories. Only in the last was it close. Jamieson Davies (Radical SR3RS) challenged Green early in Race 1 before Blake Varney (Dallara F304) who missed qualifying, passed him and came through ahead of Adam Beesley (SR3RS) and David Rodgie (Chiron LMP-3).

Behind Green and Varney in Race 2, Rodgie progressed to third but ultimately placed fifth behind Beesley and Davies.

There was no Varney for Race 3 where Rodgie made it to second ahead of Davies and Beesley before he challenged Green in the last, even glimpsing the lead on a couple of occasions.

CIRCUIT EXCELS

VICTORIES IN the first two races paved the way for Zane Rinaldi to win the first

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Neilson and Kingston show the way in Sports Sedans. Below: Andriske x2 head a crowded HQ field. Middle: Rinaldi three-wheels his Excel to victory.

Bottom: More Excel action – Warner, Smith and Davis couldn’t be any closer ... Images: TRAPNELL CREATIONS round ahead of Jack Wood and Connor Roberts while Cooper Barnes and Alice Buckley tied on points for fourth.

Brock Giblin qualified fastest and led the first half of Race 1. He was relegated to third, firstly by Rinaldi who skipped away to a 2.6s victory, and later Wood edged him out of second. Roberts was fourth in front of Buckley, Barnes, Tyler Collins, George Wood, William Seal and James Foster.

Rinaldi was a clear winner of the second.

Giblin passed Wood before the gearbox went and put him out. Wood then held off Roberts and Buckley while Seal improved to fifth ahead of Barnes, Foster, Wood, Jackson Faulkner and Treigh Maschotta.

The final and longer race was really decided in the first seven laps. Rinaldi led initially before Wood took over and then Roberts who drove away to triumph comfortably. Rinaldi fell to sixth before he placed in the midst of the battle between Barnes and Seal. Buckley was sixth from Collins, Faulkner, Foster and Wood.

PRODUCTION TOURING

WIN HONOURS were shared in the second round with Beric Lynton (BMW M3) and Trent Allen (Subaru Impreza WRX STi) each snaring one-hour race wins. A strong second in the first gave the latter the overall victory.

Lynton barely made the meeting due to a rebuild after last year’s fire and inherent teething issues. He started well back and took the lead after the mandatory pitstops to win by 2.8s over Allen. Third place went to Thomas Needham (Mazda 3 MPS) ahead of Liam Moyse (Toyota 86), Richard Shinkfield/Ettore Vosolo (BMW), Jake Camilleri (MPS) and Mitchell Maddren (Toyota 86).

Anthony Levitt and Mark Griffith (Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG) started on pole and apart from losing the lead for a couple of early laps, led to the stops.

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However a clash afterwards with Camilleri damaged the steering and put them out.

Tim McDonald and Mitchell Wooller (BMW M240i) led after the start but succumbed early to overheating.

Apart from a few laps in the first half and through the pitstop cycle, Allen was in command of Race 2 to win by 14.6s. After a dismal first race where they finished 12th, Jamie Manteufel and Chris Sharples (HSV VF Clubsport) had great pace and ultimately finished second.

Lynton was third, using MRF tyres in preparation for the Bathurst 6 Hour, with Needham also on the lead lap. One lap behind was Nick Winsor (Subaru BRZ) ahead of Paolo Buccini and Michael von Rappard (BMW M135i) who suffered boost issues all weekend and DNF out of Race 1 with a tyre blowout.

PRODUCTION SPORTS

AFTER A dominant win in the first of three races, Tom McLennan (Porsche 991.1) was on track for a clean sweep as he had Race 2 until a slip-up late in the race dropped him to sixth. That enabled Paul Lucchitti (Audi R8) who was second in the opener, to take the victory and follow up to be first across the line in the last.

Grant Sparks was third throughout the first race until fellow Porsche driver

Lachlan Harburg was able to pass him.

Fifth spot went to Steve McFadden ahead of Joe Barbagallo, also in Porsches as Mark Cotterell (Ginetta G50) was seventh.

Harburg finished a close second to Lucchitti in Race 2 with Harburg third in front of McFadden, Sparks and Greg Waters (Chev Corvette) who started last.

Lucchitti showed the way from Sparks and McFadden in Race 3 when the latter had a nasty shunt. It was a big hit, and the race was red flagged. McFadden is expected to make a full recovery. The damage to the wall was significant and the race wasn’t restarted.

Garry O’Brien

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WEC PREVIEW

A TRUE MOTORSPORT

FESTIVAL

AFTER A FOUR-AND-A-HALF-YEAR ABSENCE THE ADELAIDE MOTORSPORT FESTIVAL RETURNED WITH A BANG! THE VICTORIA PARK STREET CIRCUIT AGAIN FEATURED STAR DRIVERS AND LEGENDARY RACE CARS ...

Report: Dan McCarthy THERE WERE countless highlights throughout the three-day motoring festival, as the Adelaide Motorsport Festival attracted a current Formula 1 driver for the very first time, 10-time F1 grand prix winner Valtteri Bottas.

He was not the only star driver – former Adelaide Grand Prix podium finisher Stefan Johannsson returned, as did seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner Craig Lowndes, WRC rally winner Hayden Paddon as well as a whole host of current Supercars drivers and team owners.

The event fired into life with the traditional Friday night street party in which 25 of the highest profile cars and

stars drove on the original Grand Prix layout before stopping for fans to get up get up close and personal to the machines. The party atmosphere was concluded with a fireworks display.

A two-day sprint event was held at Victoria Park over the weekend, on the shortened layout of the circuit.

There were 12 categories competing including GT cars, Ferraris, Classics and even V8 Supercars, with the fastest driver in each class taking home a trophy.

There was a major drawcard on each day, Sunday saw Finnish F1 driver and adopted Aussie Valtteri Bottas cut laps in a Group A era Alfa Romeo Touring car.

The car not only had success in European Touring Car competition but

Images: PETER NORTON EPICS SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY/ADELAIDE MOTORSPORT FESTIVAL

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Lowndes meets Benetton B186 (below). Johansson reunites with Ferrari 156 (top). Top right: Beatrice F1. Above: Brabham drives Brabham BT19. Right: Uncle Graeme’s LJ GTR XU1 Torana and Jamies’ 2014 Championship winning T8 Supercar ... Ferrari hits the streets.

Bottom: F1 on the streets of Adelaide. Bottom right: Bottas drives Bathurst-winner ... was raced by former F1 champion Alan Jones in Australia. Colin Bond also raced the Alfa and notably finished fifth in the ATCC Australian Grand Prix support race on the streets of Adelaide in 1985.

That wasn’t all. Bottas drove his first ever Supercars laps, jumping behind the wheel of the 2016 Bathurst 1000-winning VF Commodore and shared the track with Craig Lowndes.

Bottas did not hold back, pushing the car to its limits, before drifting the car and performing donuts. It was quite a show for the very appreciative fans.

On Saturday David Brabham and his son

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Sam drove the 1966 Brabham BT19 in which the late Sir Jack Brabham won his third and final Formula 1 World Championship.

The BT19 was not the only Brabham to make its debut at the event, as not one, but two 1989 Brabham BT58s driven originally by Martin Brundle and Stefano Modena raced around the track as well as the last ever Brabham, the 1992 BT60B. Supercars driver Tim Slade was given the opportunity drive the 1988 Arrows A10B raced by Eddie Cheever and Lowndes the 1986 Benetton B186 once driven by Gerhard Berger.

Swede Johansen returned to steer the

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Ferrari 156 which he drove in the 1985 Australian Grand Prix.

In total a dozen F1 cars hit the track and were certainly a crowd favourite along with the brand new Tipo F1 category.

The new class contained Dallara IR-05 Indy Car, a Formula 3000 car driven by Thomas Randle and the Australian debut of the Rodin FZed track car, based on a 2011 Lotus Renault Formula 1 car.

WRC driver Paddon showed off his electric Hyundai Kona rally car in front of an Australian audience for the very first time.

Many manufacturers including Audi,

Mercedes and McLaren showed off their new machines with Todd Hazelwood circulating in the 2022 McLaren Artura.

Other notable attendees were Roland Dane, Peter Xiberras, Nick Percat, Le Mans 24 Hours winner Vern Schuppan, Aaron Seton, Steven and Jett Johnson.

Other notable cars included a Porsche 962, Lancia Delta rally car, the 1985 Bathurst 1000 winning Jaguar and the final Holden Supercars Championship race winner.

The event was a massive success and drew in an incredibly large crowd – already fans are wondering who and what will be on track in 2024.

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BASKERVILLE TAS

NEW SEASON AND NEW CATEGORY THE TASMANIAN Circuit Racing Championships kicked off for another year with the first of six rounds at Pepsi Max Baskerville Raceway on March 18-19.

A new addition for 2023 will be a category for Racing and Sports Cars (over four rounds) and is open to Open wheeler/Formula racing cars, Sports cars and Clubman type cars. As has become commonplace in recent years, the class that had the biggest numbers and provided the best racing was the Hyundai Excels.

HISTORIC TOURING CARS

RACING & SPORTS CARS

SPORTS GT

Rod Bender (Radical SR3) was the early pacesetter, as he qualified fastest. He paid the price for over exuberance on more than one occasion and only won the second race as he overstepped the limits of adhesion at times.

Phil Sutton (Ralt R35) was more circumspect, and it paid dividends. He ended the round on top with four wins and a second, and that included victory in the double-points final. John Hoult (Radical SR3) and John Parr (Dallara F3) had some great battles for the minors.

Sports GTA saw last year’s runner-up Beau Johnson (Porsche GT3) start his bid to go one better with a solid round win, which included wins in all five races after initially qualifying second. His brother Troy Johnson (Porsche GT3) also drove well to finish second in every race expect the final. There he had his colours lowered by Stephen Noble (Nissan 350Z) who mostly chased the Johnson brothers.

Further back, the battle for Sports GTB honours was an entertaining one with Vlad Gala (Holden Commodore Ute) and Stuart Brinsmead (BMW E30) trading places in almost every race, with the round victory coming down to the double-points final, won

by Gala. In Sports GTC, it was a case of back to the future, as reigning champion Mick Williams (Datsun 240Z) started his season with yet another clean sweep.

HYUNDAI EXCELS State champion Jeremy Bennett had his hands full as Charlie Parker started his season on a high and was on his way to a clean sweep before he came unstuck in the double-points final and finished fourth. While Parker was the driver to beat, he didn’t have it all his own way and the battles with Bennett, Josh Webster and Campbell Logan were very entertaining.

Bennett was competitive enough to podium in every race, with his consistency that saw him and Parker equal on points at the end of the weekend. Tabitha Ambrose continued to impress, and in only her second race meeting since stepping up from karts. She finished a creditable fourth in the final behind Bennett, Logan and Jackson Shaw before a 5.0s penalty put her behind Parker.

Phil Ashlin started his 2023 campaign on a high. John Talbot (Ford Mustang) proved to be a thorn in Ashlin’s side at first, as he topped qualifying and won the first two heats while Ashlin battled gearbox issues. In the third heat, Talbot’s Mustang developed an engine miss while he was in the lead with two laps to go. Talbot didn’t even finish the race or appear on the track again. Ashlin went on to rack up a good Round 1 points tally ahead of the consistent Warren Bryan (Holden Monaro HQ GTS).

IMPROVED PRODUCTION It was all one-way traffic at the front with Shane Bond (Datsun 1200 Coupe) dominant in a clean sweep of wins by healthy margins, to score the maximum available points. Scott Willing (Subaru WRX Sti) was arguably the best of the rest, but finished third on points after a costly DNF in the third heat due to a delaminating tyre. Ayrton Richardson (Toyota Corolla KE30) who was ran around third and fourth all weekend, was eventually rewarded for his consistency, with second overall following Willing’s DNF.

Sutton’s Ralt leads Bender’s SR4 in Racing & Sports Cars. Right: Phil Ashlin leads in the Historic Touring Car contest. Far right: Ladies on track! Images: SCOTTY B PHOTOGRAPHY

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Alex Williams took top points in Sports Sedans. Below: Richard Gray heads the Vee field.

Images: SCOTTY B PHOTOGRAPHY

HQ HOLDENS Reigning champion Andrew Toth was looking to be the likely round winner for his category after qualifying second and winning all four heats. However, a costly DNF in the double-points final, gifted victory to former champion Andrew Bird.

Bird had also blotted his copy book with a DNF in race two, but it only cost him half as many points as Toth’s DNF, with the win in the final and a string of other second places, enough to give him the series lead, albeit after only one round.

Williams to dominate and bank a bag of first round points. Tim Mann (Ford Falcon) was a distant second in most races.

FORMULA VEES

SPORTS SEDANS

One of the smallest grids for some time didn’t detract from some good racing. Reigning champion Jeremy Dyer (Elfin Crusader) and veteran Richard Gray (Bee Cee Jabiru) were head and shoulders above the pack. They traded places and wins, with Gray slightly more consistent overall to win the round by four points.

Alex Williams (Mazda RX7) started the weekend well. He topped qualifying and won the first heat by almost 3.0s. John Douglas, who had recently taken delivery of a new Chev Camaro, started to come on stronger and won the second heat.

However, he failed to finish the next heat and wasn’t sighted again, which allowed

On a side note, it was great to see so many women competing at the meeting, with Tabitha Ambrose, Leslie Axelsen, Kylie-Jane Chapple, Robin Bond, Danette Lovell, Mary White all taking on the men in their various categories.

Martin Agatyn

CARRERA CUP AUS GP

Jackson Walls’ win in the rainshortened Saturday race (run in near darkness!) tied him on championship points with Max Vidau.

Image: MARK HORSBURGH

WALLS AND VIDAU SPLIT THE POINTS JACKSON WALLS and Max Vidau shared the honours in a shortened Porsche Carrera Cup Australia opener at Albert Park.

After defending Australian Grand Prix Carrera Cup round winner Vidau won the first points-paying race on Friday, Walls hit back by taking victory in the dark on Saturday night.

The results meant the pair share the championship lead even on 114 points, while young Kiwi Callum Hedge emerged as the next best.

The likes of Dale Wood, Nick McBride, David Russell and Angelo Mouzouris also enjoyed a tightly-bunched battle for the minor places.

Vidau made his intensions clear in the sole practice session, going a tenth clear of David Wall and Christian Pancione.

But when qualifying arrived, Hedge showed what he is capable of by taking pole position in fine style.

The Team Porsche NZ driver banked a record-breaking time of 1:48.0219 to beat Vidau and Walls by almost three-tenths.

The session ended under red flag conditions following a scary incident for Simon Fallon. The Sonic Motor Racing Services driver was among those chasing pole when he clipped Adrian Flack’s slow moving AGAS National entry.

The contact tipped Fallon into a rollover, but fortunately he emerged unscathed.

However, his car did not survive the shunt well and the damage ruled the #777 out for the remainder of the weekend.

Another early casualty was two-time Bathurst 12 Hour victor Kenny Habul, who withdrew on Thursday after flaring up an existing back injury.

The dramatic nature of Thursday’s events

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did not stop there with the opening race of the season only lasting two laps before another incident.

A heavy crash eventuated between Indiran Padayachee and Daniel Stuttered at the high-speed back section of the circuit.

With not only damage to the cars involved, but also to the barriers, the incident caused such a significant delay, the race was declared a non-event.

Before the chaos, a flying start rocketed Walls into the lead from the second row on the grid ahead of Hedge and Vidau.

After no points were awarded, Walls hoped to replicate his start in Friday’s second race of the weekend, the first with points on offer.

However, the McElrea Racing driver was unable to repeat his heroics on the now rainsoaked Albert Park surface as Vidau made his move.

The Tekworkx Motorsport driver expertly navigated the tricky getaway off the line and managed to take the lead after going doorto-door with pole sitter Hedge.

Despite the field snaking its way through Turns 1 and 2 cleanly, drama occurred at the second braking area where Tim Miles and Sam Shahin got tangled.

Up front, Vidau, Hedge and Walls gapped themselves from the rest, with the leading trio five seconds up the road from O’Keeffe.

Despite drivers managing the conditions well, O’Keeffe struggled in the wet and slipped from fourth to outside the top 10.

Eventually the RAM Motorsport driver ended the forgetful evening on the sidelines, having retired on the penultimate lap.

Adrian Flack also battled, slipping onto the grass at the fast Turn 10 on Lap 8, while Thomas Maxwell suffered an even worse fate.

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Not much separated Walls and Vidau all weekend! ... Kiwi Callum Hedge (below) showed his pace by storming to pole.

After fighting Hedge for third, Maxwell skated into the gravel on his own, destroying his podium hopes.

Vidau took the chequered flag with a threesecond lead over Walls, with Hedge a further 12 back.

The final race of the weekend was a short, but dramatic, nine-lap affair.

Once racing got underway after a delayed start due to Miles breaking down on the warmup lap, Walls got away well and took the lead.

He looked impregnable until the rain came down and suddenly Vidau was all over the back of the leader, who slid off at Turn 1 and a fierce battle for the lead ensued.

Vidau had a look at Turn 3 and the pair ran side by side through the following left-right car park section.

The #72 car looked to have snatched the lead, but Walls regained it with a gutsy move at Turn 6.

To add to the drama, heavy showers arrived at Albert Park and the Safety Car was called to end the race for the farcical reason that

an F1 pit walk was taking place, which prevented teams from entering the pits and changing tyres. Really!

The championship takes a 74-day break before resuming in Darwin where rain is never a factor.

Thomas Miles CARRERA CUP CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS AFTER ROUND 1 1 J. Walls 114 points 2 M. Vidau 114 3 C. Hedge 97 4 D. Wood 78 5 N. McBride 74

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INDYCAR

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

NEWGARDEN’S PERFECT TEXAS TIMING TEAM PENSKE racer Josef Newgarden has gone back-to-back at the Texas Motor Speedway, in a last lap overtake of Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward.

Newgarden’s first win of 2023 was achieved with the Lap 249 overtake on the 1.5 mile oval, the same way he took victory from teammate Scott McLaughlin in last year’s visit to Fort Worth.

The two-time Astor Cup winner took the chequered flag by 1.283s over the #5 Mexican native, with Spain’s Alex Palou coming home a close third, with the race having to finish under a yellow due to Romain Grosjean again crashing at the death.

“Pato gave me all the respect in the world when he was racing next to me,” Newgarden said.

“It was really hard to fight those guys. I think (Alex) Palou was super strong, too.

There are just no gimmes. It was packed up today, and it was very difficult to get away.

“There were parts when we were good, parts when we were weaker. But when we needed to be good, the car was there at the end.”

O’Ward’s second straight runner-up placing has however earned him the championship lead, with Round 1 winner Marcus Ericsson finishing in P8.

Newgarden Qualified in P4, with Felix Rosenqvist starting on pole over Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi.

The super fast circuit provided what P4 getter David Malukas described as a race of “beautiful chaos” with the session being flagged on five occasions, and 199 laps of green flag racing.

O’Ward was a scintillating and dominant force early on, taking the lead on Lap 109

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and lapping the entire field by Lap 160, except for Newgarden, who was 6s in arrears.

When the pole-getter crashed on Lap 179, the remaining laps descended into a chaotic yet controlled tactical pit game for fuel and tyres.

With six cars rejoining the lead lap on a wave-around, O’Ward and Newgarden came out of the pits, which started a thrilling 57 lap dash home between the pair and the chasers, in which covered every inch of the available racing surface.

The two contenders were neck-andneck until another crash, from Rosenqvist, brought the field back together, and on that restart, the lead was exchanged a hectic 14 times amongst five different drivers.

The battle between O’Ward and Newgarden then took precedence again as the race headed into the final eight laps.

The lead swapped five times in that period, whilst the tussle behind also involved Grosjean, who was flying in and out of the clusters trying to cut through in an exciting display of racing happening all down the track.

For those closing stages, Lap 242 had Newgarden in front, with the #5 McLaren hitting back on the next revolution, before the Californian retook the lead, only for O’Ward to edge his nose in front ever so slightly again on Lap 147.

The #2 Penske driver then took it one final time, as Grosjean, who was sitting in P5, tried to switch high up the bank, clipping the back of Malukas and sending him hard into the high-side wall where he spun without contact down to the low side.

When the yellow flag was called and race declared, Newgarden pumped the air after

having done it again on the last lap for the second year straight.

With Grosjean in the fence, Dixon inherited P5, followed by McLaughlin, Herta and Ericsson, with Ilott and Castroneves rounding out the top-10.

All up there were 26 lead changes among eight drivers, with O’Ward also claiming the fastest lap, which was clocked at 355.8 kph with the time of 23.4475 sec.

Aussie racer and defending IndyCar champion Will Power couldn’t get into contention throughout the day, starting in P8 and finishing in P16. The Aussie struggled with getting the right wing adjustment, and also incurred a drive-through penalty whilst already a lap down.

A finisher of note was the mystery rookie, Argentinian Agustin Canapino, who finished in P12 for a second straight race and is showing some promise.

The next outing for the 2023 IndyCar series heads to the iconic location of Long Beach in California, where the 39th Grand Prix of

Newgarden slices inside O’Ward for the lead ...

Long Beach will take place on April 16.

The season now settles into a regular pattern after the long break between Rounds 1 and 2, as it edges towards the 107th Indianapolis 500 on May 28.

TW Neal INDYCAR STANDINGS 1 O’Ward 82 2 Ericsson 75 3 Dixon 67 4 Newgarden 66 5 Palou 60

MOTOGP PORTUGAL

BAGNAIA GOES BANG IN HISTORIC OPENER

NOT EVEN a heavily shaken up weekend schedule featuring a historic maiden Sprint race could stop Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia from kicking off his title defence perfectly at the 2023 MotoGP opener in Portugal.

Bagnaia swept the season opener in style by winning the first ever Sprint race with a last-lap move before taking a commanding Grand Prix win to collect maximum points at Portimao.

In addition to the vastly different format, there were many things for fans to get used to with no less than 12 riders swapping seats.

One of those was Australia’s Jack Miller, who immediately showed strong speed aboard his KTM. Miller finished Friday as the man to beat, with his record-setting lap of 1:37.709 enough to edge ahead of Maverick Vinales.

Practice was marred by Pol Espargaro’s scary smash at Turn 10 where the Spaniard was thrown off his KTM and bounced into the barrier.

The incident left the Tech3 GASGAS rider with a fractured jaw, dorsal vertebrae and a lung injury, but he is expected to return after a stint on the sidelines.

Saturday was all about the first ever Sprint, but before then Marc Marquez scored a stunning pole position.

After finishing Friday in 14th, Marquez could not explain how he set a recordbreaking 1:37.226 to beat Ducati riders Bagnaia and Jorge Martin.

Under the new rules this ensured the #93 Honda started both the Sprint and Grand

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Prix from pole, while Miller sat fifth and the best Yamaha could manage was 11th.

This rolled out the carpet for Sprint racing’s MotoGP debut and it did not disappoint with the race going down to the wire.

Marquez protected his pole on Lap 1, but could not stop Bagnaia and Martin from flying into the lead as they utilised Ducatis immense straight line speed.

Enea Bastianini was denied the chance of making moves on his factory Ducati by Luca Marini following an early incident.

Yamaha was also struggling with Fabio Quartararo dropping to 19th after receiving a bump from the crashing Joan Mir. The fight for the lead was fascinating with Bagnaia, Marquez, Martin and Miller all sharing stints in P1.

The Aussie took the lead with a smart, late-braking move at Turn 13, but only held it for two corners as the Ducati power proved too strong.

Martin then appeared set for victory and held a four-tenth advantage heading into the final lap.

But the Pramac Ducati rider threw it away by running wide at the Turn 5 hairpin, which allowed Bagnaia to slide through to a history-making win.

Marquez was able to steal third with a smart move at Turn 1 as Miller got caught up fighting the Aprillas and came home fourth.

Battle-lines were redrawn for the main event on Sunday afternoon and another frantic start occurred.

Marquez, Martin and Miguel Oliveira

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all shared the lead across the first three corners before a mistake by #93 allowed the hometown boy Oliveira to take charge to the delight of the home crowd.

Despite the vocal support, Oliveira only controlled the field for the first lap as Bagnaia charged from third to first on the second tour.

Marquez also tried to move up the order, lining up a dive down the inside of Turn 3, but got it horribly wrong.

The #93 Honda clipped Martin before careering directly into the back of the exposed Oliveria, wiping the latter out on the spot in a horrific crash.

Amid the chaos Bagnaia opened up a lead over Vinales, while Miller surged to third, but soon dropped back as Marco Bazzecchi stepped up.

With the top three checking out, an alrighty battle for fourth erupted with Johann Zarco coming out on top and Miller emerging in seventh as five bikes crossed the line within a second.

Up front Vinales launched an attack at the halfway mark, but did not have the tyre life to keep up with Bagnaia.

The Italian was a cut above at Portimao and sent an ominous warning about his intentions of keeping the #1 on his bike.

Thomas Miles MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER ROUND 1 1 Francesco Bagnaia 37 points 2 Maverick Vinales 25 3 Marco Bezzecchi 16 4 Jack Miller 15 5 Johann Zarco 15

Bagnaia (above) – dominant.

Far left: Marquez flies over the crest ... Middle: Miller – surprising KTM pace!

Images: RED BULL CONTENT POOL

MARQUEZ SLAMMED FOR HEAVY CRASH MARC MARQUEZ found himself at the centre of controversy after triggering the huge three-bike pile up in the Portugal MotoGP opener.

With Marquez coming into the heavy braking Turn 3 way too hot, he clipped Jorge Martin before smashing into the back of the luckless Miguel Oliveira.

The incident wiped out both Marquez and Oliveira on the spot and neither recovered in time for the Argentine Grand Prix.

The stands erupted in fury at the sight of their home hero being taken out and the Spaniard was penalised for his actions.

Marquez was handed a double long lap penalty for his next race and “completely agreed” with the decision – however, other riders are not so happy.

“For me it is ridiculous. They have to ban him for one race, minimum,” Aprilla’s Aleix Esparagaro said.

“He needs a stronger penalty,” Martin said.

“But we know its Marc and they (officials) will do nothing.”

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NASCAR

LARSON PREVAILS IN RIVER CITY VIRGINIA NASCAR CUP gun Kyle Larson has overcome a battle of the teams at Richmond Raceway in Virginia, taking his first win of 2023, and the 20th of his career.

It continues the eclectic range of drivers to reach the top step so far, with six winners over the first seven outings.

There was nothing diverse about the top contenders at the Toyota Owners 400 however, with Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing setting all the pace prior to the final stage, with Larson’s Hendricks teammate, Xfinity regular Josh Berry, taking P2 over Ross Chastian in the TrackHouse Chev.

It was a career high Cup Series finish for Berry who has been filling in for the injured Chase Elliot, as he stuck it to his chorus of critics who have been questioning his place in the top tier US stock car series, coming from P30 to fall just 1.535s short of the 2021 champion.

Larson approached the race perfectly, leading for 93 of the 400 laps, and displaying his prowess on the restarts along with a mix of perfect pit-lane execution.

“It’s really cool; we’ve been close to winning a couple,” a relieved Larson explained.

“William Byron has been extremely good this year – It was probably going to be between him, the 19 (Truex), us, and the 20 (Bell) was really good.

“Things worked out, my pit crew had a great stop, so a shout-out to Brandon Johnson, our Jackman … great day for him.”

With heavy rain affecting both the practice and qualifying sessions, Alex Bowman was awarded pole via the rule book’s performance-metric formula.

But it was dual 2023 winner Byron who jumped out of the blocks, leading 50 of the race’s opening 75 laps as he took a season high fifth stage win.

Kyle Larson runs inside William Byron ...

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES Bell and Denny Hamlin then took the leading spots over Stage 2, with the Joe Gibbs pair looking strong, and Hamlin taking his first stage win of the year.

Another JGR found the lead in the final stage, with Martin Truex powering to the front from laps 309 to 367, until Byron shot into P1.

The Hendricks charger was looking the goods for a third victory of the season, until a spin with 25 laps remaining put him out of contention.

A patient Larson, who already spent a varied and healthy amount of time in the lead in sporadic stages, then shot past through the traffic with 25 laps remaining.

The #5 Chev driver stayed the course of victory lane until the chequered flag with unmatched speed on the three-quarter mile D shaped oval.

Despite the hooplas with three of their head race-day engineers being suspended for a month due to using un-homologated air-intakes, Hendricks have taken three of the seven races so far this season, with Larson improving on his two-podium year to go sixth in the standings, whilst their #48 Chev piloted by Alex Bowman sits atop the standings.

The Richmond Raceway also suited the new 30% less downforce packages for the NASCAR Gen-7 cars, with plenty of real

estate on track on looser back-ends making the machines a bit more racier.

The next round of NASCAR action is at the Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee on April 9; then it’s back to Virginia to the classic Martinsville Speedway, ahead of the first of two visits to Alabama’s iconic Talladega Speedway. TW Neal

NASCAR CUP SERIES STANDINGS 1.

Bowman 263 2.

Chastain 259 3.

Bell 229 4.

Byron 228 5.

Harvick 227

REDDICK GOES BIG IN TEXAS A DOMINANT race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas from Tyler Reddick (right) has seen the Californian 23XI Racing driver take his first NASCAR win of the year.

It took three over-times to see a winner emerge in the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix, with last year’s three-time race winner taking a deserved 1.411s win over Chevrolet drivers Kyle Busch and Alex Bowman.

It’’s Reddick’s first win in a Toyota since crossing from Richard Childress Racing, giving the Michael Jordan owned team its fourth ever NASCAR victory in 92 starts.

“I‘ve been wanting to win here in a Cup Car for a long time,” the #45 Toyota pilot said.

“It means the world, this whole 23XI team has been working

hard all winter long to make the road course program better and was extremely motivated to come in here and improve

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the performance. Just so proud of this team and Toyota Racing Development with all the resources they’ve put in to

turn around the road course program.”

This round had a star-studded list of international guests

which included former F1 world champions Jenson Button and Kimi Raikkonen, IMSA champion Jordan Taylor, and IndyCar regular Connor Daly.

Button was the highest finisher of the quartet in P18, after almost pulling out midway due to heat exhaustion, whilst Raikkonen ran as high as fourth late-on, but dropped to P29 at the end.

Much of the race was a flat-out and entertaining duel between Reddick and William Byron, with the two trading the lead constantly for 69 of the 75 laps, with Reddick having 41 of them.

With Ross Chastain finishing in P4 over Byron, he also took over the championship lead by 19 points over Busch heading into Richmond Raceway, Virginia.

TW Neal

F3 AUSSIES

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

MANSELL SCORES POINTS CHRISTIAN MANSELL celebrated his home race by collecting the first points of his Formula 3 career.

Mansell became the first F3 Aussie to get off the mark in 2023 after being promoted from P12 to P9 in the Sprint due to some post-race penalties.

The Newcastle native said it was a special feeling to achieve the milestone on home turf.

“To collect my first points of the year is always going to be a highlight, especially

being able to do it in Australia,” he told Auto Action.

“It was not the perfect way to pick up my first F3 points, but we will take them however they come.”

Mansell was a consistent figure all weekend, hovering just outside the top 10 in each session.

After emerging 15th fastest in practice, he improved to qualify as the highest placed Aussie in 13th, 1.2s off pole.

After the points-scoring Sprint, Mansell

again threatened the top 10 in the longer Feature race.

Despite a first-lap incident with Sebastian Montoya, Mansell still emerged in 11th, just outside the points.

Mansell said the high-speed street circuit enabled him to push hard, while the strong results gives him the belief he can feature at the front end more regularly.

“The track is super fast, but once I was up to speed I knew I had good pace and

could push hard,” he said.

“The support of a home GP was something else and the atmosphere lifts you every time you are in the car.

“I’m obviously encouraged by this weekend, so if I keep working hard (I know I can), many more will come.”

Mansell will be back in action in Round 3 at Imola on May 19-21, but before then will complete a pair of test sessions with Campos Racing.

Thomas Miles

SUNDAY CHARGE A BIG BOOST FOR SMITH BARTER TAKING THE POSITIVES

AFTER TOUGH AGP IT WAS a difficult weekend for Hugh Barter in an obviously fast Campos car, but after a strong showing in the opening practice session, luck wouldn’t be on side for the second straight round.

It was a battle to get a lap in during Qualifying, and in both races he received contact whilst blasting past his rivals, consigning him to P19 in the Sprint, and P15 in the feature.

Although the local ace from Hughesdale, Vic, couldn’t hide his disappointment at the results, he told Auto Action from the F3 paddock that there are always positives – not in the least driving at Albert Park – but that Imola is to come.

“Once again we leave this round knowing that the car’s got pace, so there’s always a positive, but unfortunately the bad luck came at my home race,” Barter explained.

“As a whole, the weekend was great and

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it was nice to be home and to be racing in front of a home crowd. The atmosphere was really great and everyone was super supportive despite the results.”

In light of the results, it’s on to the next challenge for Barter and the Campos team, where he’ll achieve another first, racing at the iconic Imola track in Bologna, Italy.

“At the end of the day, some of the things we wanted to work on from Bahrain we achieved, and that’s a step in the right direction, but obviously we’ve got some more things to work on now and I feel the team is going in the right direction, and the car does feel strong.

“I’ve never been to Imola before, and fortunately we get some testing there beforehand, and then it’s on to the race which I’m very excited for, so that’s another great experience to tick off.”

TW Neal

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TOMMY SMITH endured a tough start to his home event, but ended it on a high by moving up 15 places in the final race.

The P13 result was a much-needed one for Smith, who had completed a similar comeback drive in Saturday’s Sprint, but a heavy crash at the final corner saw it disappear.

This followed a P29 in practice where he lost track time due to a driveshaft issue and qualifying where he was 3.289s off the pace.

However, there were no such mistakes by the Vans Amersfoort Racing driver in the Feature race, securing an impressive P13.

Having also battled at Bahrain, the result was a huge weight off the shoulders for Smith.

“I am super happy,” he told Auto Action.

“I could have passed Johnny Edgar on the last lap, but I remembered our goal to finish and it was a bit risky.

“When you are finishing races you are learning, so this was a big box ticked.”

On the incident which ended his promising Saturday race, Smith admitted it was driver error.

“I was a little bit off line and it was a little bit narrower and that’s all to took,” he said.

“Once I touched the wall, it sucked me in and destroyed the whole left rear.”

Smith said he loved the mental challenge of Albert Park and used the fan support as motivation.

“The track is awesome – it is a lot different to Bahrain and you have to be focused the whole time,” he said.

“The Aus GP have put us five open-wheel drivers on a pedestal and I have been recognised, which I never have before, which gave me more motivation.”

Smith hopes to “keep building” across two test sessions at Barcelona and Imola over the next seven weeks before the next round at the Italian circuit.

Thomas Miles

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FORMULA 3

BORTOLETO EXTENDS F3 LEAD IN MELBOURNE REPORT: Josh Nevett THE FIA Formula 3 Championship did not disappoint in its historic debut at Albert Park, with Gabriel Bortoleto coming out on top after a weekend filled with action on the track – albeit with no less than six Safety Car stints in the two races.

The Trident driver finished sixth in the Sprint Race but made the most of his Qualifying pace to lead the Feature Race from lights to flag – his second feature victory of the season.

Bortoleto took no time to get up to pace – the Brazilian topped the Practice timesheets with a 1m 33.916s, edging out Gabriele Mini and Gregoire Saucy.

The same names starred in Qualifying, with Bortoleto claiming pole position with a 1m 33.025s in the dying moments, as a shunt involving Nikita Bedrin ended the session prematurely.

The reverse grid Sprint encounter kicked off the racing on Saturday, with Hi-Tech GP racer Sebastian Montoya on pole.

Montoya got the jump on German racer Oliver Goethe, who did not spend long among the leaders – he careered into the gravel after contact through Turn 3 as Luke Browning moved into P2 with an early Safety Car called out.

A lap four restart saw Montoya get a clean jump. Colapinto took Montoya for the lead on lap 6 through the long left-hander, with Ido Cohen then going off at Turn 13 after hitting the wall when he clipped Hugh Barter, bringing out the second Safety Car. The green dropped again on lap 10 with the top three holding. Meanwhile, Aussie racer Tommy Smith then took bad damage after a huge shunt that destroyed his left rear, with a third Safety Car called due to debris on the straight. Smith had moved up 10 spots before that incident.

The front five stood as Colapinto, Montoya, O’Sullivan, Aron, and Dino Beganovic, in the time-certain race with six minutes remaining at the drop of the green.

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Montoya came under siege from the British Prema racer, with O’Sullivan taking P2 with one lap remaining with some slight contact between the two.

A Safety Car was then called to end the race early after Italian driver Alex Garcia went wide, with Colapinto taking the win over O’Sullivan and Montoya for the podium.

Aron, Mini, Beganovic, Bortoleto, Fornaroli, Boya and Saucy made up the top 10.

Christian Mansell held onto his starting spot in P13 to finish the highest of the Aussies.

On Sunday, Bortoleto got away cleanly to take an early lead from pole in the Feature Race.

Barter was not so lucky, sustaining damage from an incident at the first corner which sent him into the pits.

There was more drama to come for the Australian entrants, with Mansell coming under investigation for a shunt with Montoya on the opening lap.

The chaos was only just getting started – Colapinto was brought to a halt with significant damage after slamming into the wall at Turn 5. His ‘off’ required the Safety Car to be called upon.

It wasn’t just Colapinto sitting stationary as the Safety Car circulated – his MP Motorsport teammate Mari Boya was shunted through a gravel trap and into the wall at high speed, ruling both entries out of the rest of the race.

Not even a caution period could halt the carnage. Under Safety Car conditions Kaylen Frederick ran up the back of Correa sustaining front-end damage that forced him to pull off the circuit at Turn 4.

The restart came on lap 6, but soon after Piotr Wisnicki became the next domino to fall when he limped into the pits after picking up mud which sent him sliding into the wall at the final corner.

Shortly after, Nikola Tsolov and Rafael Villagomez went wheel-to-wheel, both dropping down the order as a result of

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

Caio Collet (17) and Christian Mansell side-by-side towards Turn 9 ...

Above: Zak O’Sullivan won the crash-marred Sprint race, crossing the line under Safety Car. contact. There would soon be a second period under yellow, when Cohen became stranded at Turn 3 on lap 12. Cohen attempted a move around the outside of a rival, who oversteered into him and pushed him into the wall.

Racing resumed for the second time on lap 16, with Bortoleto and Saucy comfortably setting the pace up front.

Further back, the incidents kept coming, with Bedrin crashing out on the final lap.

Thankfully the field made it to the finish without a further interruption, Bortoleto completing a comprehensive lights-to-flag victory in the carnage-laden Formula 3 Championship Feature Race.

Saucy was a deserved runner-up for ART Grand Prix, while Gabriele Mini completed the podium in his Hitech

Pulse-Eight machine.

Leonardo Fornaroli came home fourth, ahead of Zak O’Sullivan and Luke Browning.

PREMA Racing pair Paul Aron and Dino Beganovic were P7 and P8, while Josep Maria Marti produced a mind-blowing drive to climb from 30th to P9 at the flag. Taylor Barnard rounded out the top 10.

Christian Mansell was the best of the Aussies in P11, with Tommy Smith coming home 13th and Hugh Barter recovering to 15th.

FORMULA 3 CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER RACE 1 1 G. Bortoleto 58 2 G. Saucy 20 3 D. Beganovic 30 4 G. Mini 30 5 J. Marti 33

FORMULA 2

FIA FORMULA 2 STANDINGS 1 Iwasa 58 2 Pourchaire 50 3 Vesti 42 4 Boschung 33 5 Leclerc 33

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

IWASA MAKES IT COUNT

AT ALBERT PARK FORMULA 2’s first visit to Albert Park resulted in a new championship leader, as DAMS Japanese racer Ayumu Iwasa took the Feature Race chequered flag.

That gave the Osaka born speedster his fourth F2 win, with three of them being in feature races.

Getting home from pole over one of the championship fancies in Theo Pourchaire, Iwasa now leads the Frenchman by eight points going into Round 3 in Baku.

“Finally, I won the Feature Race here in Australia. I’m so happy about the result,” the DAMS winner said.

“The pace was good – after the last Safety Car it was quite close, but still, I could win the race. I think we are improving massively since the beginning of the season, so it’s really positive and we need to keep pushing until the end of the season.”

For the opener, and although he wasn’t so lucky in the feature, Dennis Hauger of MP Motorsport also managed to take the Sprint Race in a well controlled drive from the Dutchman.

As well as it being the F2 debut in Australia, Australia’s Jack Doohan was also making his home nation debut, with the Gold Coaster keen to make it count at Albert Park.

And the Alpine F1 reserve driver did start perfectly in the first F2 Free Practice session, putting the #14 Virtuosi into P1 with a 1:28.989 in perfect conditions, overcoming Isack Hadjar and fellow Alpine Academy teammate Victor Martins by three-tenths.

With the cheers reserved for Doohan, unfortunately the Melbourne weather found a way to rain on that fast promise in Qualifying.

In stark contrast to FP1, the clouds dumped onto the track and the session was red flagged.

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Dennis Hauger (below) took out the Sprint race. Right: After being on the wrong end of a Qualifying red flag, Jack Doohan, who was a contender, was consigned to grid 15 for both races.

Iwasa then put in a perfectly timed flyer in a session that also ended with a red flag, which left Doohan stranded in P15 when Victor Martins found the concrete, with Pourchaire shaking his FP1 issues to share the front row over the stricken ART Grand Prix Frenchman, and Isack Hadjar.

Saturday saw Hauger on pole in the reverse grid race, and he largely stayed in control, holding off a late flag to come home by 1.120s over American Jak Crawford and Indian racer Kush Maini.

Doohan had no luck as tried to charge into the points, getting tapped by Juan Correa, ending his race on lap 14, and bringing out a yellow.

Teams pitted for wets under the yellow, as the rain made the track slippery for those still on the slicks, as several cars spun, including Brad Benavides which prolonged the flag before Hauger beat Crawford on the restart in a late dash.

Hauger also set the fastest lap in the run home, banking 11 points towards the drivers standings.

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The Feature race had perfect conditions for Iwasa’s charge to the flag, and it also brought some happier results for Doohan, as he came from P15 to inside the top-10 with a P8, earning vital points to salvage something for the weekend.

There was plenty of action in the Feature, which started with Crawford, on lap 8, slamming the wall after making contact with Doohan.

Drivers flocked for early tyre changes with racing resuming on lap 13.

Doohan took a hit to the back of the field to change to Medium compounds, as things started to unfold all over the track. At first it was Bearman and Hadjar tangling in the pits, whilst Nissany had a moment which put Fittipaldi onto his rear wing, and after the two made contact it dropped both of them down the field.

Hadjar then went off as he hurled expletives over the radio and dropped into 16th, whilst Iwasa and Pourchaire remained the effective leaders in P4 and P5.

The action didn’t stop there with Bearman

briefly becoming airborne, before Doohan’s Virtuosi teammate, Amaury Cordeel careened out the pits on cold tyres into the gravel.

Hauger made big moves to reach provisional P3, whilst Vesti found clean air to make an attack on him.

Nissany then went into the Turn 3 wall, before Fittipaldi was the victim of a big shunt, almost hitting the stricken #16.

Vesti found the same fate as Cordeel from exiting the pits on cold tyres under the yellow Behind the Safety Car, it was Iwasa, Pourchaire, and Hauger, with Doohan hanging onto the points in P10.

When Hauger spun from contact with Martins on the restart, that left Arthur Leclerc to inherit P3 for his first F2 podium.

Vesti came home in fourth ahead of Maloney, Daruvala, Verschoor, Doohan, Maini and Stanek.

F2 now heads to Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on April 28-30, where Hauger came up trumps last time.

TW Neal

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Formula 1 Round 03 AUSTRALIAN Grand Prix - Race report

Other than being a fraction slow off the line, Verstappen had everything under control and, with DRS, hit the front when he wanted to ...

VERSTAPPEN SURVIVES THE CARNAGE

By LUIS VASCONCELOS Images MOTORSPORT IMAGES

MAX VERSTAPPEN survived three difficult starts and a chaotic end of the race to win the Australian Grand Prix, the Dutchman facing unexpected opposition from the Mercedes duo in the early running before stamping his authority and putting a decent margin between himself and Hamilton.

A red flag on lap 55 put the counter back to zero and he had to do it all over again to secure his second win of the season and open a gap of 15 points over team-mate Sérgio Pérez in the championship.

While the final result confirmed Verstappen’s favoritism, the weekend was far from plain sailing for the Dutchman and his entire team. With the gap to the direct rivals much smaller than in the first two Grands Prix of the season, a mistake from Verstappen on his first lap in Q3 put him under pressure but on his final lap the double World Champion managed a clear lap and scored another pole position.

His first start, though, was not a good one, allowing George Russell to sneak into the lead with a daring move into Turn One, being followed by Hamilton two corners later, so, suddenly, we had a Mercedes onetwo with Verstappen in third.

Max later admitted that, “we had a very poor start and then lap one, I was careful, because I had a lot to lose and they had a lot to win. From my side, I just tried to avoid a contact. It’s quite clear in the rules what is allowed to do, what you’re allowed to do now on the outside. But clearly it’s not followed. But that’s okay, you know ... we had good pace and we passed them anyway.”

With Russell pitting early, when the Safety Car was called for the track to be cleared of a lot of gravel at the scene of Albon’s heavy shunt, Verstappen moved up to

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second immediately after the race was, very surprisingly, red flagged. At the restart the Red Bull wasn’t the quickest, again, with Hamilton leading and Alonso pushing Verstappen in the first few corners before the situation stabilised.

Once DRS was available the Dutchman passed Hamilton with ease and opened a gap of over 10s before a minor off in the penultimate corner cost him nearly four seconds: “It was just a tiny lock-up and I didn’t want to flat spot the tyres, so I ran a bit wide, cut the grass a bit (saved Melbourne a bit of money!), and carried on with no issues, because Lewis was not close behind.”

Then came the second red flag, after Magnussen clipped the wall on the outside of Turn 2 at the start of lap 55 and left a lot of debris on track all the way to Turn 4, forcing the Dutchman into a third start he, “wasn’t really looking forward to. I had a terrible first one, so I was actually not really looking forward to it. But, luckily, we seem to improve it a bit afterwards. But I think it was a bit more difficult because of how cold the tyres were, so you also didn’t really know what you’re going to get off the line.”

In the end, Verstappen admitted the gap to the opposition was not as big as in the previous two races, saying that, “it probably also came from the nature of the track, with the very low degradation. I think that made it a bit closer and the warm-up was also quite tricky. Some teams probably nailed it a bit better than others but it’s difficult to say. I think we need to go to a few more tracks to have a full understanding.”

Team mate Sérgio Pérez had a torrid time on Saturday, going off the track four times in FP3 and then beaching his RB19 on his first flying lap at the start of qualifying. Opting to start from the pits on Hard tyres, Pérez used the Safety Car period called to remove the

Ferrari Leclerc had spun off in the first lap, to twice change tyres, doing one lap on Softs before retaking his hard tyres, with the view of going all the way until the end without further stops.

The red flag that came after Albon’s shunt played against the Mexican, as everyone else got a free pit stop and choice of compound, so Pérez had to do all the hard work for himself, slowly picking up his rivals one by one until getting up to seventh place by lap 44. The second restart worked in his favor, as Gasly was taken out and Sainz’s post-race penalty also helped, promoting Pérez to P5, the best he could have realistically hope for after starting the race from the pit lane.

No wonder his first thought was, “it could have been a lot worse.”

Still, Pérez wasn’t too happy with the final result, “because the pace was really good, and I could pass a lot of people. In the beginning it was not easy to pass, because they were all in a DRS train, but then I picked them up one by

one and without the red flags I think I had the pace to go even further.”

Given how the race ended, 11 points (he also collected the point for the fastest lap) was a good score for the Mexican, who was on the verge of desperation after his dreadful Saturday.

LOW TEMPERATURES HELP MERCEDES SHINE

To see Mercedes as clearly the second force in Melbourne was a bit of a surprise but there were good reasons for that to happen.

First, let’s recall that Russell had qualified fourth in Bahrain – behind the Red Bull and Leclerc – and then again fourth in Saudi Arabia, this time with Alonso ahead of him instead of the Monegasque.

With Pérez at the back and Ferrari shifting set-up choices to put all its eggs on a better race pace and tyre management, there were the two Aston Martins to beat and both Russell and Hamilton managed to do it.

With tyre warm-up being an issue for

Lewis was a bit stunned to see the Mercs on grids two and three, and pretty please with P2 at the end.

Although he’d already been screwed tactically by the premature early red flag, George didn’t deserve to have his PU expire as well ...

Carlos Sainz recovered from the early red flag ‘dudding’ to be looking good for P4 before messing up the second restart .... before Sainz’s penalty handed him two extra points from fourth place ...

Oscar Piastri drove a controlled, sensible race, – and benefitted from the late race drama to snatch eighth place – his first F1 points. everybody, nailing the tyre preparation was the key to get a good qualifying position and Hamilton was briefly on provisional pole when Verstappen made a mistake at the start of Q3 but had his last lap preparation hampered by Hulkenberg, who blocked him badly at the end of it.

Russell, on the other hand, could get his tyres to the optimum temperature and shoot up to P2 behind Verstappen and ahead of his team mate, so there were two Mercedes right behind the Red Bull at the start of the race.

Compared to years gone by when Mercedes had the dominant car, the boot was on the other foot. Verstappen was the one who had to avoid risks at all costs, so Russell was aggressive to take the lead in the first corner and Hamilton did the same two corners later. As the two black cars ran close to each other, Hamilton could defend from the Dutchman as he was within DRS range of his team mate, but Russell’s early stop, during a SC period that soon became a red flag, left Hamilton vulnerable to Verstappen’s attacks as soon as the race resumed and DRS was available.

Still, second place was a great result for the seven-times World Champion, who kept Alonso under control for the rest of the race and admitted that this result, “was very unexpected. Getting a second and third and qualifying really blew us all away and was a huge boost of energy throughout the team.

That meant that we had a shot at trying to at least overtake Max for a second. And so we did, we both got ahead, which was amazing, to have a Mercedes one-two for a second. Obviously he came sailing by at one stage, but it was a really entertaining race and I had a really good battle with Fernando, which was awesome.”

Unfortunately for the German team, Russell’s race didn’t last much longer after the re-start, a Power Unit failure taking him out of the race at the end of lap 18 when he was already up to P4 after being dropped to 7th with his pit stop under the Safety Car and losing the advantage of already having the tyres to go to the end of the race negated by the subsequent red flag.

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Carlos Sainz’s penalty (read separate story) helped Aston Martin score its best result of the season, for while Fernando Alonso was always behind the VerstappenMercedes battle, without being ever able to push Hamilton into a mistake, Lance Stroll was the luckiest man in the race to survive two incidents and still finish in fourth place.

The Canadian was the meat in a sandwich in the opening lap, touching Leclerc – who spun out of the race – while having Alonso on the other side of his car ... and his car survived without any significant damage. Passed by Sainz on lap 15, Stroll was unable to stay close to him, or later Gasly, losing a bit of contact with the four cars in front until the second red flag handed him a golden opportunity. That opportunity that became even bigger when the Sainz tapped Alonso into a spin at the restart and he got ahead of the two Spaniards but then he went off by himself in Turn 3 and dropped to last – only to be rescued by the third and final red flag getting his P5 back,

QUALIFYING RACE 03

WITH THE four top teams in a league of their own, there’s normally only three points available for the rest of the field but, in Melbourne, there was enough chaos to open opportunities for everybody.

Russell’s Power Unit failure and Leclerc’s incident opened two extra places inside the top 10 and Alpine looked set to get two of them, with Gasly harrying Sainz all the way, but lacking the straight-line speed, even with DRS, to get past him. The final re-start chaos took him and Ocon, who was up to 10th, out of the race, with McLaren being the biggest beneficiary, as Norris completed the race in sixth place, while local hero Oscar Piastri scored his first four Formula One points with his eighth place.

Norris did very well to avoid incidents in all three starts, but found Hulkenberg quite hard to pass, the Haas driver quickly losing contact with the back of the frontrunners’ group. It took him 37 laps to finally get the move on the German, but that probably made the final outcome even more satisfying.

Piastri also spent 15 frustrating laps behind Tsunoda, later admitting that, “I’m still learning to use the battery and the DRS to the best possible effect as I was stuck behind him for a long time. When Lando got past him, I sort of got a better idea of how to manage things, but this is just my third Grand Prix, so I needed a bit of time to optimise everything and eventually got past him. After that, on clean air, the pace was really good and it feels great to score my first ever Formula One points in my home race.”

Between the two McLarens, Nico Hulkenberg opened his 2023 account with a fighting drive to seventh place,

RESULTS RACE 02 58 LAPS MELBOURNE AGP

Pos Driver

Time

Pos Drivers

Make

Laps

Margin

1

Max Verstappen

1:16.732

1

Max Verstappen

Red Bull

58

2:32:38.371

2

George Russell

0.236

2

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes

58

3

Lewis Hamilton

0.372

3

Fernando Alonso

Aston Martin

58

4

Fernando Alonso

0.407

4

Lance Stroll

Aston Martin

58

5

Carlos Sainz

0.538

5 Sergio Perez

Red Bull

6

Lance Stroll

0.576

6 Lando Norris

McLaren

7

Charles Leclerc

0.637

7

8

Alex Albon

0.877

8 Oscar Piastri

9

Pierre Gasly

0.943

9

10 Nico Hulkenberg 11

CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER RACE 03 Pos Driver

Points

1

Max Verstapen

69

-

0.179 s1

2

Sergio Perez

54

-

0.769 s1

3

Fernando Alonso

45

-

3.082 s2

4

Lewis Hamilton

38 s2

58

3.320 s15

5

Carlos Sainz

20

58

3.701 s7

6

Lance Stroll

20 s1

Haas

58

4.939 s3

7

George Russell

18 t3

McLaren

58

5.382 s8

8

Lando Norris

8 s12

Zhou Guanyu

Alfa Romeo

58

6.052 s8

9

Nico Hulkenberg

6 s6

1.003

10 Yuki Tsunoda

AlphaTauri

58

6.052 s2

10 Charles Leclerc

6 t2

Esteban Ocon

1.036

11 Valtteri Bottas

Alfa Romeo

58

6.513 s8

11

Valtteri Bottas

4 t2

12 Yuki Tsunoda

1.367

12 Carlos Sainz

Ferrari

58

6.594 t7

12 Esteban Ocon

4 t2

13 Lando Norris

1.387

13 Pierre Gasly

Alpine

56

2 laps t4

13 Oscar Piastri

4 s6

14 Kevin Magnussen

1.397

14 Esteban Ocon

Alpine

56

2 laps

t3

14 Pierre Gasly

4 t3

15 Nyck De Vries

1.603

15 Nyck De Vries

AlphaTauri

56

2 laps

-

15 Zhou Guanyu

2 s2

16 Oscar Piastri

1.785

16 Logan Sargeant

Williams

56

2 laps s2

16 Yuki Tsunoda

1 t2

17 Zhou Guanyu

1.808

17 Kevin Magnussen Haas

52

6 laps t3

17 Kevin Magnussen

1 t5

18 Logan Sargeant

1.825

NC George Russell

Mercedes

17

41 laps t16

18 Alexander Albon

1 t5

19 Valtteri Bottas

1.982

NC Alexander Albon

Williams

6

52 laps t12

19 Logan Sargeant

0 t3

20 Sergio Perez

N/A

NC Charles Leclerc

Ferrari

0

58 laps

20 Nyck De Vries

0 t2

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Nico Hulkenberg

-

t13

-

in a weekend where he put team-mate Kevin Magnussen in the shade. His stern defence against Norris shocked the young British driver a bit but the payback was also ruthless, as when the McLaren car eventually got ahead, there was no room on the outside of Turn 13 for the German who had to take to the gravel to avoid contact.

Sainz’s penalty promoted Zhou Guanyu to ninth place at the end of a weekend where Alfa Romeo was tremendously underwhelming, while Yuki Tsunoda finally scored his first point of the season after two consecutive 11th places, after being frustrated by his car’s lack of top speed that made him a sitting duck in the back straight, where he lost many a position to faster rivals.

,

HOW THE CHAOS ENSUED WHEN KEVIN Magnussen hit the wall on the exit of Turn 2 at the start of Australian Grand Prix’s 55th lap, the Dane couldn’t imagine the chaos the subsequent red flag was going to cause. With one lap done behind the Safety Car and a third standing start for the final two laps, there was always going to be absolute carnage as those with little or nothing to lose were going to go for it.

While the first three kept their noses clean, Carlos Sainz was so focused on defending from Stroll, going into Turn 1, that he hit the right rear wheel of the other Aston Martin, spinning his childhood hero, Fernando Alonso, around – a move that earned him a 5s penalty that dropped him to P12 and left the Ferrari driver fuming, with even Alonsi admitting “it was a bit harsh, because on cold tyres and brakes it’s hard to judge the grip going into the first corner.”

With the two Spanish drivers making contact, Gasly and Pérez took to the run-off area in avoidance but in his rush to get back to the track the Frenchman didn’t see team-mate Esteban Ocon coming fast on the outside, continued to move to the right hand side of the track, the inevitable contact taking both Alpines out of the race. Behind them Sargeant completely misjudged his braking for Turn One, rammed de Vries’ Alpha Tauri hard and took both out of the race, meaning only 12 cars were still running when the third red flag was thrown out.

Just before that happened, Stroll out-braked himself into Turn 3, trying to keep Sainz behind and nearly beached himself on the gravel, resuming in last place.

As the red flag was shown when the drivers were still inside Sector One of the lap, it was the order by which they passed the Safety Car Line 2 – placed at the end of the pit lane – that determined what the order would be for the final re-start, this one for just a slow lap behind the Safety Car as there was just one lap remaining until the end of the race. That was, effectively, the same order they’d taken the restart, so Alonso, Stroll and Pérez, who were 11th, 12th and 10th, respectively, when the race stopped, resumed in P3, P5 and P6, respectively, while Hulkenberg and Tsunoda were the biggest losers, as they were up to fourth and fifth, respectively, but were sent back to P8 and P11 for the final re-start with Bottas dropping from ninth to 12th at the same time.

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Supercars RACE REPORT Round 2 – AGP

The Coke duo had a huge weekend ... Image: MARK HORSBURGH

EREBUS BRINGS THE FIZZ TO THE AGP

ROUND TWO OF THE SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP WAS AN OUTING TO ALBERT PARK. IT STARTED WITH A FAMILIAR STORY, BUT ENDED WITH A NEW ONE, AS COCA COLA RACING BY EREBUS TURNED ON A DOMINANT SHOW WITH BRODIE KOSTECKI TAKING HIS MAIDEN WINS, WHILST ALSO BECOMING THE NEW ACE TO CHASE. TIMOTHY W NEAL REPORTS …

THE GEN3 field descended on Albert Park for the Melbourne SuperSprint for the most heavily attended Australian Grand Prix in history.

After the punishing dual 250 km races in the tight confines of Newcastle, the Albert Park Street Circuit afforded a different challenge for the teams, offering a first look at the new machines on a quicker and wider circuit.

The trade-off was four races of 19, 15, and two of 13 laps with an enforced pit stop and tyre change, in which drivers would be competing for the Larry Perkins Trophy, in honour of the six-time Bathurst winner who also had 11 Formula 1 starts between 1974-77.

Race 1 would also represent the 800th Supercars race since the V8 Supercars era began in 1997.

The respective garages headed in with four sets of the Dunlop Super Softs and, for the only mixed compound event of the season, four sets of the Hard rubber and 16 Wets.

Huge crowds would be entertained by the short format Supercars racing, but plenty of questions would arise out of the weekend, adding to the vast myriad of concern that already exists in regards to the new Gen3 chargers.

On the much quicker circuit with greater straight line speeds, not one Mustang would feature on the podium and, to make matters worse, Race 4 would implement a rolling start due to concerns over two Mustangs that spontaneously caught fire in very similar circumstances.

There were rumours of Ford team meetings over the parity concerns, but the real query might have to wait until Perth, when teams will be back on the same tyre compound.

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The second practice session saw times tumble on the Super Softs, with Andre Heimgartner topping another session (1:47.870), and as a prelude to Q1, De Pasquale was quick again for a second P2, as he and the #8 Camaro swooped late to top Cam Waters.

Q1/Q2

Shane pitched in to help the 888 team rebuild the car after his practice crash. Image: THOMAS MILES No one could claim however that the racing wasn’t at least entertaining, as drivers got their elbows out and provided plenty of passing.

But even that would raise concerns as the prospective garages would get plenty of practice in the rebuilding side of things.

In all, it would also be a weekend of firsts, as the Championship gained a new leader, and a hometown team played a very strong hand in a highly intriguing Round 2.

THURSDAY

DAY 1 of the AGP was jam packed with Gen3 action, featuring two practice sessions, qualifying for Races 1 and 2, and the third race of the season.

Albert Park’s first ever Gen3 session saw teams largely running the hard Dunlop, and

early on, plenty of the cars looked very lively in the back-end.

The session would be topped by Mark Winterbottom over De Pasquale and SVG with 1:49.967, but two more teams got a taste of the Gen3 damage scramble, with both Tim Slade and Shane van Gisbergen making hard contact with the concrete.

Slade was the first to find the fencing at Turn 5, inflicting plenty of damage to his left rear, with the damage leaving the #25 PremiAir Camaro touch-and-go to make Race 1 and a certainty to miss Q1.

SVG likewise took damage to the backleft-rear at Turn 8 going into a wild spin, which ruled him out of the second practice session. Fans could then see him with tools in hand assisting the team to make it for Q1, which he did.

THE FIRST Qualifying session saw teams revert back to the Hards to save their Soft allocations, which put the expected pole time back to the 50 and a tick under.

The #11 DJR, having proved a much smoother machine than at Newcastle, took a vindicating pole for Race 1, posting a 1:49.316.

He’d get it on a late flyer by 0.040s over Brodie Kostecki, with SVG and Chaz Mostert pouncing on the second row.

Q2 saw van Gisbergen experience his first Gen3 session on the super soft Dunlop, making perfect use of the extra grip, laying down a 1:47.253 to be the day’s fastest.

Erebus’ Brown held onto P1 late in the piece before a fully pitted field came out of the pits with minutes to spare for one more push.

Brown held onto P2 – just 0.019 behind SVG – with Feeney and Kostecki on the second row, and Winterbottom, Reynolds and Waters in tow. Davison, Courtney and Mostert all went under 48s to fill the first five rows.

RACE 1 – SVG OPENS ALBERT PARK’S GEN3 ACCOUNT

VAN GISBERGEN moved up from P4 to take the first win of the weekend and 77th of his career.

Taking advantage of an early gap, he easily dived past De Pasquale early, with the

Other than a brush with the wall in the second race, Jack Le Brocq was a strong top 10 runner all weekend. Below: A win, two seconds and a fourth for SVG was still just enough for second over the weekend.

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

0.391s, with Brown getting P3 over Feeney, Mostert, De Pasquale, Waters, Le Brocq, Courtney and Jones.

It was also the first time in Erebus’ history that the team had scored a double podium.

FRIDAY - RACE 2 - ELBOWS OUT

enforced late pit stops solving the rest of the podium with Kostecki in P2 and Brown in behind him.

Both T8 and Erebus played it smart with the Hard and Soft mixed compounds, and as it was declared a wet race with slight rain, it negated the two-compound rule.

The first Supercars Gen3 outing Albert Park got underway with DJR’s De Pasquale on pole with Kostecki next to him, and SVG and Mostert on the second row with a gloom hanging over the track for the 19-lap outing.

(Remarkably, the PremiAir team got Tim Slade’s Camaro back on the track for a pit start after a big re-build following the P1 crash).

The pole sitter took the first corner with Kostecki tight behind him, before SVG swooped for P2 by Turn 8 over Kostecki and Waters.

It was a tight field down to Fraser in P24, with SVG ghosting De Pasquale’s wing, taking him with a relatively easy and smooth dive at Turn 3.

Mostert and Brown moved through into P4/5 when Waters went wide, and by lap seven, SVG found some extra tenths to extend the split to over a second, whilst Brown in P5 was the fastest on track.

Lap 12 had Brown pass Mostert into P4, with two seconds to make up on P3 whilst De Pasquale still held onto the one second split.

With SVG yet to pit by Lap 17, De Pasquale went in and suffered a stuck tyre, destroying his podium push with the tight late margins.

SVG dived on lap 18 with a two second lead, with Kostecki in tow, and Brown inheriting a well earned P3.

A one lap sprint to the chequered flag had SVG hold off a late charging Kostecki by

Brodie Kostecki claimed his maiden Supercars victory in his 75th start, in a short and hectic race that provided the most entertaining outing of the year so far, albeit in a small eight-lap dose of action.

Courtney initially claimed P2 over SVG and Feeney, but a stewards call in the evening ruled that the #5 Tickford had caused a first corner incident involving Waters and Reynolds, and he received a 30 second penalty … AA’s take? A racing incident!

Although it was short, every one of those eight laps was great elbows-out racing, with the unlucky front row starter in Brown, having done all the hard work early when he took the first corner off SVG, then held him off on Hard tyres.

(Hazelwood also started at the back, having been disqualified for a drop-gear infringement from Thursday).

Reynolds went off early into the gravel after receiving contact from Waters (which was deemed as Courtney’s fault) bringing out the first lap Safety Car. The Percat WAU Mustang then caught fire, with flames coming out of the front left (extinguished in the pits), while Reynolds also managed to rejoin the field.

The green flag dropped with Brown making the call to go at Turn 14 with SVG pulling through for some brilliant door-todoor stuff, leading to a massive reshuffling of the top order.

SVG’s aggression dropped him into P5 when he was forced wide by the race winner, as Brown also lost the lead with Kostecki shooting into P1 over Courtney and his teammate.

A big dive into the pits from half the field, including Brown from P3, ended an actionpacked lap in a now time-certain race, as Kostecki, Courtney and SVG all resisted pitting until two and half minutes before the race would become time certain.

Le Brocq then stopped on track after he hit the wall hard through Turn 7, calling out another Safety Car – under which the race would end.

The front three then pitted under the Safety Car to hold the podium spots, with an entertaining but all too short race ending in unfortunate circumstances.

Feeney was elevated into P3 over Mostert, De Pasquale and Brown, with Fullwood, Randle, Golding and Fraser (first career top10) filling the top-10.

SATURDAY - Q3/Q4

THE PENULTIMATE day of the AGP started out with two back-to-back Qualifying sessions, with Erebus continuing its stellar weekend with a front-row lock out for Race 3 of the weekend.

Kostecki edged out his teammate by

After a great run in the qualifying sessions – three top-10s, including one P5 – Matt Payne had a more difficult run of luck in the races. Here leading Thomas Randle.

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Supercars RACE REPORT Round 2 – AGP

0.806 and, after Thursday’s first ever team double-pole, the Coca Cola Racing crew also achieved its maiden one-two.

MSR scrambled in the garage overnight to repair Le Brocq’s Camaro after the late Race 2 incident, replacing the rear chassis clip after the 150km shunt.

Q3 was the first ever wet tyre session for the Gen3s, with Kostecki’s early 2:00.082 getting the job done, as the brief switch to slicks was ended when Reynolds continued a tough weekend by going off, red flagging the session.

Meanwhile, Bryce Fullwood gained his best ever start with P3, with De Pasquale continuing his good pace to sneak over Penrite rookie Matt Payne.

Davison, Golding, Heimgartner, Frosty, and Mostert made up the top-10.

A shortened 10 minute Q4 on the Super Softs was taken out by Broc Feeney, giving him his maiden Supercars pole position, continuing the weekend of firsts.

The Gold Coaster can also claim to be the youngest ever pole getter in Supercars history.

Kostecki again looked the goods deep into Q4, but a big swoop of 13 cars knocked him from the perch, with the #88 T8 car putting down a 1:47.768 to jump from P22 after a switch to Softs, to top WAU’s Mostert.

Brown put in the good yards for Erebus again, with Heimgartner joining him on the second row.

In a top-10 split by just 0.885s, Fullwood, Le Brocq, Davison, Payne, Randle, and Pye filled those numbers.

Top: Brock Feeney went Hard (one lap)/Soft on Sunday and won from pole. Above: Grid for the third (Saturday) race saw a pair of Coca-Cola cars on the front row. Below: After a couple of top 10s in the first two races, Courtney’s weekend ended early on Saturday with a huge under-bonnet fire, the second Musatng to immolate at Albert Park ... Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

wheel sensor overheating – although full post-weekend investigations were called for.

In amongst all that, there was an 11-lap race, with Waters and De Pasquale as the only drivers starting on Hards.

Kostecki’s blistering start into the first corner left Brown to catch up, with Golding then making early contact with Winterbottom, sending him into the wall before he limped back to the pits.

That’s about when the #5 Mustang lit up like Little Bourke St in February, whilst De Pasquale was turned by the Pizza Hut #96 courtesy of a shunt from Payne.

RACE 3 – AGP GOES BETTER WITH COKE

Brodie Kostecki went back-to-back in an action packed 11 lap race and, again, the shorter proceedings weren’t without total chaos.

Race Control had its hands full with this outing and, again, that shaped the podium after the late flurry of pit stops caused penalties galore, including Fullwood and Davison getting stripped of podiums for a pair of unsafe releases.

Erebus scored its second double podium of the weekend with Brown promoted into his second P3, with SVG coming from P11 to take second place.

With plenty of carnage being perpetrated in the midfield, the #99 Camaro kept his nose clean (almost) and was too good out front, despite breaking his splitter early on Turns 9 and 10.

The proceedings also witnessed another first-lap Mustang blaze, with Courtney’s Tickford lighting up the pitlane in a scary fire which was promptly attended to.

In the same front left locale as the Percat blaze, the cause was initially identified as a

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QUALIFYING RACE 3 Pos Driver 1 Anton de Pasquale 2 Brodie Kostecki 3 Shane van Gisbergen 4 Chaz Mostert 5 Cameron Waters 6 William Brown 7 Jack Le Brocq 8 Broc Feeney 9 Matthew Payne 10 Nick Percat 11 Thomas Randle 12 James Courtney 13 Scott Pye 14 Macauley Jones 15 Will Davison 16 James Golding 17 Mark Winterbottom 18 David Reynolds 19 Andre Heimgartner 20 Todd Hazelwood 21 Jack Smith 22 Cameron Hill 23 Declan Fraser 24 Bryce Fullwood 25 Tim Slade

RESULTS RACE 3 19 LAPS Time 1:49.3167*H 0:00.0401 0:00.0716 0:00.0798 0:00.2080 0:00.3305 0:00.3325 0:00.3433 0:00.4423 0:00.5388 0:00.6666 0:00.7136 0:00.7406 0:00.7459 0:00.7465 0:00.8044 0:00.8743 0:00.9800 0:01.2729 0:01.2795 0:01.4229 0:01.4288 0:01.7536 0:01.9437 DNQ

Pos Drivers 1 Shane van Gisbergen 2 Brodie Kostecki 3 William Brown 4 Broc Feeney 5 Chaz Mostert 6 Anton de Pasquale 7 Cameron Waters 8 Jack Le Brocq 9 James Courtney 10 Macauley Jones 11 Bryce Fullwood 12 Thomas Randle 13 Matthew Payne 14 Nick Percat 15 Scott Pye 16 Will Davison 17 Andre Heimgartner 18 Cameron Hill 19 David Reynolds 20 Tim Slade 21 Mark Winterbottom 22 James Golding 23 Jack Smith 24 Declan Fraser 25 Todd Hazelwood

QUALIFYING RACE 4 Laps 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19

Race time 35:42.5401 35:42.9311 35:44.4927 35:49.9171 35:56.8396 35:57.3193 35:57.6726 35:57.6837 35:59.5879 35:59.7166 36:02.6630 36:04.5022 36:05.7001 36:08.3912 36:11.2220 36:16.7179 36:16.9035 36:19.9022 36:20.0096 36:22.5792 36:23.7584 36:23.8073 36:24.0692 36:28.6484 36:30.9141

s2 s3 s4 t1 t5 t2 t1 s3 s4 s13 t1 t3 t4 t2 t1 s2 s4 t1 s5 t4 t6 t2 t1 t5

Pos Driver 1 Shane van Gisbergen 2 William Brown 3 Broc Feeney 4 Brodie Kostecki 5 Mark Winterbottom 6 David Reynolds 7 Cameron Waters 8 Will Davison 9 James Courtney 10 Chaz Mostert 11 Anton de Pasquale 12 Thomas Randle 13 Jack Le Brocq 14 Scott Pye 15 Matthew Payne 16 Andre Heimgartner 17 Nick Percat 18 Declan Fraser 19 James Golding 20 Bryce Fullwood 21 Macauley Jones 22 Jack Smith 23 Cameron Hill 24 Todd Hazelwood 25 Tim Slade

Time 5 1:47.2537RSS +0:00.0196 +0:00.0789 +0:00.1140 +0:00.1368 +0:00.2057 +0:00.2580 +0:00.2685 +0:00.3914 +0:00.4198 +0:00.4222 +0:00.5118 +0:00.6284 +0:00.6325 +0:00.6633 +0:00.7170 +0:00.7170 +0:00.8580 +0:00.9181 +0:00.9612 +0:01.1099 +0:01.1262 +0:01.3153 DSQ DNQ

RESULTS RACE 4 8 LAPS Pos Drivers 1 Brodie Kostecki 2 Shane van Gisbergen 3 Broc Feeney 4 Chaz Mostert 5 Anton de Pasquale 6 William Brown 7 Bryce Fullwood 8 Thomas Randle 9 Mark Winterbottom 10 Declan Fraser 11 Will Davison 12 Macauley Jones 13 Tim Slade 14 Jack Smith 15 Cameron Hill 16 Andre Heimgartner 17 Matthew Payne 18 Scott Pye 19 Cameron Waters 20 Todd Hazelwood 21 James Golding 22 James Courtney 23 David Reynolds NC Jack Le Brocq NC Nick Percat

Laps Race time 8 21:28.6393 8 21:30.5610 8 21:31.4365 8 21:32.1967 8 21:33.1467 8 21:34.1050 8 21:34.6894 8 21:35.3220 8 21:36.8333 8 21:37.5511 8 21:38.0627 8 21:38.8014 8 21:39.3033 8 21:40.0155 8 21:40.9199 8 21:42.1220 8 21:43.6007 8 21:44.4093 8 21:44.7412 8 21:45.0640 8 21:51.0459 8 21:59.7440 7 21:45.9134 5 14:43.3226 -

s3 t1 s6 s6 t4 s13 s4 t4 s8 t3 s9 s12 s8 s8 t2 t4 t12 s4 t2 t13 t17 t11 t7

The #11 Mustang’s front end was in a dire state, sticking up every which-way, whilst Jones’ Camaro wasn’t much better.

Kostecki got the jump again at the green flag, with SVG looming and picking up spots into P6 with 10 minutes to run.

At the time-certain six minute mark, the pit window opened, and with the flurry of stops and tyre changes, Davison’s early release to get a podium had him firing into the T8 tyres, with a Dunlop rear flying all over the place, narrowly missing a marshall, before cannoning down pit lane in crazy scenes.

Amidst the mayhem, Kostecki took the chequered flag for his second ever – and well deserved – triumph, to be within one point of the Championship lead.

RACE 4 – FEENEY SWOOPS AS KOSTECKI GOES TOP

Feeney capitalised on his pole as the Triple Eight gun secured his second ever Main Game victory, as Heimgartner also gained his first Gen3 podium in the 13 lap Super Sprint finale.

But perhaps the biggest on-track story of the weekend was that Erebus’ Kostecki stormed to the top of the Championship with his fourth podium of the weekend and his second P3, as well as securing the Larry Perkins Trophy.

It capped a sensational weekend for Coca Cola Racing, with Brown also making it to the podium twice to make it six all up for the hometown Camaro team.

It was the first uninterrupted race for the hectic sprint format weekend, but went ahead without Courtney following the Mustang barbecue from the third race outing.

The midfield battle had extra spice with SVG and the #99 in P12/14 respectively, and they scrapped it out for the Perkins silverware.

The finale got under way with Feeney on pole over Mostert, and Brown and Heimgartner on the second row A rolling start due to safety concerns over the in-car fires began the 13 lap outing in perfect conditions, as Feeney took the first corner before Mostert took the lead at Turn 5 after going door-to-door, with Brown, hitting the gap for P2.

All the Hard tyre runners went in for the early change to Softs after lap 2, with that move proving the tonic for T8’s second win of the weekend.

QUALIFYING RACE 5 Pos Driver Time 1 Brodie Kostecki 22:00.0824*W 2 William Brown +0:00.8063 3 Bryce Fullwood +0:02.6990 4 Anton de Pasquale +0:03.0119 5 Matthew Payne +0:03.3861 6 Will Davison +0:03.4007 7 James Golding +0:03.5175 8 Andre Heimgartner +0:03.5817 9 Mark Winterbottom +0:03.7080 10 Chaz Mostert +0:03.7326 11 Shane van Gisbergen +0:03.8243 12 Jack Smith +0:04.1028 13 Macauley Jones +0:04.2960 14 Tim Slade +0:04.8184 15 James Courtney +0:04.9867 16 Declan Fraser +0:05.2784 17 Jack Le Brocq +0:05.7761 18 Cameron Hill +0:05.8597 19 Thomas Randle +0:05.9659 20 Cameron Waters +0:06.8383 21 Broc Feeney +0:07.1216 22 Scott Pye +0:07.1587 23 Todd Hazelwood +0:07.3140 24 David Reynolds +0:08.5554 25 Nick Percat No Time

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Despite a pair of pit lane penalties ruining his result, Bryce Fullwood had a top weekend, qualifying third and fifth and running in contention – leading at one stage after a pass on Chaz M. Below: New championship leader – Brodie Kostecki heads to WA in front ... take P2 at the tight Turn 3, with Feeney in P10 as the highest pitter with 4 laps remaining.

With two laps remaining Fullwood and SVG stayed out, as Kostecki looked the goods to take the championship lead with the podium sorted in the highest earlier pit stops.

Fullwood went in but got a 15 second penalty for the second race running with an unsafe release.

Feeney then blasted into the lead, with BJR #8 in P2 and the weekend’s hero taking a great P3 after starting at P14.

SVG built on his point tally with a fighting P4, coming home over Le Brocq and Davison, with Jones, Reynolds, Hazelwood and Waters making up the top-10.

Brown made a big move on Mostert before hitting the dusty wide line, rotating at Turn 11 into the wall and gravel, with Fullwood pouncing on P2 over Davison.

SVG had quickly gone to P5 over Randle and Payne, with seven of the 13 laps to run.

RESULTS RACE 5 11 LAPS Pos Drivers 1 Brodie Kostecki 2 Shane van Gisbergen 3 William Brown 4 Chaz Mostert 5 Andre Heimgartner 6 Jack Le Brocq 7 Broc Feeney 8 Tim Slade 9 Thomas Randle 10 Cameron Waters 11 Will Davison 12 Bryce Fullwood 13 Declan Fraser 14 David Reynolds 15 Todd Hazelwood 16 Nick Percat 17 Cameron Hill 18 Jack Smith 19 James Golding 20 Scott Pye 21 Matthew Payne NC Anton de Pasquale NC Macauley Jones NC James Courtney NC Mark Winterbottom

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QUALIFYING RACE 6 Laps 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 1 1 -

Race time 26:25.0187 26:27.4591 26:31.0172 26:31.4599 26:34.9733 26:35.5715 26:36.1833 26:37.5481 26:39.2493 26:39.4015 26:41.0801 26:41.4048 26:42.4494 26:44.1392 26:45.4622 26:46.0619 26:46.2317 26:49.3886 26:49.5524 26:56.2715 27:18.4297 1:58.2125 1:59.6823 DNF DNF

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s9 t1 s6 s3 s11 s14 s6 s10 s10 t5 t9 s3 s10 s8 s9 s1 t6 t12 s2 t16 t18 t10 t9 t16

Pos Driver 1 Broc Feeney 2 Chaz Mostert 3 William Brown 4 Andre Heimgartner 5 Bryce Fullwood 6 Jack Le Brocq 7 Will Davison 8 Matthew Payne 9 Thomas Randle 10 Scott Pye 11 Mark Winterbottom 12 Shane van Gisbergen 13 Macauley Jones 14 Brodie Kostecki 15 Cameron Waters 16 Nick Percat 17 Anton de Pasquale 18 Declan Fraser 19 James Courtney 20 Cameron Hill 21 Todd Hazelwood 22 James Golding 23 Jack Smith 24 Tim Slade 25 David Reynolds

autoactionmag

Fullwood then charged into the lead with a beautiful move on lap 8, turn 8, out of the chicane with the two yet to pit as SVG took Le Brocq for P4.

Mostert began dropping back with a Davison move, leaving a gap for SVG to

RESULTS RACE 6 13 LAPS Time 1:47.7685*SS +0:00.1899 +0:00.3229 +0:00.3986 +0:00.4383 +0:00.7061 +0:00.8164 +0:00.8710 +0:00.8837 +0:00.8858 +0:00.9019 +0:00.9367 +0:00.9907 +0:00.9971 +0:01.0696 +0:01.1350 +0:01.4998 +0:01.5818 +0:02.0290 +0:02.0689 +0:02.4566 +0:04.2750 +0:04.7266 +0:07.5939

Pos Drivers 1 Broc Feeney 2 Andre Heimgartner 3 Brodie Kostecki 4 Shane van Gisbergen 5 Jack Le Brocq 6 Will Davison 7 Macauley Jones 8 David Reynolds 9 Todd Hazelwood 10 Cameron Waters 11 Thomas Randle 12 Matthew Payne 13 Scott Pye 14 Chaz Mostert 15 Tim Slade 16 James Golding 17 Jack Smith 18 Bryce Fullwood 19 Mark Winterbottom 20 Nick Percat 21 Declan Fraser 22 Anton de Pasquale 23 William Brown NC Cameron Hill NC James Courtney

THE NEXT round of the 2023 Supercars Championship will offer some more solid answers to the revolving carousel of Gen3 questions when the show heads to WA for the Perth SuperSprint.

We’ll get longer sprints on another fast track and a return to the Soft compound, on what is traditionally a pretty clean running track … until now?

CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS AFTER ROUND 2 Laps 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 11 12 -

Race time 25:55.1457 25:56.0575 25:57.8689 26:03.9176 26:05.0624 26:05.6703 26:06.5984 26:10.3960 26:10.9637 26:10.9663 26:11.6690 26:12.5347 26:12.6739 26:13.9855 26:15.1118 26:15.3040 26:16.6309 26:17.1906 26:17.9417 26:21.5696 26:21.8483 26:34.0975 26:57.2636 24:27.2445 -

s2 s11 s8 s1 s1 s6 s17 s12 s5 t3 t4 t3 t12 s9 s8 s6 t13 t8 t4 t3 t5 t20 t4 t6

Pos Driver 1 Brodie Kostecki 2 Chaz Mostert 3 Shane van Gisbergen 4 Andre Heimgartner 5 William Brown 6 Cameron Waters 7 Broc Feeney 8 David Reynolds 9 Jack Le Brocq 10 Bryce Fullwood 11 Will Davison 12 Mark Winterbottom 13 James Golding 14 Thomas Randle 15 Scott Pye 16 Tim Slade 17 Matthew Payne 18 Anton de Pasquale 19 Todd Hazelwood 20 Macauley Jones 21 Jack Smith 22 Declan Fraser 23 Cameron Hill 24 James Courtney 25 Nick Percat

Points 514 482 428 386 383 369 368 325 325 275 271 267 263 262 260 253 247 239 217 208 188 175 169 151 117

www.autoaction.com.au I 57

TEST YOUR GENERAL MOTORSPORT KNOWLEDGE ACROSS

DOWN

3 Not one but two Formula 1 World Champions raced in NASCAR at the Circuit of America last weekend, Kimi Raikkonen was one; who was the other? (surname)

1 Rickard Rydell and Jim Richards won the Super Touring Bathurst 1000 in 1998 racing for what brand?

7 Williams won the first Adelaide Grand Prix with Keke Rosberg but which team filled the other two positions?

2 A WRC Rally winner attended the Adelaide Motorsport Festival – who was it? (surname)

10 What number bike is Francesco Bagnaia running in MotoGP this season

3 Who am I? An Aussie, I won an Indy Lights race in 2000, the Bathurst 1000 in 1998 and the Bathurst 24 Hour in 2003? (surname)

11 Which NASCAR legend won his sole Daytona 500 on his 20th attempt? (surname)

4 With what team did Michael Schumacher make his Formula 1 debut?

13 Which French driver has competed in the most Formula 1 races? (surname) 14 What is the name of the first sequence of turns in Adelaide?

15 Colin McRae is famous for rallying in Subarus, but he won nine WRC events with which other brand?

16 At the Adelaide Motorsport Festival Valtteri Bottas drove the Bathurst 1000 winning car. Will Davison and who won in that car? (surname) 17 Which manufacturer won the Sebring 12 Hour in 2023?

20 Who won the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1998? (surname) 21 Which brand is Miguel Oliveira racing for in MotoGP this season?

22 Who is the youngest MotoGP World Champion in history? (surname) 23 Who holds the record of most Formula 1 wins without winning a Formula 1 title? (surname) 25 Aside from Ferrari, what is the only other team to win in Formula 1 with a Ferrari engine?

5 How many times has Derek Bell won the Le Mans 24 Hours?

6 How many years were Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison teammates at Ford Performance Racing?

8 Who won their first F1 race at the Hungaroring in 1993? (full name)

9 Who won the F1 title in 1998? (surname) 12 Which New Zealander won the Australian Drivers’ Championship in 1998 before launching a successful career in America? (surname)

13 Who outspokenly said after the first MotoGP race of the season “Sincerely, it’s the first race and we have a lot of riders in the hospital.

We cannot continue like this.” (full name) 17 Who won last year’s Daytona 500? (surname)

18 Which former F1 driver drove a Ferrari Formula 1 car at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival? (surname)

26 Who made his debut for Super Black Racing in the 2016 Sandown 500? (surname)

19 How many times has Richie Stanaway started the Bathurst 1000?

27 Which manufacturer won the Sebring 1000 miles in 2023?

24 Who was Garth Tander’s Supercars team-mate in 2011 (surname).

Australian Grand Prix preview answers: 1 down – sixth, 2 down – Bottas, 3 across – Campos, 4 down – sixteen, 5 across – Vic, 6 down – Alpine, 7 down – Leclerc, 8 down – Grove Racing, 9 down – Sargeant, 10 across – two, 11 across – Schumacher, 12 down – Mostert, 13 down – Whiteford, 14 across – Van Gisbergen, 15 across – sixth, 16 across – one, 17 down – Kostecki, 18 down – Russell, 19 across – Waters, 20 across – four, 21 across – three, 22 down – Hill, 23 across – fifty-eight, 24 across – Leclerc, 25 down – Perez, 26 across – Ferrari, 27 down – two, 28 across – three, 28 down – three, 29 across – four

We take a look back at what was making news in Auto Action 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago

1973 THE ANNUAL Mount Panorama production car classic became known as the Hardie Ferodo 1000.

From 1963 to 1972, the race was run as a 500 mile race but, in a surprise announcement, it was revealed the event would be extended to 1000km.

Other sweeping changes ensured the race was the richest in Australia with the winner to receive at least $10,000, (over $106,000 in today’s money).

On the driver’s front there was also plenty of chat with John Goss losing his Sports Sedan Porsche drive for unrevealed reasons, while Bob Jane was rumoured to join the Holden Dealer Team for the Sandown race.

1983 ALAN JONES made an unexpected return to Formula 1 a fortnight earlier than anticipated on the streets of Long Beach. Despite missing the opener at Brazil, AJ raced for Arrows “just for the fun of it” and started well in practice by beating his teammate Marc Surer, but ultimately retired from the race due to a bent steering arm. At the front of the field John Watson took a sensational win from 22nd on the grid, which remains the lowest starting position for a winner. Steven Masterton escaped a three-month suspension after a CAMS Tribunal hearing of the charge laid against him for “knowingly presenting an illegal car” at the Amaroo Park. Instead he received a one-week suspension and a $1000 fine.

58 I www.autoaction.com.au

1993 Glenn Seton led home Alan Jones in a crushing 1-2 for the Peter Jackson EB Falcons in the third round of ATCC ’93 at Phillip Island. Behind the blue Falcons were two more Fords in Dick Johnson and John Bowe, leaving the Holdens to fight for fifth. Amid suggestions to handicap the Falcons, Seton cried “We’ve got our act together; they should be told to get their act together.” In Europe, Ayrton Senna put on a masterclass in the wet to win the European Grand Prix at Donington Park.

In what is hailed as one of his greatest drives, Senna climbed from fifth to first on the opening lap and was never seen again.

2003 Craig Lowndes walked on water to secure Ford Performance Racing’s maiden V8 Supercars win in atrocious conditions at Phillip Island. The race was red-flagged due to the arrival of a major storm, which gave Lowndes his first round win for Ford in his third season at the Blue Oval. Off the track, TEGA threatened Holden could lose its Supercar franchise if it did not speed up the sale of the six-car superteam formerly owned by TWR. Giancarlo Fisichella and Jordan were finally awarded victory of the Brazilian Grand Prix after an FIA meeting in Paris discovered an error in the results countback.

2013 MULTI 21 Seb, Multi 21. Sebastian Vettel’s controversial call to defy team orders and pass Mark Webber to win the Malaysian Grand Prix occurred a decade ago. Webber was in control of the race and was instructed to turn down his engine after the final stop. But Vettel did not and squeezed his way by to deny what would have been Webber’s final F1 win and create an extremely icy podium presentation.

There were no inter-team dramas at Brad Jones Racing, which recorded a clean sweep of Symmons Plains. Fabian Coulthard and Jason Bright shared the wins which gave the latter the confidence to claim “we are going for the title”.

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