V8X Magazine Issue 96

2017 CALTEX PULLOUT WALL CALENDAR ISSUE#96 V8X.COM.AU I N C O R P O R AT I N G

S H A N E

V A N

G I S B E R G E N

SEASON IN REVIEW

FINAL STANDINGS TOP 10 DRIVERS BEST RACES SUPER GRID HEADLINES

2020 VISION

TEKNO A U T O S P O R T S

THE LITTLE TEAM THAT COULD

LOOKING AHEAD TO GEN2

THE RISE AND FALL

SIMONA DE SILVESTRO

ONE-ON-ONE WITH FOGES

EXCLUSIVE FEATURE Summer ’16/’17 AUS $9.95 NZ $10.50

V8X96 p01 Cover.indd 1

REWRITING THE RULEBOOK 6/12/2016 3:52 pm

CHOICE

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SUPERCAR MAGAZINE #96 SUMMER ’16/’17

REGULARS

FEATURES

6 ANALYSIS: 2017 TALKING POINTS What to look out for next Supercars season.

10 ANALYSIS: BACK TO THE FUTURE How Gen2 will bring back the variety of Group C and A. 12 ANALYSIS: BATHURST 12 HOUR We preview the ‘other’ endurance event at Mount Panorama.

14 O The latest headlines from Speedcafe.com 16 MARK WINTERBOTTOM COLUMN Frosty looks ahead to a 2017 resurgence.

18 CRAIG LOWNDES COLUMN Lowndes on the importance of engineers.

20 GARRY ROGERS COLUMN Rogers on what could’ve been with Volvo.

80 SUBSCRIPTIONS Sign up with V8X Supercar Magazine.

82 THE SHOOTOUT The teams we’d love to see racing again.

23 SUPERCARS 2016 SEASON IN REVIEW A look back at Supercars in 2016 through teams, drivers, numbers, races and headlines.

30 SVG: COMING OF AGE Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen’s rise to the top.

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36 TEKNO: THE LITTLE TEAM THAT COULD How Tekno conquered Mount Panorama twice in one year and punched above its weight.

42 REWRITING THE RULEBOOK A season of controversies for Supercars’ referees.

48 FALL OF THE EMPIRE Charting the rise and fall of the Holden Racing Team.

54▼ 2020 VISION Where Supercars is headed into the Gen2 era.

60 FRATERNISING WITH FOGES: IRON MAIDEN Foges goes one-on-one with Nissan Motorsport new recruit Simona de Silvestro.

66 NISSAN: CARS OF THE RISING SUN We look back at Nissan’s last tilt at Australian touring cars.

72 CAPTAIN JANSON An audience with one of the great characters of Bathurst 1000 history, Peter Janson.

5/12/2016 10:09 am

V8X app SUP E RCA R M AGA Z IN E

EDITOR

Adrian Musolino Email: editor@v8x.com.au PUBLISHER

Allan Edwards Published by Raamen Pty Ltd PO Box 225, Keilor, Victoria, 3036 SUB EDITOR

Cameron McGavin ART DIRECTOR

Craig Fryers CONTRIBUTING JOURNALISTS

Mark Fogarty, Andrew Clarke, John Bannon, Cameron McGavin, Stefan Bartholomaeus, Amanda Jackson, Mark Winterbottom, Craig Lowndes, Garry Rogers PHOTOGRAPHERS

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Phone: (03) 9372 9125 Email: office@v8x.com.au V8X Supercar Magazine is printed in Australia by Webstar.

Material in V8X is protected by copyright laws and may not be reproduced in full or in part in any format. V8X will consider unsolicited articles and pictures; however, no responsibility will be taken for their return. While all efforts are taken to verify information in V8X is factual, no responsibility will be taken for any material which is later found to be false or misleading. The opinions of the contributors are not always those of the publishers.

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V8XSupercar

Welcome LOOKING BACK AT 2016

R

oland Dane divides public opinion like no one else in Supercars. But credit where credit is due, Dane’s courage in pairing up Shane van Gisbergen with Jamie Whincup delivered a classic championship battle and a rivalry that will only grow in the coming seasons.

While the AMG MercedesBenz Formula 1 team did all it could to stifle competition between its drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in 2016, Dane let his drivers race. And we, the fans, benefitted with a proper duel.

This issue of V8X Supercar Magazine looks back at the Supercars in 2016 with an-depth review of the season.

We look at the highlights and lowlights of each team; rank the top 10 drivers; rate the best races; list the numbers that matter; and reflect on a year of big headlines.

We also chart the rise of van Gisbergen, from raw teenager to polished champion and profile his former team that conquered

Mount Panorama twice in the one year, Tekno Autosports.

Elsewhere, we examine a season of controversies around the rules by talking to key personnel in Supercars.

We pay tribute to Walkinshaw Racing’s time running the Holden Racing Team by looking at its rise and fall.

Mark Fogarty meets Simona de Silvestro to discuss her arrival in Supercars with Nissan Motorsport, while Stefan Bartholomaeus examines what Supercars could look like in 2020.

In our Motorsport Legends section, we tell the history of Nissan in Australian touring cars through its racers and meet the one-and-only Peter Janson, socialite and Bathurst regular.

We also look ahead to the 2017 season with a preview of the Bathurst 12 Hour; a look at the 17 talking points for the 2017 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship and, in the print edition, include a Caltex wall calendar for the new year.

Meanwhile, stay tuned in upcoming issues for a

roundtable featuring some of the leading figures in Supercars to discuss the current state and future of the series.

Remember V8X Supercar Magazine is also available in digital form in the official V8X app (in the App Store and Google Play), online at DigitalEdition.

V8XMagazine.com.au and in the Magzter app store.

And keep up to date with all things Supercars and interact with us on our social media channels, @V8X_Magazine on Twitter, @V8XSupercar on Instagram and at facebook.com/ V8XMagazine on Facebook.

Enjoy the summer off-season and we’ll see you next season.

– Adrian

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STRENGTH TO SUCCEED

FORD FALCON FG X | 5.0-LITRE V8 | EST. 635+ BHP

MARK WINTERBOTTOM, 2015 V8 SUPERCARS DRIVERS CHAMPION

“IT IS JUST AWESOME TO PUT THE NO. 1 ON THE CAR – TO BE THE 2015 CHAMPION IS REALLY THE ULTIMATE REWARD.” CastrolRacingAU

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TALKING POINTS FOR 2017

The 2016 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship sets up the 2017 season beautifully: the continued rivalry of the Red Bull Racing Australia drivers, the growing threat of DJR Team Penske, a wounded Prodrive Racing Australia, redemption-seeking Walkinshaw Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport and so much more. These are the talking points to watch out for…

VERSUS TEAM 1 SVG 2 DJR WHINCUP, ROUND 2 PENSKE’S RISE ▼ Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup did battle for the Supercars crown in 2016, with the former overcoming the latter in his first season with the team.

But Whincup could consider himself unlucky considering his costly penalties at Sandown and Bathurst, which handed the championship advantage to van Gisbergen. The duo will fight it out once again in 2017, so expect more intense on-track action. There'll also be veteran Craig Lowndes in the team’s third entry to factor in, plus the pressure of living up to the title of 'sole Holden factory outfit'.

There’s no doubting DJR Team Penske represents the greatest threat to Triple Eight’s domination of Supercars. The Ryan Story-led team recruited Ludo Lacroix, long-time Triple Eight car designer, during 2016 to underscore its looming menace.

Throw in the recruitment of

Scott McLaughlin to team with Fabian Coulthard, the might of Team Penske entering its third season as owners and Shell Australia signing up as title sponsor and it’s likely DJR Team Penske will be regular race winners in 2017.

3

PRODRIVE’S PROGRESS

Prodrive Racing Australia’s title defence never really got going as the advantage held in 2015 whittled away in 2016.

Chaz Mostert has another offseason to continue his recovery from the injuries sustained at Bathurst in 2015, teammate Mark Winterbottom will be

determined to win back the #1 plate, and new recruit Jason Bright adds a lot of experience and technical nous with his arrival from Brad Jones Racing.

BATHURST 4 TEKNO’S 1000 DEFENCE Jonathon Webb’s Tekno Autosports continues to defy the trend of customer-car teams playing second fiddle to the factory outfits, adding a Bathurst 1000 win to its Bathurst 12 Hour success and Will Davison finishing ahead of a number of factory-backed entries in the standings. Armed with new backers and renewed confidence, Davison enters his second season with the team determined to continue punching above their weight.

5 WALKINSHAW POST RT

It’s the end of an era for Walkinshaw Racing with the loss of Holden funding and the HRT brand name to Triple Eight Race Engineering. Owner 6

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Dumbrell Motorsport, pairing up with his former Walkinshaw Racing teammate Tim Slade.

Tim Blanchard remains in the team's third entry, having purchased a license from Super Black Racing to replace Bright's entry.

10 EREBUS STA T

▼

Last off-season saw Erebus Motorsport switch workshops from Queensland to Victoria and trade its AMG Mercedes-Benz E63s for customer Walkinshaw Racing Holden VF Commodores.

This off-season gives Betty Klimenko’s team the chance to take stock, regroup and build around recent engineering recruit Alistair McVean to climb up the grid, with David Reynolds joined

by Dale Wood (below).

Ryan Walkinshaw and team manager Adrian Burgess are charged with rebuilding the image of the team beyond HRT and stopping its slide into the midfield. James Courtney remains as team leader with Scott Pye moving across from DJR Team Penske to replace Garth Tander.

6

RM POST O

O

Garry Rogers Motorsport enters the new year off the back of a tumultuous 2016 in which Volvo pulled its funding for the team suddenly, the legal wrangles over the ownership of the Volvo Polestar S60 Supercars and star driver McLaughlin announcing his decision to leave for DJR Team Penske.

In the post-factory Volvo era, team owner Garry Rogers and son Barry Rogers will be looking to rebuild, with the team linked with Kia and other manufacturers for 2018 and beyond.

ongoing questions marks over whether its engine package is truly on par with its Ford and Holden counterparts, the Kelly family-run operation needs further gains in 2017. Nissan Motorsport will be only one of two factory-supported teams next season, so will need results to justify that status.

8

Following two wildcard appearances in the Bathurst 1000, Simona de Silvestro steps up for a full-time drive alongside Rick Kelly, Todd Kelly and Michael Caruso at Nissan Motorsport.

De Silvestro admits the first season of her three-year deal with the factory team will be about finding her groove in Supercars, but as the first full-time female racer since Christine Gibson in the 1970s, there will be a lot of attention on the Swiss racer.

SEARCH 7 NISSAN’S 9 FOR WINS Two races wins for Nissan Motorsport from the last four seasons is hardly the sort of record the factory team was hoping for. With

E S ESTRO S U T ME T T

JR S NE

OO

Brad Jones Racing welcomes a new driver with Bright moving on to Prodrive Racing Australia. In comes reigning Clipsal 500 Adelaide winner Nick Percat from Lucas 7

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18’S SECOND 11 TEAM CHANCE u

The progress of Charlie Schwerkolt’s Team 18, in its first season running customer Holden VF Commodores from its own workshop, was severely disrupted by Lee Holdsworth being sidelined through injury for three events. With Holdsworth and title sponsor Preston Hire signed on again for 2017, the team expanding its racing operations and moving to a bigger workshop and further upgrades to its VF Commodore, the single-car entry could be set for an upturn in results.

12

NEW TYRE ▼ CONSTRUCTIONS

A new construction of the Dunlop control tyres will throw a curveball into the competition in 2017. There will again be both soft and hard versions of the new 18-inch tyres, with the soft tyres again used at the majority of events, but the new construction featuring a larger contact patch will provide a different feeling for the drivers and engineers and could result in faster lap times.

TO 13 HEADING NEWCASTLE

The switch of the Supercars finale from Sydney Olympic Park to Newcastle condenses the season, with a November finish as opposed to December.

And the street circuit around the regional centre looks spectacular, encompassing the waterfront and parklands with a layout that has traits akin to the Adelaide Parklands Circuit.

If Newcastle can produce racing as good as Adelaide, then Supercars is onto a winner.

IN 14 EXPANSION 15 EXPANSION AUSTRALIA IN ASIA Newcastle is in, but where to next? We will have a better idea of the progress of The Bend Motorsport Park development at Tailem Bend in South Australia during 2017. Then there’s the ongoing regional push for Supercars following the success of Townsville and move into Newcastle. Also, keep an eye on the progress of negotiations between Supercars and the likes of Queensland Raceway, Phillip Island and Winton.

Supercars failed in its bid to race in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2016. But with the Malaysian and Singaporean governments debating whether Formula 1 is worth the heavy investment required to attract the series, Supercars could be even more active in its bid to expand into Asia, with another year of negotiations coming up.

RACING’S 16 GT BOOM

The racing season will begin with a bang at the 2017 Bathurst 12 Hour, where the likes of Jamie Whincup, Mark Winterbottom, Craig Lowndes, Chaz Mostert and more will join legends Mark Skaife, Russell Ingall, Tony Longhurst, to name just a few, in a star-studded line up. The continued boom in GTs will again be debated in relation to its impact on the Gen2-bound Supercars.

UP 17 GEARING FOR GEN2

The Gen2 era begins in 2017, but no team or manufacturer has opted for a new engine or chassis package for the upcoming season. However, with Holden committing to fit a non-V8 engine to its new Commodore from 2018 and other manufacturers and teams assessing their options, get ready for another year of big off-track news.

8

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V8 sedans have been the staple of Supercars for more than 20 years. But dig deeper in the Australian Touring Car Championship history books and you’ll see non-V8s and coupes have their own heritage that should be remembered heading into Gen2.

T

he Virgin Australia Supercars Championship has an identity crisis. For 20 years the series was known as V8 Supercars. In the bid to move on from Group A and differentiate from Super Touring, the marketing around V8 Supercars focused heavily on the V8 engines powering the Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores.

But with Supercars dropping the ‘V8’ tag, other engine platforms and body shapes being allowed in under the Gen2 rules from 2017 and Holden set to move away from its V8 in 2018, that brand recognition that served the series so well is now proving hard to separate itself from.

“The brand has already been changed to Supercars but I’m personally not even close to being convinced that we should be going away from V8s,” says team owner Rod Nash.

His Prodrive Racing Australia outfit could keep the V8 alive when it potentially moves to a Mustang.

“V8 is the brand. The blue versus red has been our main asset, but there have been enough years now with other brands amongst it and I think that’s been accepted.

“But there is still a big part of that is blue versus red and on top of that, the noise of the V8 engines.”

Garry Rogers, in contrast, believes Supercars must move with the automotive industry.

“The tradition is fantastic, but we’ve all got to move on at some point,” he says.

MUSTANG

BLUEBIRD

CAMARO

SIERRA

“We’d be running around in horse and carts if we didn’t change anything.

“There’s no doubt that there’s something to the sound of a V8, but I’m sure the public will get used to it.”

Indeed, dig through the history of Australian touring cars

and some of the most popular racers of the Appendix J, Improved Production/Group C and Group A eras fit the criteria for Gen2.

Bluebird, Camaro, Mustang, Monaro, Sierra, Sykline and Torana are among the most iconic cars of the past with non-V8 or coupe roots.

The early Torana models ran with six-cylinder engines before the introduction of the V8-powered SLR/5000. The Nissan Bluebirds, Skylines and Ford Sierras were pioneers for turbo technology in touring cars, while the Camaros, Mustangs and Monaros led the way for two-door coupe ‘pony cars’.

And while many distinguish the international Group A formula used in Australia from 1985 to 1992 as the breeding ground for non-V8 two doors, it was under the Improved Production/Group C rulebook where body shapes and engine variety blossomed in the 1970s into the 1980s before the switch to Group A. Tapping into the spirit of that era could help Supercars allay fears of the changes that are coming.

For more on the future of Supercars see page 54. Also, stay tuned for our roundtable series in upcoming issues.

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The Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour continues its upward trajectory with its most starstudded line-up in 2017. These are the major talking points heading into the ‘other’ endurance event at Mount Panorama.

1 GOING PRO

The Bathurst 12 Hour will feature an all-professional class for the first time in 2017. The new class sits above the existing Pro-Am and all-amateur classes and brings the event closer to the Blancpain Endurance Series regulations. The move will ease the concerns over the seeding issues that have plagued recent 12 Hours, whereby teams were forced to field unseeded drivers.

Adding to prestige of the event is the move to award the 12 Hour winners with the Australian Tourist Trophy.

2 SUPERCARS STARS DEBUT

Jamie Whincup, Mark Winterbottom and Chaz Mostert had resisted GT racing… until now.

Whincup partners long-time Triple Eight Race Engineering teammate Craig Lowndes in a Ferrari 488 GT3 at Maranello Motorsport. Winterbottom joins his 2013 Bathurst 1000-winning co-driver Steven Richards and DTM champion Marco Wittmann in a BMW Team SRM M6 GT3. Mostert will partner his 2014 Bathurst 1000-winning co-driver Paul Morris and MARC GT driver Morgan Haber in the team’s BMW M6 GT3. Without the GT mileage of some of their Supercars counterparts, their progress at the event will be fascinating to follow.

from his first outings in sportscars showed that Supercars drivers had what it takes in the more exotic cars. In addition to his 2016 Supercars championship win, he claimed the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup and Bathurst 12 Hour titles. He will be the driver to beat at the event, moving to Scott Taylor Motorsport’s Mercedes AMG GT3 entry from Tekno Autosports’ McLaren outfit.

4 LEGENDS UNITE

Mark Skaife, Russell Ingall and Tony Longhurst have a combined total of 10 Bathurst 1000 wins. They will now share a BMW Team SRM M6 GT3 along with former Formula 1 driver Timo Glock. Throw in Richards and Winterbottom in the second BMW Team SRM M6 GT3 entry and the team features a total of 15 Bathurst 1000 wins, the most starstudded line-up ever entered in the event.

5 MANUFACTURER BATTLE 6 SHOOTOUT INTRODUCED GT racing is booming with manufacturer interest. And that’s reflected in the entry list. BMW beefs up its commitment with five Bathurst 1000 winners combined with European-based factory drivers across its entries. Miedecke Stone Motorsport will field a trio of Aston Martin entries.

Four Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3s are locked in, two from the factory Nissan Motorsport/ NISMO outfit. Maranello Motorsport debuts the Ferrari 488 GT3 at Mount Panorama.

Also, Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship cars are now eligible for the 12 Hour.

Meanwhile, entry-level GT4 vehicles include McLaren’s 570 GT4, Porsche’s Cayman GT4 Clubsport and the KTM X-Bow.

The 12 Hour further mirrors the 1000 with the introduction of a top-10 shootout in 2017.

A staple of the 1000, the Pirelli Shootout will be the first held for GT cars at Mount Panorama to decide the polesitter (Allan Simonsen Pole Award).

7 TRACKING GROWTH

The 12 Hour notched up a 14 per cent increase in crowds for a record attendance in 2016, though the total of 37,079 still pales in comparison to the attendance of 204,512 for the 1000. But as the event grows with increased coverage, will it edge closer to the 1000’s crowd?

3 SVG’S DEFENCE

Shane van Gisbergen led the way for Supercars drivers in GT racing. His turn of speed 12

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News Round-up

Scan the QR codes with your smartphone to link to the full article. QR-code reading apps are available from your preferred app retailer.

A look at some of the topics making news on Speedcafe.com

Leanne Tander made history by becoming the first woman to win an Australian national circuit racing title, securing the Formula Ford Series in 2016.

According to Christine Gibson, Tander’s title is a richly deserved award that recognises her talent in Australian motorsport.

The 36-year-old’s triumph arrives 18 years after her Formula Ford debut and following runner-up finishes in the Australian Formula 3 Championship from 2007-2008.

Gibson, renowned as one of Australia’s most talented woman drivers, has followed Tander’s career closely, labelling her as the most talented female racer in Australian motorsport history.

Gibson, the wife of touringcar legend Fred, remains the last woman to complete a full season in the Australian

Touring Car Championship, recording a career-high fifth overall in 1975.

“She has been very successful this year and I don’t think she has been given enough credit.

This has come at a really good time for women in motorsport in Australia,” Gibson told Speedcafe.com.

Tander’s success followed Molly Taylor’s historic triumph in the Australian Rally Championship. Gibson believes the success will prove to be highly inspirational for women aspiring to make a career in motorsport.

“It seems like motorsport has a bright future with regards to women in Australia,” she added.

“I think the girls have come of age and they are game to have a go and people are game to give them a go. I think it has been really good for the sport.

“The media has come over

a fair bit, too. Obviously it is good for TV to draw the female crowd. That brings sponsors and people get behind them.

“The girls are working at it, they are not standing back and waiting for it to happen.

It is a really good time at the moment.”

Scan QR code to read the full article.

NAME CHANGE IN ADELAIDE Clipsal will end its namingrights sponsorship of the Adelaide 500 Supercars season opener after 2017.

The news will bring an end to a long association between the Supercars event and the

electrical-accessories brand, which stretches back to 2000.

Its current contract is due to expire at the end of 2017, with the company citing a change of its marketing approach for electing against renewing the contract.

Service station chain ‘On The Run’, owned by the Shahin family, who are in the process of constructing a new racetrack at Tailem Bend, has been named as the leading contender to take over the naming rights.

Sports minister Leon Bignell thanked Clipsal for its support of the event.

“The state government looks forward to working with a new partner in the lead-up to 2018 and beyond,” said Bignell.

“South Australians love Supercars, with this year’s event generating more than $60 million.

“The state government has appreciated the strong support of Clipsal since 2000 and we thank them for their association with the biggest domestic motor-racing event in Australia.”

Scan QR code to read the full article.

14

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Expert Insight

BEYOND THE WHEEL Column by Mark Winterbottom

BOUNCING BACK IN 2017

I

t’s certainly been an up and down season in 2016. To roll out with number #1 is one of the proudest moments of my career. But then to give it away at the end of the season is one of the most disappointing.

Some of the performances we’ve had have been really good. The win at Perth was one of my best with the team.

We’ve had some really cool races, but I’ve made some errors that, if I had my time again, I’d have approached differently.

You can’t always win it. In some way, you have to look at it as an achievement that we’ve been able to win races, but it’s been a tough year.

We have to try to improve in a lot of areas. The new tyres for next season will change the way the car handles, so until we roll out in February we’re not really sure what differences that’s going to make to the car.

But we need a little bit of a percentage gain in every department. We’re not miles away, but it’s just a little bit here and there. We’ve already proven we can beat the rest when we’ve got the equipment on song, which is a positive. We’ll sharpen up every little area a little bit and hopefully find the five per cent we’re looking for to be competitive again.

Triple Eight was again the benchmark with two guys who are mega quick and taking that team to a new level. With DJR Team Penske coming on strong, we need to make sure we keep pace with them into 2017 and beyond.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to debuting in the Bathurst 12 Hour alongside my mate Steven Richards and reigning DTM champion Marco Wittmann in the #100 BMW Team SRM M6 GT3 entry.

I’d resisted racing in the event due to the seeding rules for drivers. But now that it’s three pro drivers in the car and you can have a real go at it, it’s definitely more appealing.

Plus doing it with Richo is another positive as we’ve had a really good history up there and he’s put together one of the best driver rosters at the event.

The rule changes have allowed a lot more quality drivers to come in, which gives the event a lot more prestige.

You can always learn as a driver and to have the likes

“To roll out with number #1 is one of the proudest moments of my career. But then to give it away at the end of the season is one of the most disappointing.” of Mark Skaife, Russell Ingall and Tony Longhurst across the garage and DTM drivers Timo Glock and Wittmann in the team is appealing.

It’ll be a good way to start the year and sharpen up our skills in a new discipline with different challenges.

When you’ve raced in Supercars for so long, you know what you’re going to do when you tackle a track like Mount Panorama. Now with ABS, traction control, power shift and all that sort of thing, where your

mind’s been taught one way for so many years, it’s going to be interesting to see how you can adapt.

But the challenge is going outside of your comfort zone and into something that’s completely different.

Hopefully we don’t get caught up in anything silly and just play it smart.

The prospect of adding a Bathurst 12 Hour win to the Bathurst 1000 success with Richo is certainly exciting.

– Frosty

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Expert Insight

RIGHT ON TRACK

Column by Craig Lowndes

THE ENGINEERING CHALLENGE

T

he driver-engineer relationship is a massive part of success in Supercars.

That rapport, the understanding of how a driver relates a car back, then for the engineer to interpret that and make a decision or change that the driver’s happy with, is a process that needs to work smoothly for success.

Although I’ve worked with Irish [John McGregor] as my data engineer, that’s only one part of it. Now I’ve got to be confident and happy with his decisions as a race engineer about changing the car and trusting that it’s going to do what I want it to do.

Changing engineers doesn’t make things easy. You’ve got to work really hard on the relationship to make sure you get to a point where you can be confident that you’re heading into every race weekend with the car that you want.

In some regards it’s been frustrating to change engineers. Teams talk about the

consistency and continuity of personnel. Staying with the same people makes a difference in results, so for me, hopefully, it’s the last change for a while.

Looking to next season, Irish and I will work closely together.

Although it hasn’t been ideal in the timing for last season, it’s probably fast-tracked and helped us to get ready for 2017.

It’s a shame to see Ludo Lacroix move on. His contribution has been massive. We as a team started with Ford and then moved to Holden. In that

transition he was instrumental in designing cars that continued to win.

He’s a very clever operator, so that will be a big loss. Roland Dane and Ludo have worked together for more than a decade to build the team into what it is.

Sam Michael now comes in with fresh eyes and ideas.

That will be a key thing for us as a team to be able to move forward, in terms of engineering, car designs and car builds.

Obviously everyone’s got a different opinion or way of doing

things, so it’s going to be a bit of a breath of fresh air to have someone like him coming in.

Shane van Gisbergen has been another great addition to the team. In the beginning he struggled to get to grips with the feel of the car; the way Triple Eight build the cars. It took him three or four months at the beginning of the year to get his head around how they worked. Once he got past that, he and Shippy [Grant McPherson] worked better together.

I think it may have made the car nicer for him to drive. He’d come to grips with the mentality within the team and he’s gone from strength to strength.

Looking back at the season, our goal was to be in the top five. That’s what we’ve been trying to maintain ever since.

Overall, I think my performance has been up and down and we’ve had some mixed emotions with mechanical issues, mistakes, etc. But we can improve and be a stronger combination going into 2017.

– Craig

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18

V8X96 p18 Lowndes column.indd 18

30/11/2016 4:58 pm

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30/11/2016 2:32 4:35pm pm 20/07/2016

Expert Insight

GARRY THE GURU Column by Garry Rogers

VOLVO, WHAT COULD’VE BEEN

I

am really proud of what we have achieved in the past three years since we began the Volvo program.

The results have spoken for themselves. I don’t think that there is any doubt that the program has worked. And I think that even Volvo would have to admit that the program has been successful for them.

The sad part is that it could have been a fruitful partnership for many years to come had the powers-that-be at Volvo not changed their tune.

We had even looked at the possibility of different engine configurations for the future under Gen2.

Volvo had developed a fourcylinder turbo engine for their World Touring Car Championship program and we discussed that perhaps they may wish to go in this direction in the Supercar program.

However, when that was discussed they said they didn’t have a problem with the current V8 engine program.

They said for the domestic series that we are competing in that the Yamaha-designed, Volvo-built, V8 engine was fine.

Scott McLaughlin could have been a Volvo driver for many years to come and the company could have worked with him and GRM to grow the popularity of its brand in this part of the world.

I believe that Scott was actually planning to stay with our team, but he had another offer put in front of him and decided that he needed to take that offer to secure his future.

I don’t actually blame him for

making that decision one bit.

He has done a great job here, but he had an opportunity to secure his future, with a guarantee of what was going to happen and clearly after Volvo informed us so late in the day of their intentions to withdraw, we couldn’t give him the same guarantee or security.

I have recently been led to believe that the decision to withdraw was made by Volvo long ago… the only thing is that they forgot to tell us!

Had they not changed their tune, or had they let us know earlier, we could have made other arrangements and maybe even got Scotty’s signature on another contract...

But I’m very proud of what we have achieved, especially when you consider the engine problems that we had in the second year.

That set us right back and was

“The sad part is that it could have been a fruitful partnership for many years to come had the powers-that-be at Volvo not changed their tune.” frustrating for all involved...

I’m really happy with how our on track performance has gone in 2016.

You can’t fault what Scott has done and, while James Moffat has been a bit hot and cold, overall he has got the job done.

I also think that the two Dunlop Development Series boys James Golding and Richard Muscat have performed well.

What I am really happy with is our team of mechanics and engineers and all of our people who have contributed in the past three years.

Time after time, especially when we were having those engine issues, they just kept their

heads down and their bum up and they got the thing fixed or a new engine in the car and just got the job done.

These people put in a lot of hours and every single one of those people could earn a lot more money doing something else, but they do it because they enjoy it.

Working with those guys is what keeps me coming back year after year.

You can bet your bottom dollar that we will be back doing the best that we can in 2017 regardless of what happens off the track over the course of the off-season.

– Garry

20

V8X96 p20 Rogers column.indd 20

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SEASON IN REVIEW

WORDS Adrian Musolino IMAGES Peter Norton, Glenis Lindley, Supercars

TOP 10 DRIVERS FINAL STANDINGS TEAM TEAM REPORT SUPER GRID EST RA ES HEADLINES

page 24 page 25 page 26 page 27 page 28 page 29

23

V8X96 p23-31 Season Review.indd 23

1/12/2016 4:07 pm

Season Review 2016

6

MICHAEL CARUSO

Caruso cemented his place as Nissan Motorsport’s best performer and became a regular in the top 10. He led the championship after the season-opening Clipsal 500 Adelaide, where he scored second place, and ended he and Nissan’s winless drought with a deserved victory in Darwin.

Championship standings don’t always tell the true story of a driver’s season, with some underachieving in strong teams and others overachieving with smaller teams.

These are our top 10 drivers of 2016.

10

NICK PERCAT

Percat once again punched above his weight at Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport, earning him a move to Brad Jones Racing in 2017. He won the Clipsal 500 Adelaide by staying out of trouble in treacherous conditions, adding a top 10 in Sandown and podium at Bathurst to his impressive tally.

9

4

FABIAN COULTHARD

2

TIM SLADE

Slade endured a tough initiation at Brad Jones Racing with an incidentfilled debut in Adelaide. But he soon turned things around and broke through for his first win in Supercars with a double at Winton, from which point he notched up a string of top 10s. And he quickly established himself as the team’s lead driver.

WILL DAVISON

Davison continued Tekno Autosports’ upward trajectory with victory in Tasmania and regular top-five results. Following a third place at Sandown, Davison headed to Mount Panorama and emerged victorious for his second Bathurst 1000 win, comfortably securing a top 10 in the standings.

3

There were high hopes for Coulthard at DJR Team Penske when he scored a pole position in the shootout in Adelaide. An inconsistent season for the growing team did, however, deliver podiums at Phillip Island and Winton, with Coulthard emerging as team leader and beating teammate Scott Pye in points.

7

Lowndes showed no signs of slowing in Triple Eight’s second garage, adding to his 100-plus wins with victories at Perth and Ipswich. He remained in contention with his teammates in the championship fight until a costly mechanical failure at Mount Panorama robbed him of big points.

DAVID REYNOLDS

Moving from Prodrive Racing Australia to Erebus Motorsport appeared to be a significant step back for Reynolds. Yet he seemed to embrace the role of team leader with impressive qualifying displays, fastest race laps at Winton and Mount Panorama and a podium at the Sydney Olympic Park finale.

8

5

CRAIG LOWNDES

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN

Despite the shock announcement of Volvo’s departure and his own move to DJR Team Penske for 2017, McLaughlin emerged as the only real challenger to the Triple Eight-built cars, with a clean sweep at Phillip Island the highlight of another impressive season for the youngster.

JAMIE WHINCUP

Whincup returned to form following a surprisingly inconsistent 2015 by bringing up his century of career wins amongst a host of podium finishes.

Penalties at Sandown and Bathurst while in strong positions ultimately proved costly in the championship, though.

1

SHANE VAN GISBERGEN

Big things were expected of van Gisbergen in his first season with Triple Eight and he delivered victory in the second event of the season in Tasmania. In the second half of the season the Kiwi truly hit his stride with victories at four consecutive events in Darwin, Townsville, Ipswich and Sydney, plus three second places and a win in the endurance races; to hold off his more experienced teammate in the points.

24

V8X96 p23-31 Season Review.indd 24

5/12/2016 3:28 pm

HONOURABLE MENTIONS MARK WINTERBOTTOM

The title defence came unstuck with a disastrous enduros campaign; nevertheless won two races.

CHAZ MOSTERT

Returned from injury and notched up a number of podiums and poles.

JAMES COURTNEY

Scored a win in Adelaide despite another season of inconsistency from the Holden Racing Team.

GARTH TANDER

Put in vintage displays to win at Sandown and podium in Sydney, despite the uncertainty around his future.

TODD KELLY

The elder Kelly brother enjoyed his best season in years by matching it with his teammates.

SCOTT PYE

Pole in Adelaide and a podium at Phillip Island despite being let go by the team for 2017.

CHRIS PITHER

Bounced back from accidents for a first pole position for he and Super Black Racing.

CAMERON WATERS

Held his own with a number of top fives, including at Bathurst, and a pole in Perth.

JAMES MOFFAT

Made gains in his first season with the team and started to get on par with his teammate.

ALEXANDRE PRÉMAT

Joined van Gisbergen and took a podium in each race to seal the Pirtek Endurance Cup.

TEAM STANDINGS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

TEAMS

ENTRIES POINTS

Triple Eight Race Engineering Walkinshaw Racing Garry Rogers Motorsport Prodrive Racing Australia DJR Team Penske Brad Jones Racing Nissan Motorsport Nissan Motorsport Triple Eight Race Engineering Tekno Autosports Erebus Motorsport Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Prodrive Racing Australia Super Black Racing Team 18 Brad Jones Racing Harvey Norman Supergirls

#88 #97 #2 #22 #33 #34 #1 #6 #12 #17 #8 #14 #7 #15 #23 #96 #888 #19 #4 #9 #3 #222 #55 #111 #18 #21 #360

6546 4434 4250 3962 3855 3722 3643 3547 2770 2589 2580 2450 2376 1369 1297 1266 126

Note: Teams with more than two entries are split into different entities for the championship standings, based on the pairs in each garage.

DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS POSITION

1

Shane van Gisbergen

2

Jamie Whincup Scott McLaughlin Craig Lowndes

3

4 5

Will Davison

ENTRY

CAR

#97 Triple Eight Race Engineering #88 Triple Eight Race Engineering

Holden Commodore VF

3368

3168

#33 Garry Rogers Motorsport

Holden Commodore VF Volvo S60

#888 Triple Eight Race Engineering #19 Tekno Autosports

Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF

2770

Ford Falcon FG X

2489

Ford Falcon FG X Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Nissan Altima Holden Commodore VF Ford Falcon FG X Nissan Altima Nissan Altima Ford Falcon FG X Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Ford Falcon FG X Volvo S60 Ford Falcon FG X Nissan Altima Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Volvo S60 Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Ford Falcon FG X Holden Commodore VF Ford Falcon FG X Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Nissan Altima Holden Commodore VF Ford Falcon FG X Nissan Altima Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Nissan Altima Ford Falcon FG X Holden Commodore VF Ford Falcon FG X Ford Falcon FG X Nissan Altima Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Holden Commodore VF Volvo S60 Nissan Altima Nissan Altima Holden Commodore VF

2361 2263 2252 2239 2162 2078 1835 1808 1807 1564 1459 1430 1423 1419 1369 1273 1266 1114 1010 840 681 627 602 555 516 504 483 468 468 454 444 432 429 405 374 360 324 324 309 303 303 252 234 219 201 180 126 126 108

6

Mark Winterbottom

#1 Prodrive Racing Australia #55 Prodrive Racing Australia

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

Chaz Mostert Tim Slade #14 Brad Jones Racing Garth Tander #2 Walkinshaw Racing Michael Caruso #23 Nissan Motorsport James Courtney #22 Walkinshaw Racing Fabian Coulthard #12 DJR Team Penske Rick Kelly #15 Nissan Motorsport Todd Kelly #7 Nissan Motorsport Scott Pye #17 DJR Team Penske David Reynolds #9 Erebus Motorsport Jason Bright #8 Brad Jones Racing Nick Percat #222 Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Cameron Waters #6 Prodrive Racing Australia James Moffat #34 Garry Rogers Motorsport Chris Pither #111 Super Black Racing Dale Wood #96 Nissan Motorsport Tim Blanchard #21 Brad Jones Racing Lee Holdsworth #18 Team 18 Andre Heimgartner #3 Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Alexandre Prémat #97 Triple Eight Race Engineering Jonathon Webb #19 Tekno Autosports Aaren Russell #4 Erebus Motorsport/#3 Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport David Wall #33 Garry Rogers Motorsport Paul Dumbrell #88 Triple Eight Race Engineering Steven Richards #888Triple Eight Race Engineering Steve Owen #55 Prodrive Racing Australia Cameron McConville #222 Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Luke Youlden #12 DJR Team Penske Ash Walsh #14 Brad Jones Racing Shae Davies #4 Erebus Motorsport Dean Fiore #23 Nissan Motorsport Warren Luff #2 Walkinshaw Racing Tony D’Alberto #17 DJR Team Penske David Russell #96 Nissan Motorsport Jack Perkins #22 Walkinshaw Racing Macauley Jones #21 Brad Jones Racing Matthew Campbell #7 Nissan Motorsport Richie Stanaway #111 Super Black Racing Karl Reindler #18 Team 18 Jack Le Brocq #6 Prodrive Racing Australia Dean Canto #1 Prodrive Racing Australia Russell Ingall #15 Nissan Motorsport Chris Van Der Drift #4 Erebus Motorsport Craig Baird #4/#9 Erebus Motorsport Andrew Jones #8 Brad Jones Racing James Golding #34 Garry Rogers Motorsport Simona de Silvestro #360 Harvey Norman Supergirls Renee Gracie #360 Harvey Norman Supergirls Kurt Kostecki #18 Team 18

POINTS

2806 2589

25

V8X96 p23-31 Season Review.indd 25

5/12/2016 3:28 pm

Season Review 2016

TEAM-BY-TEAM REPORT Every team entered the 2016 season with some type of change, be it a new driver, cars or personnel. This is how they fared…

TRIPLE EIGHT Expanding to three entries for the first time with the arrival of Shane van Gisbergen, Triple Eight duly confirmed its place at the top of the Supercars pecking order with drivers’ and teams’ championship wins and being awarded sole factory Holden status.

Securing another one-two in the drivers’ championship.

Losing Bathurst on appeal and Ludo Lacroix.

TEKNO AUTOSPORTS Will Davison replaced van Gisbergen and won the second event of the season and held off the team’s former driver for victory at Mount Panorama. The customer Holden team again led the way for the customer brigade with regular top 10s.

Completing the Bathurst 12 Hour and 1000 double.

Bathurst win overshadowed by Triple Eight’s appeal.

PRODRIVE RACING AUSTRALIA The Ford team’s title defence wilted with a mixture of costly mistakes from the drivers and team. Chaz Mostert returned from injury, but it was Mark Winterbottom who did the winning for the team, with Cameron Waters doing his best in his rookie season.

Victory for Winterbottom and pole for Waters in Perth.

Brake failure at Bathurst ending the title defence.

SUPER BLACK RACING A tough start with crashes in Adelaide and Tasmania, but Chris Pither recovered with results in Perth and Queensland Raceway.

Pither’s pole position at Queensland Raceway.

The passing of founder and owner Tony Lentino.

WALKINSHAW RACING Another season of inconsistent results saw Walkinshaw Racing lose its factory status and Holden Racing Team brand to Triple Eight. Victories at Adelaide and Sandown highlighted an otherwise poor season.

Sandown win in the wake of the Holden announcement.

Losing the Holden-funding deal and the HRT name.

BRAD JONES RACING The customer Holden team welcomed Tim Slade, who emerged as a regular in the top 10 and won at Winton. But his performances were in contrast to the struggles of Jason Bright and Tim Blanchard.

Slade’s sweep of the team’s home event at Winton.

Big crashes for the Team BOC entry at Bathurst and Pukekohe.

TEAM 18 Charlie Schwerkolt went out on his own with a customer Triple Eight VF Commodore. But the team’s progress was blighted by a string of retirements and injuries to Lee Holdsworth that sidelined him for three events.

Seventh place on the Sunday at the Gold Coast 600.

The injuries suffered by Holdsworth at Darwin.

NISSAN MOTORSPORT The factory team finally added a second win to its tally, with Michael Caruso leading the way as a regular in the top 10. But progress was again slow as the team seeks to close the gap to the leading Holden and Ford teams.

Caruso’s breakthrough win for the team in Darwin.

Trouble-plagued Bathurst 1000 for the Kellys.

GARRY ROGERS MOTORSPORT The season started with great promise as the S60 returned to form and James Moffat started matching teammate Scott McLaughlin’s pace. But it went sour when Volvo pulled the plug on its funding and left the team facing an uncertain future.

McLaughlin’s domination at Phillip Island event.

The unexpected loss of Volvo support.

DJR TEAM PENSKE The Ford team expanded to two entries and welcomed Fabian Coulthard. And there were poles and podiums for both drivers in the second season of the Dick Johnson Racing and Team Penske amalgamation.

Pole for both drivers in Adelaide.

The damage received to Coultard’s car at the Gold Coast.

LUCAS DUMBRELL MOTORSPORT The customer Holden team won in Adelaide having correctly added the right amount of fuel and a podium at Bathurst exceeded expectations. But it didn’t appear to help the team’s off-track stability.

Winning its first race having read the rulebook in Adelaide.

Another season of concerns over sponsors and budgets.

EREBUS MOTORSPORT A season of change with the switch to VF Commodores. But while David Reynolds settled in as team leader, the changes of sponsors and drivers in the second entry highlighted the off-track struggles.

Podium placing for Reynolds at Sydney Olympic Park.

The messy divorce with Aaren Russell and Plus Fitness.

26

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RACE WINS Shane van Gisbergen Jamie Whincup Will Davison Craig Lowndes Scott McLaughlin Tim Slade Mark Winterbottom Michael Caruso James Courtney Paul Dumbrell Warren Luff Nick Percat Alexandre PrĂŠmat Garth Tander Jonathon Webb

TEAMS

Triple Eight Race Engineering Brad Jones Racing Garry Rogers Motorsport Prodrive Racing Australia Tekno Autosports Walkinshaw Racing Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Nissan Motorsport

POLE POSITIONS Shane van Gisbergen Jamie Whincup Chaz Mostert Mark Winterbottom Scott McLaughlin Fabian Coulthard Chris Pither Scott Pye Tim Slade Garth Tander Cameron Waters

TEAMS

Triple Eight Race Engineering Prodrive Racing Australia DJR Team Penske Garry Rogers Motorsport Brad Jones Racing Super Black Racing Walkinshaw Racing

8 7 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 17 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 7 6 5 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 13 9 2 2 1 1 1

FASTEST LAPS

Shane van Gisbergen Jamie Whincup Michael Caruso Fabian Coulthard James Courtney Scott McLaughlin Chaz Mostert David Reynolds Jason Bright Will Davison Craig Lowndes James Moffat Nick Percat

TEAMS

7 5 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

Triple Eight Race Engineering Garry Rogers Motorsport Prodrive Racing Australia DJR Team Penske Erebus Motorsport Nissan Motorsport Walkinshaw Racing Brad Jones Racing Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Tekno Autosports

13 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1

Shane van Gisbergen Jamie Whincup Scott McLaughlin Mark Winterbottom Craig Lowndes Chaz Mostert James Courtney Will Davison Alexandre PrĂŠmat Tim Slade Michael Caruso Fabian Coulthard Paul Dumbrell Nick Percat Scott Pye Garth Tander David Wall Jonathon Webb Warren Luff

18 17 8 8 7 5 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1

PODIUMS

Cameron McConville David Reynolds

TEAMS

Triple Eight Race Engineering Prodrive Racing Australia Garry Rogers Motorsport Walkinshaw Racing DJR Team Penske Tekno Autosports Brad Jones Racing Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Nissan Motorsport Erebus Motorsport

1 1 42 13 8 8 4 4 3 2 2 1

THE SUPERGRID Grid based on qualifying averages across the season.

Does not factor in post-session penalties.

1 Shane van Gisbergen 3.86 2 Jamie Whincup 4.00 3 Chaz Mostert 5.62 4 Mark Winterbottom 6.00 5 Scott McLaughlin 6.62 6 Craig Lowndes 8.75 7 Will Davison 10.20 8 Fabian Coulthard 10.34 9 Michael Caruso 10.93 10 Scott Pye 11.28 11 James Courtney 11.41 12 Rick Kelly 11.51 13 Tim Slade 12.75 14 Cameron Waters 13.48 15 Garth Tander 13.82 16 Lee Holdsworth 14.86 17 David Reynolds 15.41 18 James Moffat 15.93 19 Todd Kelly 16.06 20 Jason Bright 17.00 21 Chris Pither 18.00 22 Nick Percat 20.07 23 Dale Wood 20.51 24 Tim Blanchard 21.17 25 Andre Heimgartner 23.13 26 Karl Reindler 24.50 27 Shae Davies 25.16 28 Kurt Kostecki 25.25 29 Aaren Russell 25.33 30 Craig Baird 25.50 31 Simona de Silvestro 26.00 27

V8X96 p23-31 Season Review.indd 27

5/12/2016 3:29 pm

Season Review 2016

4 RACE 20 Intense head-to-head battles, penalties, rain, strategic gambles and more… these are the best races of 2016.

WILSON SECURITY SANDOWN 500

Tander and Warren Luff won the first endurance event, despite intermittent rain that caught out a number of entries and the front-left guard coming undone on their Commodore.

5 RACE 3

CLIPSAL 500 ADELAIDE

One of the most chaotic races of all time ended with Nick Percat recording the first win for Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport. Heavy rain and thunder forced a stoppage and turned the race into a strategic gamble, won by the minnows of Supercars.

6 RACE 5

TYREPOWER TASMANIA SUPERSPRINT

The 200km feature race was turned on its head when Cameron Waters left a trail a fluid at the hairpin. Leader van Gisbergen was caught out, handing the win to Davison and reshaping the top 10.

7 RACE 2 1 RACE 21

SUPERCHEAP AUTO BATHURST 1000

It may have started slow but the 2016 version of the Great Race erupted late on with the race-defining tangle between Jamie Whincup, Scott McLaughlin and Garth Tander and turned into a thrilling finish as Will Davison held off Shane van Gisbergen for the win.

2 RACE 28

COATES HIRE SYDNEY 500

Van Gisbergen needed fifth place to secure the title, but a pitlane penalty for contact with Mark Winterbottom sent him down the field. However, a perfectly timed safety car saw him claw his way back and dice with McLaughlin and James Courtney for the podium and the necessary points to put the championship to bed.

3 RACE 8

PERTH SUPERSPRINT ▼

Wet conditions threw a curveball in the Saturday race at Barbagallo. Craig Lowndes gambled on a two-stop strategy and recovered from running in 22nd place, half a minute off the lead, to the win.

CLIPSAL 500 ADELAIDE

In the second 125km sprint of the first race day of the season, Courtney jumped from fourth into the lead and held off a fastfinishing Whincup in an edge-of-your seat run to the line.

8 RACE 22

CASTROL GOLD COAST 600

Van Gisbergen and Alexandre Prémat overcame a 10-second penalty to win on the streets of Surfers Paradise in a race marred by the collision between Fabian Coulthard and Garth Tander.

9 RACE 25

ITM AUCKLAND SUPERSPRINT

The sprint races on hard tyres at Pukekohe weren’t the most exciting of the season but the intense side-by-side battle between van Gisbergen and Whincup proved to be a defining moment of 2016.

10 RACE 18

RED ROOSTER SYDNEY SUPERSPRINT

Van Gisbergen and Whincup fought it out for the win in the Saturday race at Sydney Motorsport Park. Whincup had fresher tyres but just couldn’t find a way through on van Gisbergen in the closing laps.

28

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5/12/2016 3:29 pm

It was a big year off the track for Supercars, from the uncertainty around manufacturers to the future of streetcircuit events and the start of another silly season. These are the headlines that rocked Supercars in 2016.

1

HOLDEN REALIGNS ITS SUPPORT

The news that Holden had recommitted to Supercars was overshadowed by its decision to pull its factory funding from Walkinshaw Racing and move the HRT branding to Triple Eight from 2017.

2

VOLVO WALKS OUT ON SUPERCARS

Volvo dropped a bombshell on Garry Rogers Motorsport and Supercars when it announced it would not only pull out of the series but also demand its cars and engines return to Sweden.

3

6

KUALA LUMPUR EVENT CANNED

Due to take place on August 12-14, the KL City 400 was cancelled following a legal dispute involving the local promoter in a further blow to Supercars’ international expansion plans.

7

LACROIX MOVES TO DJR TEAM PENSKE ▼

Frenchman Ludo Lacroix had been part of Triple Eight since its arrival in Australia. The technical guru’s decision to leave for DJR Team Penske could represent a shift in power between the two teams.

NISSAN RECOMMITS ▼

With Holden in and Volvo out, attention soon turned Nissan. After prolonged discussions between Nissan Australia and head office in Japan, the manufacturer recommitted for a further two seasons.

8 4

NEWCASTLE IN FOR SYDNEY

Sydney Olympic Park’s controversial stint hosting Supercars came to an end in 2016, with the series announcing Newcastle as the new host of the season finale with a street circuit around the regional town centre.

5

BATHURST APPEAL GETS UGLY

The saga over whether Jamie Whincup’s penalty for contact with Scott McLaughlin was warranted dragged on into an appeal, which Supercars CEO James Warburton described as “un-Australian”.

TANDER SHOWN THE DOOR

The fallout of Walkinshaw Racing’s loss of factory funding left veteran Garth Tander out of the team after a decade of service following the signing of Scott Pye to join James Courtney.

9

McLAUGHLIN TO DJR TEAM PENSKE

Scott McLaughlin kicked off the silly season with confirmation he would move from Garry Rogers Motorsport to DJR Team Penske in 2017, replacing Pye in the #17 entry.

10

DE SILVESTRO SIGNS WITH SUPERCARS

Swiss racer Simona de Silvestro signed a first-of-its-kind three-year deal to race in Supercars from 2017 as the full-time female driver the series had been seeking.

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SHANE VAN GISBERGEN

Shane van Gisbergen burst onto the V8 Supercars scene as a teenager in 2007. There was no doubting his natural talent but it took the New Zealander the best part of a decade to harness that speed to become the first Kiwi to win the Australian Touring Car Championship/Supercars title since Jim Richards in 1991. This is how our 2016 champion came of age to reach the top of the Supercars championship.

WORDS Adrian Musolino IMAGES Red Bull, inetpics.com, Peter Norton

ount Panorama Circuit can intimidate the best drivers… especially, you’d think, an 18-year-old rookie with only two rounds of experience.

Yet when Shane van Gisbergen first took to Bathurst he displayed the maturity and speed of a veteran.

“Yes, it is intimidating in a way but you don’t try and think like that otherwise you’ll just outpsych yourself,” said van Gisbergen, who appeared more nervous talking to the media than driving an iconic circuit he had never seen before.

On just his 13th lap of Mount Panorama he set a 2:09.3636, the ninth fastest time of the session and just over a second slower than the fastest time.

How did he do it? He shrugged his shoulders and said he prepared for Bathurst “just as I would for any other racetrack”.

Van Gisbergen had already stunned on his V8 Supercars championship debut at Oran Park two rounds earlier. Having never raced a touring car let alone driven at Oran Park, he scored a 13th place and set the

third-fastest lap on a very wet weekend. At Sandown he was just half a second off the fastest times – once again on debut at the circuit.

This was with a Team Kiwi Racing fighting for its life following a mid-season change of cars. Yet the teenage rookie had done enough to earn his place in V8 Supercars, at a time of a changing of the guard in the championship with Jamie Whincup leading the way for a new generation.

Van Gisbergen moved to Stone Brothers Racing in 2008, charged with lifting a team that had lost its way since the departure of Marcos Ambrose.

It took van Gisbergen some time to adjust to the step up.

Nevertheless, there was a second place at Sandown and top 15 in the championship in 2008.

He improved to 12th in the standings in 2009, albeit without a podium.

With 2008 teammate James Courtney having departed to Dick Johnson Racing, the pressure had been on van Gisbergen to carry the team forward. He did just that in 2010, notching up nine podiums for sixth in the championship and resisting approaches from other teams by re-signing with Stone Brothers Racing for a further two seasons.

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SHANE VAN GISBERGEN

S HA NE VA N GI S BE RGE N’ S CHA M PIONS HIP T RE ND L INE 1st 6

10th 15

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BF Falcon

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VF Commodore VF Commodore VF Commodore VF Commodore

Tekno Autosports

Triple Eight Race Engineering

“We had a few people asking what I was doing next year, but I just wanted to stay here,” he said at the time.

FASTFACTS “Ross and Jimmy (Stone) gave me the opportunity… and we want to build on that for the next few years.”

DATE OF BIRTH Van Gisbergen broke through for his first race win on May 9, 1989 home soil at Hamilton in 2011 and repeated the feat at BIRTHPLACE Hidden Valley, improving to fourth in the championship.

Auckland, New Zealand All appeared to be on track in May 2012 when van LIVES Gisbergen extended his deal with the team for a further Gold Coast, Qld three seasons.

MEASUREMENTS “I definitely think I can win a championship with SBR, Height 188cm / Weight 95kg that is the main reason I wanted to stay,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have stayed if I didn’t think that. Everything HOBBIES is really exciting now and I’m looking forward to continuHyper simulator, drifting, ing to work with SBR. speedway, NASCAR, family “It’s great to be the longest standing driver at SBR, PERSONAL VEHICLE now I just need to get the results and start winning Holden Calais sportswagon championships.”

FAVOURITE CIRCUIT But those words would come back to haunt van GisberBathurst gen when he sensationally walked away from the team at the conclusion of 2012, by which time Stone Brothers Racing was gearing up to morph into Erebus Motorsport to run customer AMG Mercedes-Benz E63s.

“I am announcing that I will be leaving Stone Brothers Racing and the sport of V8 Supercars,” said van Gisbergen.

“Contrary to media reports, I do not wish to race for another V8 Supercar team and my decision to leave the sport has in no way been caused

by Ross and Jimmy’s decision to switch manurs rca facturers in 2013. pe Su a ali str Virgin Au ner “I am leaving V8 Supercars due to personal reawin ip nsh pio am Ch p winner with sons which I do not wish to discuss in the public Pirtek Endurance Cu domain. I will be moving back home to New ZeaAlexandre Prémat rial Trophy land and have no fixed plans for the future.”

Jason Richards Memo What happened next remains a point of conwinner Endurance Cup tention and became the subject of a lengthy court Blancpain GT Series case. It’s clear, though, there was a significant champion ner with Jonathon Bathurst 12 Hour win falling out between the Stone brothers and van te Webb & Álvaro Paren Gisbergen. Only he knows whether it was his intention to race on into 2013 at the time he announced his decision to walk away.

SHANE VAN GISBERGEN

But by January he was back, signing for Tekno Autosports and entering the Holden fray after racing Fords exclusively up until that point.

“Towards the end of last year I started to lose motivation. The environment wasn’t right and I was struggling to remember why I was racing – it wasn’t a great mindset to be in, so I made the decision to take a break,” said van Gisbergen.

“I spent six weeks back home and was able to recharge my batteries. I had a good hard think about my career and considered my options.

“As part of that, I decided that if I was going to return, I needed a fresh challenge in a new environment and this is exactly the opportunity I was looking for.”

Van Gisbergen won the Clipsal 500 Adelaide on debut with Tekno Autosports in 2013. And he thrived in an environment in which he had the freedom to explore other racing activities, such as GT racing, drifting and rallying. If it has wheels and a motor, chances are van Gisbergen has raced it over the last few years.

At Tekno Autosports, van Gisbergen developed the reputation of a street fighter by adding victory at Sydney Olympic Park to his win in Adelaide, notching up fifth in the championship.

He added to his tally with a double win in torrential rain at Sydney Motorsport Park and victories on the streets of Surfers Paradise and Sydney Olympic Park in 2014, though the season was marred by a close call at Mount Panorama where van Gisbergen and Jonathon Webb looked on course for the win before a stall and a failing starter motor in their final pitstop.

Van Gisbergen ended his tenure with Tekno Autosprots with further wins at Surfers Paradise and Sydney Olympic Park before promotion to Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Red Bull Racing Australia outfit alongside Jamie Whincup.

Van Gisbergen had developed as a driver at Tekno Autosports, leading the team as its sole entry for the majority of his time with the customer team running Triple Eight equipment.

2016 achievements

2016 CHAMPION POSTER ON SALE NOW! Poster will be published in V8X Supercar Magazine issue #97.

Available to order uncreased, unfolded, unstapled and printed on high-quality photographic stock. Delivered in protective mailing tube. Sized at 540mm x 420mm. $55 with postage and handling included within Australia and New Zealand only.

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Team Kiwi Racing Ford BF Falcon

2008 u Stone Brothers Racing

Ford BF Falcon

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Ford FG Falcon

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2012 u Stone Brothers Racing

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2016 u

Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden VF Commodore

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SHANE VAN GISBERGEN

ABOVE: Va

is er e co cluded his champio ship

i

i

seaso

But the step up to the factory team would allow him to harness his talent with the benchmark of the best driver in the series and the leadership of Roland Dane’s team.

“We have a very fast car and good team, but the management from above is really good,” says van Gisbergen.

“Roland always gives us the pre-race chat with, for example, instructions like at Sandown to keep off the kerbs at certain points, so that’s what I did. It’s also Dutto [Mark Dutton] and the crew, so I’ve learned a lot and it’s improved my racing. It’s cool to be a part of.

“It’s taken a lot of time and it’s been the last three or so seasons where I’ve had some good people around me and I’ve had to adjust a lot. That’s made the difference and we’ve really stepped forward.”

Van Gisbergen truly came of age in 2016. The year started with victory in Tekno Autosports’ factory-supported McLaren 650S GT3s at the Bathurst 12 Hour, with van Gisbergen setting a lap record of 2:01.5670 for pole position.

It didn’t take long for van Gisgergen to get up to speed at Triple Eight, winning in the second event of the season at Symmons Plains and becoming a regular on the podium in the second half of the year.

Some thought van Gisbergen’s wild and at times

i h vic ory i

he

al race a

yd ey Olympic ar .

inconsistent performances would take longer to iron out at Triple Eight. But when it mattered he delivered with the sort of consistency needed to win a championship.

He and co-driver Alexandre Prémat were never off the podium in the endurance races, easily taking out the Pirtek Endurance Cup. “If Shane was smaller and lighter, he’d be a champion in Formula 1,” says Prémat.

“Shane is very talented. He has a lot of skill and is very smart with what he does. He’s always thinking about what he can do better all the time.”

At Pukekohe Park Raceway, with the pressure of a championship on the line at his home event, van Gisbergen stared down Whincup in a head-to-head battle and prevailed, with the six-times champion cracking first.

Rather than the inexperienced van Gisbergen, it was actually Whincup who lost vital points with racing incidents at Bathurst and Pukekohe that eventually handed the newbie in the team the title.

Van Gisbergen’s season also included success in the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup with wins at Monza and Paul Ricard.

The natural talent we saw when he first appeared as a teenager a decade ago is now the finished product.

DRIFTING A SUPERCAR

Scan with your smartphone to watch SVG go drifting at Sydney Motorsport Park.

VAN GISBERGEN VS WHINCUP IN 2016 SVG JW RACES WINS PODIUMS TOP 10 POLES FASTEST LAPS

29 8 18 26 7 7

29 7 17 23 6 5

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TEKNO AUTOSPORTS

One of the smallest teams in Australian motorsport, run as a family business, won both the Bathurst 12 Hour and 1000 in 2016.

This is how Tekno Autosports is upstaging its rivals.

WORDS Amanda Jackson IMAGES Peter Norton, Supercars

ekno Autosports is a singlecar outfit in a paddock full of larger teams. However, if its Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 victory is anything to go by, it isn’t holding it or its customer Holden VF Commodore back one iota.

It isn’t only the Supercars arena in which Tekno is turning heads, either.

The team took out the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour, while November saw it claim the GT Australian Endurance Championship and third in the overall GT title.

So what is it about Tekno that allows it to keep bringing home the big wins?

According to its Supercars pilot Will Davison, it all comes down to “the human element”.

“There is no magic in this sport, a lot of people – particularly in the larger-sized teams – go looking for the ‘silver bullet’ and they lose the human element,” explains Davison.

“Every team is doing a great job up and down pitlane; everyone is trying to find that little edge, but a lot lose sight of that human element, working together and concentrating on some of the small details.

“People often, in such a controlled category, go searching for ‘big’. For particular teams with resources and money, it can be a good thing, but it can be a bad thing as they go designing and changing and the car is different every time it goes out.

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ABOVE: Tekno Autosports

held o i s former driver ha e va is er e a d he supplier of i s cars riple i h o i he 0 upercheap u o Bathurst 1000.

“While it is hard at times (being a small team), we have the highest quality of people… and everyone is very passionate about working here and they spend the money on the right areas.

“We are obviously limited on what the team can spend, but if you look at bang for buck, I definitely think we are the best team in pitlane.

“You can’t be a ‘nine to fiver’ here, you have to be a competitor whether you are a driver or a crew member; you have to have that competitive instinct. That passion from the people working on your car, to see them have the same level of drive and enthusiasm for what they are doing (as yourself), that is what makes a good team.

“It has been a tough year in many ways and to achieve what we have achieved despite having some hurdles to overcome is a real testament to the character of the guys. And we are only going to get better.”

Both his team boss Jonathon ‘Jono’ Webb and 2016 engineer Dr Geoffrey Slatter agree.

“Obviously we have some good people around us. We have been very fortunate from the start to have good engineers, mechanics and everyone else that drives to make the team work,” says Webb.

“As a small group there is some good and some bad of course, but we all work closely together and it is a real family environment. When cars are damaged and times are tough, we all work together and just get in and get it done.”

Slatter agrees: “Obviously the workforce size is quite small compared to a lot of other teams, but having guys who are very skilled in a range of areas – not just focused on one area – enables us to be as competitive as we can be.

“I think understanding the product that you have got also definitely helps.

“We have a good driver in Will and also in previous drivers that we have had, but if you have a good driver in a bad car or don’t understand what the car is doing, you can’t maximise it.”

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TEKNO AUTOSPORTS

Tekno has been a customer of Triple Eight for some seasons now but, as Slatter eludes, it isn’t a matter of just picking up a finished product and going racing.

“We have a good product from Triple Eight and they definitely provide us with assistance if we need it, but we are sure to go away and measure the car and understand the car. We try and develop what we understand and maximise that,” explains Slatter.

“We are a small team so occasionally we have been lost, but we have an understanding and so can look at where we have had issues and come back from that, which is a sign of the fact that if you understand the package, you can get back to where you were.

“I think that is a strength we have; we have good guys who know what they are doing, hopefully I know what I am doing, and Will knows what he is doing, so we put it all together and we work well together.”

“We have a good car, but it comes down to the people working on it,” adds Davison. “You don’t just get a car and polish it and away you go, there is a lot more to it.

“Tekno has a great little bunch of close-knit people that trust and respect each other and we certainly do in some ways punch above our weight.”

For Webb, the relationship with Triple Eight, headed up by industry stalwart Roland Dane, is a positive one that is continuing to grow and develop.

“Roland has really helped us and (the relationship) has gone from strength to strength,” says Webb.

A O E: Tekno is

he rs eam i us ralia mo orspor his ory o i he a hurs our a d a hurs 000 i he same year. ro ically former upercars driver ha e va is er e as par of e os our i alo side eam oss o a ho e a d lvaro are e. Va is er e he ur ed rival a li e a d ill aviso i he a hurs 000.

“As you would typically expect, Roland was pretty reserved at the start and kept things close to his chest, but after going through the years and showing we are a trustworthy group and not sharing his secrets, there is now comfort and trust and it works even better.”

As a small team it is certainly no surprise that a successful customer relationship has played a key part in Tekno’s success. For Davison, who has raced at powerhouse outfits such as Ford Performance Racing and the Holden Raicng Team and moved to Tekno for the 2016 season, the change has called for some adjustment.

“It is crazy (the difference), our whole team is the size of the engineering departments at FPR or HRT – I have been in debriefs with 16 people at FPR and you would sit there for two or three hours. Here it’s Geoff and I,” chuckles Davison.

“For me it has been a pretty big change. I have had to walk myself to the toilet, grab my own helmet and hang my own clothes up! I am not getting my hand held anymore!

“IF YOU LOOK AT BANG FOR BUCK, I DEFINITELY THINK WE ARE THE BEST TEAM IN PITLANE.” – A SON ON TE NO AUTOSPORTS

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“At the end of the day, though, it is good. You can actually go back to what is important: enjoying your racing, working with good people, with a good car.

“I am quite enjoying being back to more of a… I won’t say a grassroots feel, because the level to which this car is prepared and the attention to detail is absolutely second to none, but something a bit more simple, less political and a bit more enjoyable at times.”

A key driver of how the team bands together can be attributed to the teachings of former general manager Steve Hallam, who departed the team earlier in 2016.

“Steve was a great leader and in losing him we had to look within ourselves and take everything we had learnt from him and move forward,” says Slatter.

“I think that showed as at the following round we came out and won it and we were competitive. When we did have down times, such as the Bathurst mishap (in 2014), Steve would pull us aside and just break it down to its bare basics – we know we can win a race, so how do we move forward from this? There are always problems, so how do you solve the problems to move forward?

Steve was very good at that, and (that approach) has been imparted on each of the guys and we take that step forward every time.”

“It was obviously tough losing Steve,” adds Webb. “But in the time that he was with us he brought a wealth of experience to not only myself but also the engineers and the mechanics.

ABOVE: Victory in the Bathurst 1000 saw Jonathon Webb join lla o a e er roc ic oh so arry er i s a d Mark Skaife as owner/ drivers o i he Great Race. It was ill aviso s seco d Bathurst win in addi io o his success a he olde aci Team in 2009. Tekno o i hou leadi a lap a er he 88 riple i h e ry i curred a penalty.

“He is always part of the family and is welcome back at Tekno if and when he wants. He had an amazing opportunity to go over to the US and work with a manufacturer and grow his experience. We still keep in contact now – he is always on the other end of the phone if I need him.”

While the successes of 2016 may have started in February, for Webb they still haven’t had time to sink in.

“I don’t really know what I think about it all, I don’t know if I’ve had time to reflect on it,” he laughs.

“We won the 12 Hour on the first time out with the McLaren and then we won the 1000 and then the (GT) endurance championship as well – as a very small group, we have won a lot.

“A lot of the guys in the team have been with me since the start and for them it was so great to win at Bathurst – especially after coming so close in ’14 and the heartbreak of that, so it was so good to win it for all of us.”

For Davison, Bathurst was certainly a talking point of the year and an achievement he holds dear.

“Bathurst is the ultimate and regardless of anything, any time you can score that trophy, it doesn’t matter how you got it, it is the ultimate,” he says.

“Since I won it in 2009 I think there were three years where I felt like I should have won, but that place doesn’t owe anyone any favours. It just robs you and it robs you and you think, ‘Wow, thank gosh I have got one already because this joint is cruel’.

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TEKNO AUTOSPORTS

“You can keep going there and be the favourite and for one reason or another, you don’t win it. So to get that win for me personally after a lean couple of years was just the ultimate, it was something I have craved for years and years and to get that opportunity again and to do it with Tekno was even better.”

Tekno isn’t just about Supercars and GT racing either.

The group also operates Tekno Performance, the performance and enhancement division of Tekno Autosports, which specialises in upgrades for late-model Holden/ HSV, Ford/FPV and European vehicles.

“The two sides work reasonably well together – the only real clash at the moment being that we have grown so rapidly in a work environment that is a bit restrictive.

Other than tripping over each other it balances really well,” explains Webb.

“The GT crew and Supercars crew work together and across each other really well. In the road-car side of things we always need to be ready for anything from one to 10 cars a week – if a dealership is selling cars, then we are modifying them. And there are some exciting things coming to help the whole business work smoother and better.”

As far as the racing side of things goes, the plan for now is to focus on the one car for Supercars while continuing to look for further opportunities, says Webb.

“We are still growing, but at the moment in Supercars I am really happy with the one car as we can focus everything we can on that one entry,” he adds.

“The GT side of things has been a good boost to us and the road car side is growing too. We always have our eyes and ears open for great opportunities out there, at the moment we are just trying to do the best we can with what we are doing.”

A O E: Davison

continued Tekno’s run of op 0 ishes i the standings. E O : Tekno Performance continues its growth i he a ermar e performance-car sector.

Davison adds: “Things are already looking promising for next season. As a business we are growing together, we just have to fine tune a few details going forward with the structure, but it is all working pretty well.

“My move to Tekno was all about getting myself back up there. I would love to think as a group we will grow, keep winning and get better and bigger.”

2016 BATHURST

WINNERS POSTER ON SALE NOW!

Poster originally published in V8X Supercar Magazine #95.

Available to order uncreased, unfolded, unstapled and printed on high-quality photographic stock. Delivered in protective mailing tube. Sized at 540mm x 420mm. $55 with postage and handling included within Australia and New Zealand only.

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SPECIAL FEATURE WORDS Mark Fogarty IMAGES Peter Norton, Glenis Lindley

Following a season that seemed to be dominated by controversial penalties, Supercars chief operating officer Shane Howard reveals details of a comprehensive overhaul of the sporting rulebook and plans to review the controversial graded driving offences system exclusively to Mark Fogarty. oincidence or consequence? After major rules-related controversies in 2016, Supercars is undertaking a searching review of the sporting regulations aimed at a comprehensive update for the start of 2018.

Supercars is adamant the planned overhaul of the rulebook, which could include a streamlined judicial system, is not in response to the dissent caused by Triple Eight’s divisive appeal against the careless driving penalty that cost Jamie Whincup victory at Bathurst.

In which case, the proposed revamp of the sporting regulations is a timely coincidence.

The post-Bathurst 1000 predicament highlighted the weaknesses and inconsistencies in the rules already exposed by a series of incidents and arguments during the season.

There is little doubt, however, the confusion over the application of the restart and minimum fuel-drop rules during the chaotic rain-interrupted final race of the seasonopening Clipsal 500 triggered the realisation a review of the rulebook was long overdue.

Plans for the rewrite of the sporting regulations – alongside an update of the technical regs to coincide with Gen2, which in practical terms doesn’t come into effect until 2018 – were well advanced before Sandown and formalised before the Gold Coast.

Nevertheless, the disputed Bathurst result highlighted on-going dissatisfaction with the three-grade careless-driving-penalty system and, more specifically, the perceived inconsistency of its application and has had an indirect impact on the rulebook review.

An early by-product of the regulatory renovation may be changes to the judicial procedures for driving offences, including the contentious issue of redressing and scale of penalties, which will be reassessed ahead of next season. That re-evaluation is the result of the Bathurst incident bringing to a head concerns the application of penalties had been arbitrary despite codified rankings.

The review of the sporting regulations will be conducted by former TEGA chief Kelvin O’Reilly with the assistance of fast-rising motorsport administrator Michael Massi under the direction of Supercars chief operating officer Shane Howard.

It will be the first complete restructure of the sporting-rules section of the Supercars Operations Manual – the ‘handbook’ for the series’ racing and technical regulations – since the first version was compiled at the turn of the century. Since then, it has been updated on an ad hoc basis, leading to the need for a thorough review to refine, clarify, consolidate and simplify the wording and intent of the rules.

O’Reilly and Massi were hired to undertake the top-to-bottom re-appraisal because of their respective motorsport-administrative experience, with the process overseen

by Howard, a long-time senior Supercars executive.

O’Reilly ran the Australian Super Touring championship in the mid-to-late 1990s before joining TEGA – the entrants group representing the teams’ former 75 per cent ownership of V8 Supercars – in 2002. He was instrumental in major early rulebook reforms and the framing of key foundation technical regulations, including the ‘Project Blueprint’ specifications.

O’Reilly has more recently orchestrated the transformation of Karting Australia under the chairmanship of five-times world motorcycle champion Mick Doohan. Massi is his former apprentice, whose multiple administrative roles include race director of the second-tier Dunlop Series.

According to Howard, the review was ordered because it is the right time to bring the sporting rulebook up to date after more than 15 years of ‘organic’ evolution.

“Our rulebook has served us very, very well for a long time,” he says. “It’s kind of like a tax document. It starts off pretty simple and then as things progress, more and more people have input and add to it. As it goes on, the more complicated it gets.

“Kelvin and Michael are very competent at writing rules and understanding the rules, and so, consequently, we have employed them as consultants to do a full review of our rulebook. And because it does become complicated, it’s how rules talk to other rules and then relate back into technical. So it’s time for that to have a complete review and there’s an enormous amount of hours it takes to do that. It’s not an overnight thing.

The first estimate on hours is something like 900 hours will go into the review.

“So they’re employed as the consultants to do that in conjunction with David Stuart, our head of motorsport and technical, and what they will do is obviously thoroughly review the rules, but they’ll also have subcommittees of team owners, race engineers, etc that will have input as well. To get the final review done, it’ll be 2018 – and because we’re going through technical changes now as well for Gen2, that’ll be done in conjunction with it.”

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Howard stresses O’Reilly and Massi were approached to conduct the review months before Triple Eight’s disallowed appeal, which raised questions about the judicial system and handling of in-race penalties.

“This goes back well before Bathurst,” he explains. “Actually, it goes back even before Sandown when we first started talking to them. It’s definitely not a kneejerk reaction.

“Kelvin and Michael are the right people to do it. They’re very experienced and fully supported by the commission and the board to undertake that role. The first cab off the rank is to review any rules that have had any controversy on the way through, so we’ll lock those down as soon as we can.”

Howard outlines how the review will work, concentrating on tightening up the regulations within the underlying framework of CAMS’ sporting rules and the over-arching FIA International Sporting Code.

“Our rules will be reviewed and from that we’ll make recommendations if we think something can be better clarified, take out any grey,” he says. “The aim is to make the rulebook as clear and precise as possible and then easy to interpret and administer.

“So once the review’s happened and everybody agrees on our position – our sub-committees agree and the commission agrees and the board agrees – then the rulebook is submitted to CAMS as the ASN (National Sporting Authority) and then it goes to the FIA and they sign off on it and then that’s how we go racing.”

Triple Eight’s appeal against the 15-second penalty applied to Whincup late in the Bathurst 1000 for pushing Scott McLaughlin off the track met with unprecedented opposition from Supercars because it sought to restore him as winner after the declaration of the result at the end of the race.

The principle of whoever finishes first on the track is the winner is well enshrined in NASCAR, but while the Bathurst controversy focused on the potential threat to the result, Howard believes Supercars’ more traditional approach can be finessed to accommodate the desire for the finishing order to be final at the flag.

“We’re as good as our sporting rules and regulations; the better they are, the better the consistency of their application and therefore the results people have,” he says.

“I think everyone would agree we would like the decisions to be made where possible in the race so the podium is the podium.”

Howard also notes that unlike the AFL and NRL, where the results of games at the final siren are incontestable, motorsport is limited in how far it can go with in-race adjudications.

“We can’t stop the game,” he says. “The football codes can actually stop the game, go into review and make a decision. Decisions are always best made during the race or during the game so that at the end of the game or the end of the race, you have a podium and you know who’s won.

“If you look at the NRL or AFL, they have the post-event reviews and judicial hearings and things like that, but they don’t change the outcome of the game. But at the end of the day, when the umpire makes the decision, the decision is made on the information that they have available to them and they believe that the decision is right. And in our case, that’s with the stewards in conjunction with our DSO as an advisor, then they believe they have the decision right and they will administer it during the race.

Supercars is reviewing its rulebook following a season of controversies in 2016.

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SPECIAL FEATURE

“Everybody would prefer a position that the person that finishes first wins the race, but we’re in a highly technical sport and people have to abide by the technical rules as well.”

Howard rejects the notion that, just as the NRL and AFL publicity machines thrive on on-going post-match controversies, Supercars revelled in the post-Bathurst debate because it kept the sport in the mainstream media leading up to the Gold Coast 600.

“We’re not interested in that, to be honest,” he declares. “We’re just interested in rules and regulations that produce the best result for the championship, providing clarity and consistency all the way through.”

Howard acknowledges that communicating the rules to fans and the media had been a failing this year – especially regarding the penalties in the three-tier careless driving penalties, promulgated to the drivers and teams but not available publicly – and that would be addressed in the review.

But he maintains that apart from revisiting the way contact in races is handled, the rulebook was not in urgent need of change.

“It’s still a very, very good rulebook,” he declares. “If you look at our rulebook, how many issues has there been over a very long period of time?

“There are very few issues with the rulebook and probably the biggest issues that we’ve faced are this year and whether people are happy with the way the careless driving three tiers has been applied and that will obviously be one of the main considerations going forward, whether we continue with it.

“The rulebook is not broken but like anything it can be improved and we’ve been tasked to do that in conjunction with a reevaluation of the judicial system and that’s what everybody wants.

“We should have the best system and the best rules, then we’ll get the best results.

And they’ll also be well-communicated to everyone, including our fanbase.

“We’ll look at all other international sporting codes and their regulations and see if we can improve that.

“Any time you allow grey in a rulebook, that allows differing interpretation and, therefore, that’s when you have differences of opinion.

“There are different approaches between F1, NASCAR, us, but I think our approach has been a good one and I think it’s just time for a review and probably around those areas (careless-driving charges) to see whether we will continue with the approach we’ve had.”

According to Howard, the idea of drivers redressing – giving back a place gained by minor contact – and a graded scale of penalties was formally instituted this year in an effort to overcome the iniquities of the previous system of Pit Lane Penalties (PLPs).

“Whether it’s a good thing, whether it’s a bad thing, that’ll be reviewed,” he says. “It was brought in to really help make the penalty fit the crime instead of everyone getting a PLP for every time they have contact with another competitor’s car.

“It’ll be reviewed to establish whether it’s working, whether it needs better communication and, as we said, in line with the review of the rulebook, we are doing a review of the judicial system.

“It’ll be part of the overall review (of the sporting rules) because that review will have a sub-committee set up with leaders of our industry and we will take all of their opinions

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on the way through and then we will make a recommendation from that, then obviously go through the protocol of commission/ board/CAMS/FIA.” He confirms that how driving offences are adjudicated and penalties are applied will be re-examined ahead of the 2017 season.

“We will be reviewing that and we will be looking at it before next season,” he says.

“That’s what we told the drivers, that’s what we told the teams. At the end of the season we’ll review, we’ll consult and then we’ll come back with a determination of whether we continue with that or we don’t for the next season.

“We’ll have a look at whether that’s the best thing for the sport, the competitors and the fans and if we think something needs a tweak or a change, then we’ll do that. But it’ll be done in conjunction with our key stakeholders to make sure that everybody’s signed up to it.”

Howard admits the application of the careless-driving rules – and the widespread perception among drivers that they were enforced inconsistently despite written guidelines – had been a sore point.

Ironically, it’s the intended flexibility of the three-grade system that blurred lines.

“The areas where we have had a bit of controversy would be in the careless driving side of the rules,” he says. “Previously, that was very clear-cut in the rulebook. Basically, if you attempted a pass and you hit someone, and you got an advantage out of it, that was a PLP, a drive-through. In those times, we had a lot of cars going through the pitlane.

“What everybody wants out of a rulebook is clarity, consistency and they want the penalty to fit the crime. So what was developed was a system to try to have it so there were different gradings, so not everybody was getting a PLP and trundling through the pits.

“That’s where the careless-driving grades 1, 2 and 3 were put in to actually make it fit the crime more.

“It’s been adjudicated that way for a while, but this year we put a lot more effort into trying to accurately communicate it to the drivers and teams so there was clarity around it. Where there’s any grey, it becomes an issue because it becomes interpretation.”

Howard outlines the three grades of careless-driving offences that were reiterated

“WE WOULD LIKE THE DECISIONS TO BE MADE WHERE POSSIBLE IN THE RACE.” – S ANE O AR at the Bathurst 1000 drivers’ briefing in a PowerPoint presentation by Driving Standards Observer Jason Bargwanna (pictured below with Rick Kelly).

Although not written in the Supercars Operations Manual, Howard notes that notification at the drivers’ briefing made them “part of the rules”.

A grade 1 offence is a ‘bump and run’ that can be redressed without penalty.

“You’re fixing up you own mess, so to speak, and the stewards will still have a look at it and if they think it’s fair and reasonable, it’s bat on,” says Howard.

Grade 2 and 3 offences involve pushing a car off the track to the extent the victim loses multiple places or cannot continue.

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SPECIAL FEATURE

An attempt to redress a grade 2 incident is not enough to avoid a sanction.

“On a grade 2, perhaps other competitors have gone through as well, so it’s more complicated and not just a straight redress,” says Howard. “That could be when race control advises over the LAN or comms to the team to reposition. And repositioning is a penalty and they administer that. And then a grade 3 is you hit somebody and damage their car, severely compromising their race or putting them out, which warrants a PLP.” Triple Eight’s protest highlighted the complexity of the rules because the CAMS National Court Of Appeal ruled the appeal was inadmissible because a competitor cannot challenge a stewards’ decision made during the conduct of a race. The tribunal concluded that under the rules, the decision did not constitute a stewards’ hearing and only penalties arising from a hearing can be appealed.

Now logic would suggest the stewards should have known the rules and not accepted the appeal in the first place. But CAMS maintains it is not their role to decide whether an appeal is valid or not

and that; therefore, they followed proper procedure by allowing Triple Eight to lodge an appeal against Whincup’s 15-second penalty, which if overturned would have restored him as the winner.

Along with the embarrassing confusion during the rain-disrupted deciding Sunday race of the Clipsal 500, the Bathurst farrago begged the question of why competitors, much less officials, don’t appear to know the rules.

“It’s a complicated document,” says Howard, referring to the Operations Manual. “There are 300-odd pages and most people would think, ‘Well, everybody should know the rulebook letter by letter’, but it’s not that simple.

“When a unique circumstance pops up, teams and stewards and everybody are going to the rulebook to see how they best handle that situation.

“So from time to time things come up like that. It’s like what happened in Adelaide and the interpretation there. I don’t think there’d be any person who’d know absolutely every rule in that rulebook. It’s not that simple.

“DIFFERENT PEOPLE CAN HAVE A DIFFERENT INTERPRETATION OF THE RULE.” – S ANE O AR “Teams get it wrong and at times the stewards may get it wrong as well. It depends on the circumstance and the interpretation.

“When we look at interpretation of the rules, that’s when it becomes a complicated issue.

“A rule can be interpreted differently by one word in the sentence and we have very clever people on both sides of the table, so while the teams operate by the rules, if they can, they will try to exploit a rule to gain an advantage – and, of course, every team should be doing that and they will.

“The guys we have in our teams are good at it and, obviously, it’s the stewards’ responsibility to adjudicate on those rules and make the decisions.”

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Howard says eliminating the grey areas that have crept in over the years is a key reason for undertaking the review of Supercars’ sporting rulebook.

“You can have a rule, but different people can have a different interpretation of the rule,” he says. “You can have the same rule and talk to half a dozen people and you will get different opinions. We have it all the time. So that’s why it’s prudent to undertake a major review of our rulebook.

“Once it’s gone through a number of hands over a long period of time with different understandings of the intent, some of these rules need to be clarified, and they can be more detailed and more black and white, which in turn helps in the consistency of their administration.”

V8 Supercar Magazine wanted to talk with Bargwanna about how driving offences are judged, as he is the public face of the judiciary. He is perceived as the decider of guilt or innocence, although he is actually an advisor to the three-person panel of CAMS stewards, who actually make the decisions.

Howard says it was more appropriate he address the judicial controversies within the

wider scope of the overall regulatory review and asserts Bargwanna isn’t being shielded from scrutiny.

“It’s my role to oversee the judicial system for Supercars and Jason is part of that,” he says. “We employ him, so he forms part of it.”

To be fair, Howard is open and forthcoming during the interview and able to provide far more detail about the review because it is being conducted under his watch.

“I’m responsible for getting the rulebook reviewed and getting our judicial system reviewed and I report back into the commission and back into the board,’ he says. “And we’ve been tasked by the commission to go out and have a look at what we do, have a look at what other sports do, and then go back to them with a recommendation – and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

He concedes the drivers’ perception of Bargwanna’s influence is over-stated. “He is not the final arbiter,” says Howard. “The stewards are. It’s not one man’s decision.

“He’s there to advise the stewards. He’s a driver, he still races (in NZ V8s), he hasn’t been that long out of the (Supercars)

championship (in which he last competed full-time in 2010). His role as the DSO is to advise the stewards and give a driver’s point of view to aid them with decisions. At the end of the day, it’s the stewards’ decision.

“The stewards are there to administer the rules. The stewards can make the decision themselves. But the DSO is in there to help with consistency and to have a driver’s point of view that can help them form their decision. So that’s what he’s there for.”

Howard promises that once the Supercars rulebook had been updated it will be disclosed in full, including complete details of judicial procedures.

“Once we’ve done the full review of the judicial system, it’s our intent at the start of the 2018 season to roll out a proper briefing with our new rulebook,” he says. “With any review of the judicial system, we will communicate that to drivers, team owners and to the media and fans.

“They should be able to have access to all that and we’ll have no problem with putting that on our website so everybody clearly understands how that judicial system works.”

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HOLDEN RACING TEAM

WORDS Adrian Musolino IMAGES Autopics.com.au, inetpics.com, Peter Norton, James Baker

The Holden Racing Team ruled V8 Supercars at the turn of the century. But the team’s fall from the top of the perch would eventually spiral to the loss of factory Holden funding and status at the conclusion of 2016. We chart the team’s incredible journey, from creation to the crossroads.

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he seeds of the Holden Racing Team (HRT) were sown in the divorce between Peter Brock and Holden in 1987, which resulted in the demise of the Holden Dealer Team and its roadgoing division, HDT Special Vehicles.

Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR), which had won the Bathurst 1000, the Le Mans 24 Hour and British and European touring-car championships, was awarded the deal to run the factory Holden team from 1988.

With Walkinshaw focusing on setting up the

road-going division, Holden Special Vehicles (HSV), the running of the team was contracted out to Larry Perkins’ Perkins Engineering on a two-year deal.

The new TWR-designed racer, based on HSV’s new Group A model, debuted at the Sandown 500 with a second place, while Perkins ended the year with a win at the non-championship Australian Grand Prix event.

The team ran a limited campaign with an eye on the endurance events in 1989, which paid dividends with second place at Sandown in the first appearance of Holden Racing Team branding. Then the deal between TWR and Perkins Engineering came to an end, with the former bringing the program in-house and the latter going its own way. So begins HRT’s journey…

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HOLDEN RACING TEAM

1990

Former TWR driver Win Percy is hired to manage and drive for HRT, now operating independently in its own facility with the likes of Rob Benson and Wally Storey in the crew. Results are hard to come by in the championship.

However, Percy and co-driver Allan Grice upstage the turbo brigade to take victory in the Bathurst 1000.

The win for the local Commodore against the imported Sierras and Skylines under the Group A rules embeds HRT in the hearts of Holden fans.

1991 1992

The new VN doesn’t deliver the desired results, aside from another podium at Bathurst. Uncertainty around the future of Percy as manager/driver and announcement of a part campaign for 1992 raises questions over the team’s future.

Tomas Mezera is hired as driver and Percy returns as manager and endurance driver, with a part season allowing the team to focus on the V8-spec VP Commodore that debuts with a third place at Sandown and claims fifth at Bathurst.

1993

The dawn of the V8 era sees HRT expand to two entries for the first time in the championship, with former motorcycling world champion Wayne Gardner partnering Mezera and former HDT and Dick Johnson Racing team manager Neal Lowe replacing Percy at the helm. But poor results see Lowe part with the team midway through the year, with Mezera stepping up as driver/manager alongside new recruits Jeff Grech and Ron Harrop. The tumultuous season continues at Sandown, where Gardner is benched amid accusations he’s luring sponsors to set up his own team. He returns at Bathurst to take third place and wins the non-championship Australian Grand Prix in what is his final race for the team.

1994

Holden supremo John Crennan’s three-year plan to take HRT to the top begins with the recruitment of Peter Brock, returning to the factory Holden fold for the first time since their split in 1987, and Grech establishing himself

as team boss. Mobil also comes on board in a relationship that continues to this day, while Chris Dyer adds to the engineering department.

Brock scores the team’s first round win at Eastern Creek, while rookie Craig Lowndes stars on debut with second place at Bathurst.

1995

The team debuts the VR Commodore and Brock takes race wins at Symmons Plains and Phillip Island for third in the championship, achieving Crennan’s goal of highest-placed Holden team in the standings. It’s a timely result with the team’s deal with Holden up for renewal and Gibson Motorsport angling for factory status. An extension is agreed, with Lowndes rewarded with a full-time drive for 1996 in place of Mezera.

1996

HRT’s ascendancy is complete with Lowndes storming to a record-breaking championship win that includes 16 race wins and six from 10 round wins. Young New Zealander Greg Murphy joins him for the endurance events and they duly win Sandown and Bathurst. Lowndes, with the help of Walkinshaw, does a deal to move to European Formula 3000 for 1997, with Murphy rewarded with the full-time drive.

1997

Murphy wins on his championship debut at Calder Park, though hopes of repeating Lowndes’ heroics are dashed by a string of mechanical failures with the new VS Commodore. Brock wins a race in his final championship round before retirement at Oran Park and is joined at Bathurst by new recruit Mark Skaife. But the duo can’t convert from pole position after another mechanical failure, while Lowndes returns to partner Murphy. Meanwhile, the team expands with the Holden Young Lions entry to groom up-and-coming talent.

1998

Lowndes’ return from Europe leaves HRT with a dilemma: three drivers and just two seats. Lowndes and Skaife are awarded the drives, while Murphy settles for endurance co-driving and testing duties. Lowndes duly continues where he left off, winning the title despite the added complication of debuting the new VT Commodore late in the season.

1999

Lowndes continues his domination with a third championship win from three attempts, despite missing a round through injury following a spectacular rollover at Calder Park and the implementation of a control tyre. HRT wins the inaugural teams’ championship, confirming its place at the top of the pecking order in V8 Supercars.

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CHAMPIONSHIP

H O L D E N R A C I N G T E A M CHAM PIONSHIP & BATHURST TREND LINE

1st

1

2 5

10th

8

8

3

3 2

3

1 1

4

7

1 6

1 2

1

1 1

1 1

5

3 5

1 7

3

4

6

6 11

14

16

12

2 1

3 5

BATHURST

1 5

4 7

4 8

3 6

6

9 13

13

20th 30th

Best results for the HRT entries. Does not include Walkinshaw Racing-run entries such as the HSV Dealer Team, Holden Young Lions, etc.

40th DNF

DNF

DNF

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

2000

Skaife steps up to win his first championship for the team. A new technical arrangement with John Hart Technology sees HRT solidify its engineering strength, though there are problems on the driver front. In November, Lowndes announces he’s leaving the team for what emerges as a defection to Ford.

2001

The contenders to replace Lowndes are Todd Kelly, Marcos Ambrose and Jason Bright. It comes down to a coin toss between Ambrose and Bright, won in favour of Bright. However, Kelly lands a drive with Walkinshaw’s Kmart Racing operation alongside Greg Murphy; the factory operation expanding to four entries to create more opportunities within the team. Skaife takes the new VX Commodore to the Bathurst and championship double.

2002

The Skaife steamroller continues with another Bathurst and championship double. In addition to the two HRT entries and the Kmart entries, the team also fields Rick Kelly in the Holden Young Lions entry that had been loaned out the previous two seasons and would race under the HRT banner for the final time in 2002. But the downfall of TWR in Europe, highlighted by its crumbling Arrows Formula 1 team, threatens to derail HRT’s success.

technical and marketing relationship of the leading Holden entries.

Meanwhile, the series introduces the Project Blueprint regulations designed to improve parity between the new BA Falcon and VY Commodore, highlighted by standard design features, while HRT debuts a new Holden Motorsport-branded engine. Stone Brothers Racing’s Ambrose ends Skaife’s reign as champion, with the season ending on a sour note following a controversial collision between Skaife and Russell Ingall at Eastern Creek.

2004

HRT loses further ground as work continues on how to manage Skaife’s workload with the addition of former AFL player-turned-manager Craig Kelly to the team. But the comeback of Brock as an endurance co-driver that ends without the great getting to turn a lap at Mount Panorama following a crash for John Cleland typifies a season of frustration for the team.

2005

Walkinshaw returns to the scene, first as a managerial adviser for Holden Motorsport and then, at the end of the year, with the repurchase of the team that would be known as Walkinshaw Racing. This includes both HRT entries and the renamed HSV Dealer Team (HSVDT), following the loss of Kmart sponsorship. Garth Tander enters the fray as replacement for Murphy at HSVDT, while Skaife and Todd Kelly combine to win the Bathurst 1000.

2006

With Walkinshaw now back at the helm, the team moves into its current facility at Clayton Park with an eye on returning to the top of the championship.

But it’s the HSVDT entries in contention, which sees the team swap drivers across its two different entities for the endurance events – the Kellys at HSVDT and Tander and Skaife at HRT – drawing complaints that it’s against the spirit of the rules. Rick Kelly goes on to win the title in controversial circumstances following a collision with Triple Eight’s Lowndes at Phillip Island. The year ends with news of Grech’s defection to Paul Weel Racing.

2003

TWR’s collapse results in Holden stepping in to save the team, backing Skaife’s purchase of the operation for $3.25 million, staving off interest from the likes of Triple Eight Race Engineering, which ran General Motors’ factory team in the British Touring Car Championship. The Kelly family buys the Kmart Racing branch of the team with Rick Kelly replacing brother Todd, who in turn replaces the Paul Weel Racingbound Bright at HRT. Holden Motorsport is created to oversee the

2007

The team faces renewed pressure from V8 Supercars and rival teams to explain the relationship between Holden Motorsport, Walkinshaw Racing, HRT and HSVDT, which threatens the team’s place on the grid. Changes to the ownership structure and clarification of the relationship between the entities dissuade any concerns, but HSVDT’s ascendancy over HRT is confirmed when Tander wins the title in the first season of running the VE Commodore.

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HOLDEN RACING TEAM

2012

Further changes at the top, with Formula 1 veteran engineer Steve Hallam leading the team and Mike Henry and Erik Pender leaving their respective positions. There is some good news when Holden extends its funding deal with both HRT and Triple Eight. But Triple Eight’s Bathurst and championship double relative to the HRT’s winless season reflects the growing gulf in performance between the two teams.

Russell Ingall and Supercheap Auto join the team in a third entry.

2008

Walkinshaw’s attempts to swing the balance of power back to HRT begin with Tander, engineer Matt Nilsson and team manager Rob Crawford moving across from HSVDT. Meanwhile, Skaife announces his retirement from driving at the end of the season, including the sale of his shares in the team to Walkinshaw. Also leaving are the Kellys, who will take their two licenses across to Perkins Engineering to form Kelly Racing.

The changes can’t stop Triple Eight from winning its first title with Jamie Whincup.

2009

HRT recruits Will Davison to replace Skaife. He and Tander team up to win the Bathurst 1000, while Davison misses out on the title to Whincup. With the Kellys moving on, Walkinshaw Racing acquires two licenses to run Paul Dumbrell and rookie David Reynolds. But results are hard to come by given the funneling of personnel to HRT or their departure along with the Kellys.

2010

Engineering changes within the team fail to pay dividends, with Davison slumping to 22nd in the championship, while the Bundaberg-backed third and fourth Walkinshaw Racing entries of Fabian Coulthard and Andrew Thompson struggle. At the end of the year Tom Walkinshaw loses his battle with cancer, raising concerns over the future of the team.

Meanwhile, Triple Eight’s defection from Ford to Holden with the latter’s backing threatens HRT’s status as number-one Holden team.

2013

The Car of the Future regulations and introduction of the VF Commodore present renewed hope for HRT. But while both Tander and Courtney win races, they are yet again outperformed by Triple Eight. In response, Walkinshaw recruits Adrian Burgess from Triple Eight, raising the ire of team boss Roland Dane, while Hallam heads to Tekno Autosports.

2014

Courtney and Tander notch up wins in Adelaide and Townsville respectively, while Burgess and the returning Nilsson set about restructuring the team. This includes the expansion back to four cars with the license owned by James Rosenberg to run Percat alongside Tim Slade in the Supercheap Auto entry.

2015

Another season of change, with Charlie Schwerkolt’s license to run Lee Holdsworth replacing Rosenberg’s entry. But it’s another season of mixed results, with the highlights being another Clipsal 500 Adelaide win for Courtney and Pirtek Endurance Cup success for Tander and Warren Luff.

2016

In a bid to revive HRT, Walkinshaw Racing sells off its third license and splits with Charlie Schwerkolt.

But Holden pulls the plug on funding the team and takes the HRT brand to Triple Eight from 2017. Walkinshaw Racing pledges its commitment to race and Scott Pye is recruited to replace Tander alongside Courtney. Tander leaves the team with victory at Sandown with Luff and a pole and double podium in Sydney.

2011

The fallout from Walkinshaw’s passing begins when Craig Wilson, managing director of Walkinshaw Racing, and team manager Crawford vacate their roles early in the year, while Tom’s son Ryan steps up to run the operation. The team also downsizes to one Bundaberg-backed entry for Coulthard.

But it’s the recruitment of reigning series champion James Courtney to replace the Ford Performance Racing-bound Davison that grabs the headlines. Tander and rookie Nick Percat win the Bathurst 1000, though it’s Triple Eight that delivers Holden the championship.

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HRT HONOUR ROLL

DRIVERS Win Percy Neil Crompton Allan Grice Brad Jones Tomas Mezera Wayne Gardner Peter Brock Craig Lowndes Greg Murphy Mark Skaife Mark Noske Cameron McConville Paul Morris Todd Kelly Nathan Pretty Jason Plato Yvan Muller Jason Bright Tony Longhurst Jim Richards James Courtney Garth Tander

1990-93 1990-91 1990-93 1990-94 1992-96, 2001-02 1993 1994-97, 2004 1994-2000 1995-98, 2013-14 1997-2008 1998 1999, 2010-12 1999 2003-07 2000, 2007 2000, 2004 2000 2001-02 2001, 2003, 2007 2002-03, 2005-06 2005, 2011-16 2006, 2008-2016

Ryan Briscoe Glenn Seton Craig Baird Will Davison Paul Dumbrell David Reynolds Nick Percat Darren Turner Warren Luff Jack Perkins Russell Ingall

2006, 2010-12 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2009 2010 2011-13 2011-12 2014-16 2015-16 2015

CARS VL Commodore SS Group A SV 1990 VN Commodore SS Group A SV 1991-92 VP Commodore 1992-94 VR Commodore 1995-96 VS Commodore 1997-99 VT Commodore 1998-2000 VX Commodore 2001-02 VY Commodore 2003-04 VZ Commodore 2005-06 VE Commodore 2007-12 VF Commodore 2013-16

BATHURST WINS

1990: WIN PERCY/ALLAN GRICE Holden VL Commodore SS SV 1996: CRAIG LOWNDES/GREG MURPHY Holden VR Commodore 2001: MARK SKAIFE/TONY LONGHURST Holden VX Commodore 2002: MARK SKAIFE/JIM RICHARDS Holden VX Commodore 2005: MARK SKAIFE/TODD KELLY Holden VZ Commodore 2009: GARTH TANDER/WILL DAVISON Holden VE Commodore 2011: GARTH TANDER/NICK PERCAT Holden VE Commodore

CHAMPIONSHIP WINS 1996: CRAIG LOWNDES Holden VR Commodore 1998: CRAIG LOWNDES Holden VS/VT Commodore 1999: CRAIG LOWNDES Holden VT/VS Commodore 2000: MARK SKAIFE Holden VT Commodore 2001: MARK SKAIFE Holden VX Commodore 2002: MARK SKAIFE Holden VX Commodore

SANDOWN 500 WINS

1996: CRAIG LOWNDES/GREG MURPHY Holden VR Commodore 1997: CRAIG LOWNDES/GREG MURPHY Holden VS Commodore 2003: MARK SKAIFE/TODD KELLY Holden VY Commodore 2016: GARTH TANDER/WARREN LUFF Holden VF Commodore

QUEENSLAND 500 WINS 2000: CRAIG LOWNDES/MARK SKAIFE Holden VT Commodore

PHILLIP ISLAND 500 WINS 2008: GARTH TANDER/MARK SKAIFE Holden VE Commodore 2009: GARTH TANDER/WILL DAVISON Holden VE Commodore

ENDURANCE CUP WINS

2015: GARTH TANDER/WARREN LUFF Holden VF Commodore

BY THE NUMBERS

179 – Championship race wins 93 – Championship pole positions 7 – Bathurst 1000 wins 6 – Drivers’ championship wins 5 – Teams’ championship wins

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LOOKING FORWARD

Could Prodrive Racing Australia revive the Mustang brand in Australian touring cars?

he 2017 season will be a major acid test for Supercars’ Gen2 regulations, despite a lack of any new machinery on the grid.

While an absence of new cars, engines and manufacturers hides its significance, the next 12 months is almost certain to determine the direction the category will take into the next decade.

So what will Supercars look like by 2020? Will the Gen2 rules, which allow two-door bodies and non-V8 engines into the class, really revolutionise Australian touring cars?

As Australian motorsport’s long-time heavyweights, it’s fitting Holden was the first manufacturer to have declared its hand for the Gen2 era. The General Motors brand has committed to racing a version of its imported Commodore, which will be developed by Triple Eight as part of its new role as the factory outfit.

In line with dropping V8 power from its road car, Holden’s new Commodore Supercar will be fitted with a V6 turbo engine when it debuts in 2018.

Designed to make it as easy and cost efficient as possible for existing teams to upgrade with a single-supplier model, the move will likely see Holdens continue to provide the backbone of the grid for some time.

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WORDS Stefan Bartholomaeus IMAGES ssMEDIA, Nissan Australia

There are no big changes to Supercars in 2017 despite the implementation of the Gen2 rules.

But by the 2020 season, the championship could look and sound very different.

As the first to commit, Holden will be the pioneers when it comes to the technical challenge of bringing a V6 turbo up to speed, as well as testing the fans’ appetite for the technology.

Development of the package throughout next year will likely provide an important test on both fronts as Supercars irons out its parity systems and the car, at some point, makes its public debut.

Nissan has also recently recommitted through a fresh two-year deal with existing factory squad Kelly Racing as it waits to see exactly how Gen2 will play out.

Caution can be forgiven after its experience as being the first new manufacturer in with the Car of the Future.

The new-look imported Commodore will be racing in Supercars from 2018.

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LOOKING FORWARD

Facing strict engine rules and a lack of support from Japanese motorsport arm NISMO, the Kelly familyowned team has spent much of the last four seasons playing catch-up.

Nissan Australia CEO Richard Emery admits the need to build a bespoke Supercars engine ensured the local team had to operate largely on its own.

The Gen2 rules, however, are based around being able to tailor existing race engines to the Supercars platform, a concept Nissan is perfectly placed to execute on.

Basic work has already been undertaken assessing its 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V6 GT3 engine for Supercars competition, while Emery is openly talking about the prospect of introducing the Skyline GT-R. The GT-R brand’s cult following, particularly in Japan, meant NISMO had until now been averse to using it in a domestic motorsport program it has limited involvement with. Emery expects to hold meetings with NISMO and Nissan global management with the aim of plotting its next move.

“I’ve said in the past that I didn’t think going GT-R was the right thing for the brand or the sport, but I think global (NISMO) might have a different view of that,” Emery explains.

‘They want to explore whether they can get GT-R into the package that exists because that is their general motorsport direction.

“We think we’ve got an engine that probably works that we’ll need to spend some time and money developing, but NISMO are prepared to do that.”

For all of the positivity, there appear to be two major hurdles standing in the way of a GT-R Supercars assault.

First and foremost is the ability to adapt the GT-R body to the current control Supercars chassis, which was designed with four-door sedans very much in mind.

Supercars’ Gen2 rule guidelines currently state that the chassis will, as with the bulk of the control items, remain unchanged through until the end of 2021.

Nissan Motorsport co-owner and driver Todd Kelly says his team has done “quite a bit of work” on assessing the GT-R body if it is given the green light by Nissan.

“It’d be quite challenging to get a GT-R to fit on this cage,” admits Kelly.

“We’d have to manipulate the shape of the car quite a lot. We’re not at the point where we’ve done any testing of that aero kit yet, but that’s the next stage of where we’re at with it.

“It’ll come down to whether we’re happy that we can achieve the right aero while trying to bend it around the chassis.

“If that’s a yes, it’ll be a matter of whether the manufacturer will approve how much we’ve had to modify the shape of the car to achieve it. It’s not all that straight forward.”

In what looms as a watershed decision for the category, Prodrive Racing Australia co-owner Rod Nash reports the same issue has been flagged with the Ford Mustang. In stark contrast to the softly-softly approach DJR Team Penske is taking to lure Ford back into the category, Prodrive has been open with its desire to introduce the Mustang in 2018, with or without significant funding from the Blue Oval.

The team sees the brand’s following as an important part of its future and is eager to dovetail a Mustang racing effort with its recently launched Tickford aftermarket road-car operation.

After undertaking preliminary modelling of the Mustang body on the control platform midway through 2016, Prodrive kicked off a discussion aimed at having changes to the chassis approved.

ABOVE: The recently launched Ford Mustang GT4, designed for the

entry-level category of GT racing.

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“Everyone says ‘you can lift the body up’ or do this or that, but what’s great about Supercars is that you can park a road car next to the race car and it’s similar,” says Nash.

“Rising up (lifting the body and adding deeper side skirts and bumpers) just to meet the chassis will look odd. It’ll be too high off the ground and it won’t work.

“But they have got to look through all of the potential implications of whether there will be advantages. We’re all very supportive of the parity.

“It’s not a case of just producing shorter legs for the roll hoop and just putting it together, there’s a whole lot more to it being an FIA approved cage that’s been carefully designed and tested.”

Supercars sporting and technical manager David Stuart confirms his team is, at the request of the commission, currently investigating a ‘coupe-specification’ revision for the control chassis. Unlike its Gen2 engine program that includes building and testing its own V6 turbo engine, the work is being undertaken digitally.

A report is expected to be presented to the commission in 2017, which would then need sign-off from the sevenperson panel and eventually the Supercars board.

“We’ve had some very initial conversations with Prodrive in regards to Mustang and to an even lesser degree with Nissan Motorsport in regards to GT-R,” explains Stuart.

“Our goal has always been to maintain the existing chassis and have the manufacturers fit their body around it, but it’s a fine line between making it fit and maintaining the DNA of the road car.

“We are currently looking at how we can accommodate those bodies, which may require a small modification and an equalisation program to enable that change.”

Stuart stressed the change to the hoop height required would be minimal and downplayed concerns equalising downforce and drag with the sedans will be a major concern.

It is thought likely any revision would become common for all new chassis built for the start of the 2018 season and beyond.

Kelly, not surprisingly, concurs with Nash’s assessment the category must be open to change and not shoot down the proposal, which would dramatically affect the sport’s future.

“The thing is that because the category is so close, everyone gets quite scared of change really quickly and has a negative opinion on it,” he says.

“But once everything gets rolled out and policed properly, as we’ve seen with how far we’ve come in the last few years, parity is actually quite achievable.

“You can make very subtle changes to the cars and fundamentally make sure that there is no difference in centre of gravity height, torsional stiffness of the chassis. We’ve got the technology to make sure that it is fine.”

The other issue that will play a major role in whether the likes of Nissan and Ford introduce two-door bodies to Supercars will be one of brand positioning. With Supercars a parity category, the idea of having a GT-R or Mustang lapping at the same speed as a mid-sized sedan such as the Commodore may well stem enthusiasm for such change.

“That’s the sort of area that Michael Carcamo (Nissan motorsports director) is going to be interested in, to understand whether it’s the right fit from a brand perspective,” says Emery.

“We’ve got the GT-R racing against Porsches, Lamborghinis and Ferrari GTs. Supercars are different, but who knows what it will look like in a few years.”

Kelly also notes the potential issue of lining a GT-R up against a Commodore or Mondeo, which Prodrive has floated as an alternative to the Mustang should chassis changes not be possible.

ABOVE: The Skyline GT-R is a regular in GT3 categories and could be

coming to Supercars in Gen2.

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LOOKING FORWARD

Lexus showed interest in racing its RC F in Supercars before deciding on GT3.

“If you can go to a manufacturer that has a GT3 engine Although the Altima is a low-volume vehicle, Kelly says or similar that we can easily adapt, that opens up the the sport has progressed from being about nameplates to opportunities for introducing new marques without needan overall branding proposition for manufacturers. ing factory deals,” he says.

The Supercars fan base is currently a strong fit for the “You might be able to get the engine off the rack and a SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) and LCV (Light Commercial few body panels and you’re away. Teams like ours are an Vehicle) buying demographic, which includes two of Nisengineering business that can massage body shapes to fit san’s highest selling vehicles, the Navara and X-Trail.

“It’s funny how people look at these cars and our team,” the chassis. But developing an engine for this category is says Kelly a huge stumbling block and costs a lot of money.

“People say ‘the Nissans are here’ or ‘the Nissans are “Spending millions for a category showcased to one per there’. They don’t refer to it as an Altima. As far as having cent of the world car market? We’re kidding ourselves.” a presence and representing the brand, the actual body While it appears unlikely there will be many multi-milshape isn’t as important as what you think in order to lion dollar factory deals for teams to be had between now achieve the objectives that they want. and 2020, the plan to coax a new brand in with minimum spend appears to be the way of the future.

“If it’s a brand like the GT-R, there is more emphasis Deals that would see a team gain a small financial on what the car should be doing (performance wise). incentive alongside the use of a manufacturer’s intellecThis Altima achieves what we want without damaging tual property and access to its technology – already race any reputations.” developed or otherwise – are seen by many as more realElsewhere, after Garry Rogers Motorsport’s fight to keep its Volvo on track, the team has begun a detailed istic propositions. study into what will underpin its next Supercar.

Brands such as Hyundai and Kia, which would The approach has seen the engineering group, gain a significant image boost from entering, led by the respected Richard Hollway, identify are continuing to be named as potential fresh what it believes is the perfectly proportioned faces in an era where the barriers to entry “THE DREAM OF body for the Gen2 platform. have never been lower.

ATTRACTING PREMIUM While the team is understandably keeping The dream of attracting premium makes MAKES SUCH AS AUDI, tight-lipped on the exact identity of the car, such as Audi, BMW and Lexus with such director Barry Rogers says all of its finalists flexibility still appears to be a tough sell, BMW AND LEXUS WITH were four-door sedans. however, particularly in light of the conSUCH FLEXIBILITY STILL tinuing rise of GT3 racing internationally “The car we’ve earmarked is a small four APPEARS TO BE A door around the size of a BMW 3,” says and also within Australia.

Rogers. “We weren’t focused on four doors, Even ignoring the oft-cited demographic TOUGH SELL.” but looking at all the dimensions it is what we mismatch, attracting investment from manubelieve is the best solution. facturers that can already leverage – and make “Once we really looked at it there were about half money out of customer programs – in GT3 may not a dozen cars that fitted and all of them were small-ish prove possible even with Supercars’ Gen2 open-door sedans.” policy.

Although having to play a delicate balance between While it can be argued the changes allowed under Gen2 keeping the road car’s identity and maximising an aeroshould have been part of the Car of the Future plan, dynamic package for racing with any new body, Rogers Supercars is doing all it can to make up for lost time. affirms engines are the most critical factor for anyone But as for what the grid will look like in 2020? For now trying to lure a new make with Gen2. it remains a case of watch this space.

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Fraternising with Foges IN T ERV IE W BY M A RK FOG A R T Y

Nissan Motorsport newcomer Simona de Silvestro tells Mark Fogarty why she’s ready for the challenge of becoming Supercars’ first fulltime female driver in her latest effort to break the gender barrier IMAGES Nissan Motorsport, Peter Norton

f Simona de Silvestro doesn’t make it in Supercars, it won’t be for lack of opportunity.

Rather than waiting for a woman to fight her way in at the bottom, Supercars has given de Silvestro the chance to establish herself from a secure and solid base.

Supercars is underwriting her three-year deal, paying her substantial salary with the backing of retail giant Harvey Norman.

Reputedly worth a total of $3 million a year, the guaranteed funding immediately made de Silvestro attractive to teams well inside the top half of the field. Nissan Motorsport beat Prodrive Racing Australia and Walkinshaw Racing on the basis of its factory backing and allied marketing support.

Along with the financial and promotional benefits, the interest was underpinned by the belief that, as an accomplished open-wheel racer, she has the talent and dedication to become competitive in Supercars.

De Silvestro is the first female to compete full-time in the championship since Christine Gibson, who was fifth in the 1976 standings in a factory-backed Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV after contending for the title under the then under and over-three litre class structure.

Christine Gibson, the wife of legend Fred Gibson, is the standout woman in Australian touring cars so far.

De Silvestro will be challenging the best on outright and even terms.

In fact, the 28-year-old Swiss arguably has the best chance a female has ever had to compete equally with the established men in a major road-racing championship.

Supercars’ intervention has overcome the traditional obstacles women drivers have faced, leaving her free to demonstrate she can transfer her talent to tin-tops.

The deal gives de Silvestro security, time to become competitive and she joins a well-resourced operation with an improving car. The combination is unprecedented for an outsider, alleviating the uncertainties that normally burden a foreign rookie.

As well, Nissan will actively promote her involvement, assisting Supercars’ efforts to broaden the sport’s appeal to women.

Despite proving at least equal to her male rivals, de Silvestro’s previous efforts to break through the gender barrier were stymied by conservative attitudes.

LEFT: De Silvestro now has two Bathurst 1000 campaigns under her belt.

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Mark Fogarty is Fairfax Media’s award-winning motorsport writer.

Foges also enlivens the Inside Supercars TV show every so often.

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Fraternising with Foges

DE SILVESTRO’S RESUME

2005 Formula Renault 2.0 Italy 2006 Formula BMW USA 2007 Champ Car Atlantic 2008 Atlantic Championship 2009 Atlantic Championship 2010 IndyCar Series 2011 IndyCar Series 2012 IndyCar Series 2013 IndyCar Series 2014 Formula E, Formula 1 (test driver) 2015 IndyCar Series, Supercars 2016 Formula E, Supercars

Without securing big backing to offset the ‘risk’, she was unable to continue in IndyCar – even though she is one of only three women to have stood on the podium – or graduate from testing to racing with the Sauber Formula 1 team.

Her reputation as a tough and fearless racer earned her the nickname ‘The Iron Maiden’, and with the time and the tools to establish herself in Supercars, de Silvestro is confident she will prove worthy of the intimidating sobriquet on the track. Out of the car, her uncontrived amiability, charm and directness will ensure she is a promotional asset to both Nissan and Supercars.

How different will it be switching from openwheelers to Supercars?

It’s kind of a new beginning because anything I know from open-wheel racing isn’t very relevant.

I got to the point in open-wheel racing that I knew what I had to do to be quick and then fine-tune the car to what I liked to be really fast.

Right now in the Supercar, I have to understand how to drive these cars, so there’s a lot of learning that’s going to be going on over the next year, for sure.

I know the first year is going to be a lot of ups and downs and a lot of learning. I think the biggest thing is that I can’t get too frustrated with myself.

I’m a competitive person, but I know I can’t expect to be winning races right away. So the biggest thing is really going to be the amount of work involved, especially in the first year.

Do you regard being the first full-time female Supercars driver as a big responsibility?

I’ve always said that when you wear the helmet, what counts is the performance on the track. Racing is not a common thing for a female to do, but I am able to show that it is possible.

As a young girl, you can dream about racing and get the chance. It’s a responsibility but it’s also a nice role to have. Maybe some girls are going to look up to me. It’s what I’ve always wanted to represent, to work hard for your dream no matter what business you’re in.

So you hope to inspire a new generation of young girls to want to race?

Yeah. Not only into racing, but also into engineering and

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other areas in motorsport because racing is still mainly for guys. But there are more and more girls that are getting into it. At the end of the day I am a woman, so I represent that and I enjoy it.

To move to Australia to race Supercars for three years is a big upheaval for your life, so why make such a big commitment?

Well, it’s a big move. It was quite a hard decision because when you live in Europe, Australia is not next door, it’s quite far away from your family. But I think one big key was really having the continuity.

Having three years is something I’ve never really had in my career. I’ve never had the chance to really work on something and develop it. There was always this uncertainty at the end of every year. So that was a big factor.

Also, after Bathurst last year, I really enjoyed driving the car and the racing of Supercars really attracts me because in pure racing terms, I think Supercars and IndyCar are the coolest categories because there’s a lot of battling and that’s what I like.

I grew up in go-karts and stuff like that, so that close competition is what I love. I think it’s going to suit me more. So those factors were what really decided me.

You said it was a hard decision. What was it that you agonised over?

I think moving so far away is always hard. For sure, as a race driver, you’re always a bit of a loner, I would say, because you follow your dream. Any athlete has to be pretty focused. Leaving your family and friends behind when you’re 28 is harder than when you are 16. So that was one big thing that I really had to consider. Could I move away and live there? The rest of it was stuff like if I’m going to adjust to the car. But three years is a long time and I think that gives me enough time to really develop.

Is the cost of it is that you’ve had to give up your dream of top open-wheel racing, either in IndyCar or even further?

Well, I don’t know if it’s a give-up. It’s a new challenge for me. It’s also going to widen my experience a bit and maybe it’s going to open different doors in the future. Or I could have a long career here. So you never know what’s going to happen, but the biggest thing is having fun in the car and that was really one of the big factors. I’m enjoying myself and I know that I can adapt and improve.

In the end, why you didn’t continue in IndyCar came down to money, didn’t it?

Yes.

ABOVE: De Silvestro gets

grilled by Foges at Nissan Motorsport headquarters.

A lack of budget also limited how far you were able to take the Formula 1 testing opportunity with Sauber.

Exactly. The frustrating thing about racing nowadays is that it’s so dependent on sponsorship. As a driver you sometimes think the only thing you’re doing is trying to find money. You really have to worry each year that it could be your last one and I don’t think that happens much in the other sports. Having a three-year deal just calms you down a bit because you don’t have to worry about whether you have a job next season. You can just focus on your driving and improving yourself.

“RACING IS NOT A COMMON THING FOR A FEMALE TO DO, BUT I AM ABLE TO SHOW THAT IT IS POSSIBLE.” SIMONA DE SILVESTRO

There’s no barrier to women getting into motorsport, unlike the gender segregation in most professional sports.

Yet the reality is that so few females get the opportunity to race. Why do you think that is?

Well, when I look back over the years, if a guy is quick, for example, in Formula Renault, he moves up to the next category because he was just accepted as being quick and people will believe in his talent.

As a woman, you just have to prove yourself. I’ve realised every time I was in a new team, or even changing categories, I really had to prove that I could do it. Even nowadays everybody says it’d be great to have a woman in the series. But for any driver, if he or she is going to win, you have to be in a really good team. You just can’t win with a small team – anybody, not just a female. And I don’t think any female has had really the chance yet to get the right opportunity to be in a competitive car.

So do you feel it’s been more difficult for you?

It’s so hard because I think in racing, in general, it’s so difficult to get to the top. There are many factors involved.

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Fraternising with Foges

ABOVE: De Silvestro’s

open-wheel experience i cludes dy ars le a d ormula ri h .

BELOW: Lack of funds prevented de Silvestro from racing for Sauber in Formula 1.

As a female it’s about getting the chance to show you can do it. If I look at my IndyCar career, I’ve done pretty well, but I didn’t get a phone call to come drive. It was about how much money you can bring. I think it’s difficult for any driver. Finding the money for any driver is hard, but no big team has ever put a female in the seat.

When that happens one day then I think that can open a lot of doors for younger girls because the only way somebody is going to get competitive is if they’re with the right team.

You came up through karting, but it seems that generally speaking not as many little girls aspire to karting or car racing as little boys?

It’s true. When I was karting, we were four or five girls against 80 to 100 boys, so it already starts at the bottom.

But I think the parents also have a big influence on that.

My parents took me to the local go-kart track. They really let me do whatever I wanted to try out. I think racing is a big sacrifice for the family because it costs some money, as we all know, and every weekend is spent at the kart track. So you really have to have your parents behind you as well to be able to move forward. But maybe if there were more females at the top level, that would change as well.

Now that you’ve done two Bathurst 1000s, how are you feeling about coming back to race here full-time? Has it changed what you think about it or just made you more excited about it?

I’m really keen because it just shows how difficult the championship is and how the level of the drivers is.

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Jamie Whincup and these guys, the laps they were doing at the end was quite impressive. It showed me that I’m definitely going to have a lot of work on my hands to get to that level, but it’s a challenge I’m really looking forward to. I want to become a really good Supercars driver, but it’s not going to happen overnight.

So it makes me really hungry to try to improve quickly.

You and Renee Gracie had to do an extraordinary amount of promotional work. How did you cope with so much attention off the track?

It was definitely a very busy weekend on the media side.

It was a lot to handle, especially on the Thursday, but it was what it was. That was the schedule and we just did it.

It wasn’t a distraction, but the days were very long and you just wanted to spend more time with the engineers, especially when you’re still in the phase like I am where you’re really learning a lot.

It’s going to be more of the same as far as media attention goes. Are you okay with that?

Yeah, as long as it doesn’t interfere too much with what I have to do on the track. As long as I get the time with the engineers, too, it’ll be fine. I’ll just be really busy, I guess.

The first year is going to be hard, anyway, because I don’t know the tracks and I’m still learning about the car. So I think at every event I’m going to be focused on one thing and really nail that down so I don’t have to think about that any more. Hopefully after five or six events I can be on top of the basics and then really start going into the details to then start getting the results.

It’s going to be quite a lot of work because it’s a brand new world and I’m racing against people who’ve been in these cars for 10-plus years. It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m really looking forward to it.

The reality is, though, that’s going to take you all of next season to really come to grips with it all.

Yeah, I think so. If I look at my first year in IndyCar, it was really a lot of ups and downs, even though I was already quick in the beginning. I have to find quite few things in myself, in my driving style, so for sure the first year is going to be up and down. We’ll just start dialling it in to make it more consistent, that’s the goal.

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WORDS Cameron McGavin IMAGES Nissan Australia, Autopics.com.au

As Nissan ponders whether to replace the Altima with the Skyline GT-R under the Gen2 regulations, we delve into the Japanese manufacturer’s history in Australian touring cars to see how history could repeat. here’s no other way to cut it: Nissan’s return to Australian touring-car racing has been tough going.

Four years in and it has two wins to show for its efforts, James Moffat’s Winton glory in 2013 and a win for Michael Caruso at Hidden Valley in 2016, plus a smattering of podiums.

There have been solid showings, intermittent displays of serious pace and promise aplenty, but not the consistent form to break into the front ranks.

Fred Gibson knows all about Nissan, touring cars and the long, hard slog. He was part of its factory attack on Australian touring cars in the 1980s and ’90s, first as a driver, then team owner.

He endured all sorts of ebbs and troughs before finally striking title gold in 1990. When he took Nissan to its maiden Bathurst win in 1991, it had been a decade of blood, sweat and tears to get there.

Nissan Motorsport’s struggles in the modern era aren’t a surprise to Gibson, who reckons his advice could have saved them a few headaches.

“The most disappointing thing about all that with me is when they decided to go into V8 Supercars and John Crennan was with the Kelly team,” he says.

“I would have expected John to ring me up and say, ‘FG, we’ve gone with Nissan, can you give me any hints?’

“I would have said, ‘Don’t rely on the Japanese’. First thing I’d say. We started buying parts from NISMO and I can tell you now a water pump for the GT-R wasn’t special… $12,000 for a water pump. A gearbox, a Nissan dog-box… $65,000… and that’s going back!

“We started the Hollinger box for the HR31 Skyline, we homologated it and that became the Holden Hollinger box as well. We paid for all that; we paid Hollinger to do that. That was all our own technology.

“I knew buying parts from NISMO would be an absolute wank and that’s what they’ve found.

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“Getting NISMO to do engines for them… what a waste of time, they should be doing it in-house. We found that out very early.

“Lovely people at Nissan, lovely people the Japanese, but they’re too slow to react in motorsport. That’s what got them with the engine program; it took ages to get it done and they could have done it all here. We’ve got some smart people in Australia, very smart people.”

Few would argue that. When the Gibson Motorsport Skyline R32 GT-Rs were tearing new ones into their Australian touring-car rivals in the early 1990s, they were the baddest GT-Rs on the planet. And head office in Japan knew it.

“We were invited to go to Fuji to race our GT-R,” says Gibson. “Then one morning I got a call at work from Kunihiko Kakimoto, he was the general manager of Nissan Motorsport Japan’s engineering department. “‘Fred-san, I hear you are coming to Fuji’. And I said, ‘Yes, we’ve been invited, yes, we are thinking maybe’. The words he said, and I can still remember it, ‘Not a good idea, not a good idea’.

I said, ‘Why, Kakimoto-san?’ and he said, ‘You do Australia and New Zealand, we do Japanese and European circuits’.

“They didn’t want us to be there because they knew our car would blow the socks off their GT-R.” That, however, was the high-water point of Nissan Motorsport’s last touring-car tilt.

Here we’re winding back the clock and reexamining the journey that took them here.

THE BLUEBIRD YEARS

Gibson’s relationship with Nissan came about from his long-standing connection with his old boss from his factory Ford days, Howard Marsden.

“Howard went to Nissan after Ford pulled the plug and he basically went to Nissan to look after their rallying program,” says Gibson.

“But then it turned into a situation where they were going to manufacture Bluebirds in Australia, at Clayton, and all of sudden they decided, ‘Why don’t we go into motorsport with the Bluebird program?’ That’s how it all started.

“Then he rang me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to join the team? George Fury is going to drive, we’ll get him out of rallies and onto bitumen, it’ll be a two-car Bluebird program’.

“It was based on the European/Japanese-spec car Bluebird with the turbo engine and everything in it; it was a lot different to the car that was manufactured in Australia. We started the program there.”

The Bluebird program started on the back foot. At its Bathurst debut in 1981 the fastest of the two team cars, piloted by Japanese drivers Masahiro Hasemi and Kazuyoshi Hoshino, qualified 31st. Fury and Gibson in the other Bluebird started 43rd. Neither car finished.

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Datsun’s classwinning 1300 at Bathurst in 1966.

Nissan paid tribute to this car at Sandown.

But relentless development would drag it towards the front of the field during the final seasons of Group C. At Bathurst in 1982 the Hasemi car qualified third before finishing eighth.

In 1983 Fury clocked a series of strong championship results to finish second in the title chase, plus an in-yer-face second on the grid at Bathurst.

Meanwhile, Gibson registered the first Australian touring-car win for a turbo in an AMSCAR race at Amaroo Park.

In 1984 Fury finally broke Nissan’s victory duck in the wet at Lakeside, then at Bathurst unleashed a record-breaking pole lap.

Mingled with the Bluebird’s speed, however, was persistent unreliability. Gibson reckons they got it all wrong from the start with that car.

“They exceeded what we thought they were going to do, yes, but they were unreliable because we wanted to stretch things,” he says.

“The car would have been very competitive in the three-litre class and all of a sudden we thought if we just modify it a bit and do some more homologation it might become an outright contender in some ways.

“But, you know, in our wisdom now you think back and say we should have left it, we shouldn’t have done that because the car became unreliable with all we were doing to it. We made quite a few modifications and the car became unreliable because we were trying to stretch the little thing too far.”

THE DR30 YEARS

It was all change in 1985 with the introduction of international Group A rules. For Nissan that meant out with the Bluebird and in with the DR30 Skyline RS Turbo and a big change in how it went racing.

“It was costing Nissan a lot more than they were wanting to spend,” says Gibson.

“The race team was under the roof of the Nissan Motor Company, the factory they leased was under Nissan Motor Company, the boys worked under the Nissan workers’ union, that sort of thing, and they were getting paid double-time, triple-time, whatever, when they went away on weekends.

“So Howard and the marketing department decided we should do something different. He rang me in Sydney one day and asked if I’d be interested in managing the race team. I went to the meeting in Melbourne thinking I was just going to manage the team but he said, ‘No, no, we’d like you to run the whole team, it’s your team’.

Turbos powered both the Bluebird and Skylines.

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DATSUNS/NISSANS AT BATHURST CAR Datsun 1300 Datsun 1000 Datsun 1600 Datsun 1200 Datsun 180B SSS Datsun 240K Datsun 260Z 2+2 Nissan Bluebird Nissan Pulsar EXA Nissan Skyline RS DR30 Nissan Gazelle Nissan Skyline HR31 GTS-R Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R Nissan Primera Nissan Sentra Nissan Altima

ACTIVE YEARS 1966-1967 1967-1969 1968-1972 1970-1976 1973-1974 1974 1975 1981-1984 1983-1984 1986-1988 1986-1989 1988-1992 1990-1992 1997*-1998* 1998* 2013-2016

*Super Touring Bathurst 1000s

“So I moved the family down to Melbourne and we took over the team.”

Nissan had already built a Group A Skyline racer when Gibson took over the reigns.

That car, however, was never raced and the newly revitalised Nissan outfit would miss the 1985 season.

“The car I first saw that the guys in Melbourne built, it would have had no chance of passing scrutineering,” says Gibson.

“Things they’d done, they’d read the rules as they wanted to read the rules. That’s when we opted out of running the car for a year.

And we knew we had to homologate.

“When you’re up against people like Volvo and BMW, you have to do your homework.

We were behind the eight-ball and that’s why we decided not to run in 1985.”

That additional homologation, testing and development for the DR30 paid off in 1986.

Fury won five of the 10 championship rounds in the new car and Gary Scott – sharing second-driver duties with a baby-faced Glenn Seton – finished first on the road in another before losing the win due to brakesystem irregularities.

At the Sandown 500 it was a one-two for the Fury/Seton and Scott/Terry Shiel cars.

“The success of the DR30 surprised us,” says Gibson.

“Someone said to me the other month, ‘How many races did you win in 1986?’

“I said, ‘Oh, not a lot’ but we actually won a few, we had some good races. When you look back at what we did do, we did a bloody good job that year.”

The Skyline was 1986’s fastest car but the big prizes would elude it. Volvo driver Robbie Francevic built up a handy points cushion when Fury suffered a couple of early-season retirements and hung on to take the title from the fast-finishing Nissan driver.

At Bathurst the Scott/Shiel car started from pole but could manage only third on race day while the Fury/ Seton car had a troubled weekend.

1987 was another close-but-no-cigar season. Seton won three rounds and became a star but lost out to Jim Richards and his BMW M3 in the title chase.

Fury won the Sandown 500 again (this time with Shiel) but Bathurst was one that got away – the two cars were in contention all day for what would eventually be second and third following other disqualifications.

Near misses like that can yank some

people’s cranks, but Gibson is philosophical.

“You’ve got to think we started with nothing,” he says. “Obviously you want to win everything but when you go up against BMW M3s and the Jim Richards and Frank Gardners of the world, and they’ve got cars that have been developed for absolutely rugged racing, that lifts your game and makes you work harder.”

Nissan was happy, too. “The Skyline was out there, it was competitive and running well, it was winning some races,” says Gibson.

“We failed to win the championship but we were still giving them good publicity.

“It wasn’t like the Bluebird, which was giving them bad publicity because it was blowing turbos all the time.”

In Gibson’s mind, the DR30 days were the foundation for the success his team would later achieve.

“That was when we really started to mould a team together,” he says.

“WHEN YOU’RE UP AGAINST PEOPLE LIKE VOLVO AND BMW, YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK.” FRED GIBSON

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LEFT: Richards, Skaife, Gibson and the Skyline formed a formidable team for the competition. ABOVE: The Skyline delivered championship and Bathurst success to both Skaife and Richards.

“The DR30 people probably stayed with us right through our (Nissan) program, and we were expanding with lots of younger people as well.

“We also moved to a new workshop because the Nissan workshop was too small and it was just state-of-the-art; we had two dyno cells, we did our own machining inhouse, did our own machine shop, engines.

We did everything in-house from 1986/87.”

THE HR31 YEARS ▼

The HR31 Skyline GTS-R would be the car to take Nissan right to the cusp of success, but it didn’t look it in 1988.

First there were delays getting parts from Japan and it wasn’t until the fifth round that Gibson Motorsport managed to even field a car.

Seton and Fury had to share drives in that single HR31 until a second arrived in the penultimate round, and it struggled for competiveness against the Ford Sierras that swept everything before them that year.

The final scorecard was 13th for Fury and 15th for Seton in the championship and DNFs across the board in the Sandown and Bathurst enduros.

“We had teething problems with the HR31 when we first developed it because we didn’t have a year to develop it, we were developing it while racing the DR30,” says Gibson.

“That made it more difficult. It was an improvement on the DR30, definitely, but the whole thing was it wasn’t a marked improvement. It was a better car, it made us more competitive, but we had to work hard on that car.”

1989, though, saw the addition of key pieces of the puzzle that would be fundamental to Nissan’s impending touring-car success. Yokohama joined the team as tyre supplier, replacing Dunlop. “They would develop a great tyre for us,” says Gibson.

There was new driving blood – Jim Richards stepped in for the departing Seton alongside Fury, while young gun Mark Skaife drove a third Skyline at selected rounds.

“The biggest problem when you’ve got two drivers like Glenn and George, they want their cars set up differently,” says Gibson.

“It’s hard work for the team when you’ve got drivers who are so different in how their cars need to be set.

“If you move onto the HR31, you’ve got Skaifey and Richo... Richo would drive anything – whatever’s the best, he’ll drive it – and Mark would drive it, too.”

Significantly, the HR31 had finally gained some reliability. “The thing that we could do with our cars, we made them bulletproof,” says Gibson.

“When Jim came to our team he couldn’t believe how we said, ‘Jim, drive the wheels off it, whatever you’ve got to do to win races, do whatever you’ve got to do’.

“He couldn’t believe that was the way we drove our cars; you break it, we fix it, that was our motto. We made our cars bulletproof.”

All these factors combined to make 1989 a year of resurgence.

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Richards rode a season of strong results to fourth in the championship race and Fury broke a season-and-a-half-long winning streak for the Sierras with a victory at Winton.

At the Sandown 500 the Richards/Skaife and Fury/Graeme Bowkett team cars finished one-three. At Bathurst, the Richards/ Skaife and Fury/Anders Olofsson cars finished three-four.

“Where we could get the Sierras, and where we got them later on, our tyres were better and could last the distance, we could drive the car harder,” says Gibson.

“The Sierra, you couldn’t drive it flat out all day because the tyres would go away and the engines used to explode if you had too much boost.

“We could drive the wheels off our car; it braked well, it was unbelievably good under braking and it put its power down well, and it did it for the whole race.

“At the end of a race we’d be coming on strong and they’d be failing.”

The HR31’s qualities would keep Richards right in the title race during 1990 with early wins and podiums, allowing him to jump

into the nascent GT-R at the final round of the season and seal Nissan’s first title.

The ingredients for the Japanese brand’s perfect storm were now in place and ready to rain down on the competition in 1991 and into 1992.

SKAIFE ON THE SKYLINE

Scan to watch Mark Skaife’s technical feature on the 1991 Bathurst 1000-winning Nissan GT-R R32.

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Captain Meet Peter Janson, expat New Zealander, part of Melbourne’s social elite, friend of royals, instigator of the Melbourne Cup’s social scene and one of the great characters to participate in the Bathurst 1000.

WORDS Cameron McGavin IMAGES Fairfax Media, Autopics.com.au

nternational men of mystery don’t slow down; they just get older. And so it is for Australian touring-car racing’s most famous gentleman racer, the inimitable Captain Peter Janson.

When we first made contact with Janson for this story he couldn’t talk. Something about hosting an old mate from his rallying days in Melbourne.

Maybe we could chat later. The mate? Rauno Aaltonen. Yes, that Rauno Aaltonen. Take it as read that whatever you are doing with your life now, Janson is still more windswept and interesting.

So how was it catching up with the Finnish rallying great? “It was great,” says Janson. “He’s a lovely person and a very dear friend. Because, as you know, I rallied as well as raced.”

Janson can’t resist regaling us with an old rally tale he and Rauno still laugh about. “I went up there (Southern Cross Rally) and as usual I was a bit short of money, I had one full-time mechanic and about eight enthusiasts,” says Janson.

“My mechanic said, ‘We’ve only got the one set of tyres’, so I said, ‘I’m working on that’. So we went out there and I said, ‘Go around and check Aaltonen, (Tommi) Makinen and all the boys, check their tyres, see which ones have the same size I have’.

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PETER JANSON IN THE BATHURST 1000 YEAR 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992

RESULT 22nd DNS DNF 5th 3rd DNF 2nd 2nd DNF 4th DNF DNF 14th DNF 18th 4th 10th DNF DNF 20th

CAR Honda Civic Holden LH Torana SL/R 5000 Holden LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34 Holden LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34 Holden LX Torana SS A9X Hatchback Holden LX Torana SS A9X Hatchback Holden LX Torana SS A9X Hatchback Holden VC Commodore Holden VC Commodore Holden VH Commodore SS Holden VH Commodore SS Holden VH Commodore SS Jaguar XJ-S Jaguar XJ-S Holden VK Commodore SS Group A BMW M3 Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV

CO-DRIVER John Lord Paul Feltham John Harvey Kevin Bartlett Larry Perkins Phil Brock Larry Perkins Larry Perkins Larry Perkins David Parsons David Parsons Garry Rogers Garry Willmington Garry Willmington Peter Fitzgerald Trevor Crowe Allan Grice Graham Lusty Peter Gazzard Bob Jones

“So he came back and it was Rauno’s car. Well, at the end of every day the works cars, they’d just throw the tyres off and put a whole new set on. So we’d creep around the back, the boys would, and pinch the set they’d just thrown off and slam them on our car. We went the whole rally like that!

“Anyway, there was one fast stage where you could see us all go out and do it all again, and Rauno went out into the forest. I came over the top at a million miles… it was no tomorrow, you know, no tomorrow! And Rauno says, ‘I was out there, Peter, your car goes very well there, it handles it. What kind of tyres have you got?’ I said, ‘Same as yours, Rauno!’ He told everybody in Finland that one.”

Janson hasn’t slowed down yet, nor has he lost touch with the sport he once had a such a big hand in shaping.

“I still love motorsport; you can’t get it out of your system, you just can’t,” he says. “(Jamie) Whincup’s very good, he really puts in. And (Shane) van Gisbergen, he’s terrific. In that Holden team, they’re both crackers and they egg each other on, very much like (Daniel) Ricciardo and (Max) Verstappen do in Formula 1.”

Motorsport is a broad church but Australian touring cars has never seen a racing driver quite like Janson.

Indeed, ‘racing driver’, while sufficient to describe the likes of Peter Brock or Allan Moffat, is totally inadequate for a man with such an extraordinary lifestyle, character and track record in non-motorsport pursuits.

First there’s his famously mysterious occupation and international-socialite status. Janson’s oft-quoted response to questions about the former is “professional gentleman” (the ‘Captain’ nickname comes from an early army stint, apparently).

He has spent his life jet-setting around the globe and being chummy with the kind of people most of us only read about. He was close friends with Margaret Thatcher, used to fox hunt with Prince Charles and still regularly hosts parties that attract the upper strata of Melbourne society. Janson was the first person to set up a marquee at the Melbourne Cup, instigating its growth into the monster social event it is today.

Janson started out in rallying before moving into touring cars.

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He was the bell-weather of now-fashionable CBD living in Melbourne (he’s been there since the late 1960s, first in the now-demolished Federal Hotel, then the Windsor Hotel and now Rutherglen House, a six-storey bluestone building tucked behind the Rialto skyscraper).

Amidst all that, Janson – who was born in New Zealand and grew up in Europe before settling in Melbourne – managed to eke out a motorsport career that plenty would be proud of had they done nothing else.

Janson discovered motorsport during his time in Europe and first cut his teeth in the sport there. A sportscar outing gone wrong at the Paul Ricard circuit in France is why he has that famous beard.

“I lost my face in a Ferrari,” he says. “The front wheel sheared off and I hit the side of the circuit. And at the side of the circuit in those days there was a cross with a scaffold bolted on to hold the crowd back. It hit the top and slid through the short windscreen and straight down my throat. That’s when they completely rebuilt me. I got most of the scars off my face but I had to keep a beard.”

Religiously turning up to every race meeting was something Janson left to the professionals during his two decades of contesting Australian touring-car events.

“I spread it around with the horses and motor racing,” he says. “Larry (Perkins), he’s a true professional. Like Brock, he’d be at every race meeting. But I wouldn’t, I’d go off to Europe and go pheasant shooting, fox hunting or sit on a horse in the steeplechase.”

Bathurst, though, was different. After making his first appearance at the Mountain in 1973 in a Honda Civic (he finished 22nd and fourth in class), he would return every single year until his final start in 1992, most often with his own team and Holden-badged product.

Why did he love Bathurst so much? “It’s the greatest circuit in the world,” he says. “I raced at Le Mans and it’s a flat bloody thing where the only fun you get is coming down Mulsanne Straight. It’s flat, it’s boring. Here you go up 2000-2500 feet, over the top at about 150mph and the big sweeper and down you go, in the old days sitting on about 200mph without the Chase. It’s the most exciting and challenging circuit in the world.”

Janson’s Bathurst record is right up there with the best drivers never to win the country’s biggest race. He finished runner-up there twice (1979, 1980), third once (1977) and clocked three other top-five results.

Part of it came down to his spectacular ability to pick out great co-driving talent, like when he took a punt on a certain struggling Australian ex-Formula 1 driver in 1977.

“Engine builder Ian Tate used to do everything for us and he said, ‘You’ve got to get someone good to go with you’,” he says. “And we sat down and thought, and I said, ‘What about Larry Perkins?’ So we rang Larry and he said, ‘I’ll be on with you’, so I bought him out. So that’s how it started for Larry out here.”

When Perkins was drafted to the Holden Dealer Team, Janson threw his support behind David Parsons.

“They all laughed at me because he was too young, they all said,” says Janson. “But I said, ‘He’ll fucking frighten all of you’. We were on the second row of the grid that year!”

Janson’s best Bathurst returns, unsurprisingly, came with future serial winner and engineer extraordinaire

Perkins. In their four drives together they bagged three podiums (1977, 1979 and 1980) and got on famously.

“Larry was so great,” says Janson. “He’d say, ‘Cobber, if you want to start the race, you start the race’. Just a wonderful, laid-back attitude. They reckoned we weren’t going to last two weeks together but we only ever had one cross word and it was, ‘Fuck it, Janson, stop going on the side of the road in the gravel and throwing those Cherry Ripes, we’ll get punctures in our tyres!’”

Janson thanks Perkins for teaching him the magic touch at the Mountain. “If you finish at Bathurst you’re bloody good, you’ve learned to look after the car.

ABOVE: Janson was a

pioneer of sponsor engagement at Bathurst.

“IT’S THE GREATEST CIRCUIT IN THE O ... O O 000 500 OV O O 50 ...

– PETER JANSON ON MOUNT PANORAMA 75

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TOP: he al ou i of Janson’s own team in 1984.

ABOVE: Janson added some fun to the paddock.

PARTY LEGEND Scan with your smartphone to go inside one of Peter Janson’s legendary Melbourne soirées.

“That’s what Larry taught me.

He and Ian, they sat down and worked it all out. Our torque came in at 3000rpm, just over, 3300rpm, I think it was. So at the Cutting instead of going back to first gear we went around in second, she just pulled away like shit. We lacked the horsepower but we had reliability.”

There were no hard feelings when Perkins left to take up residence at the Holden Dealer Team.

“He came to me and said, ‘Look, I’ve been offered a drive with Peter Brock’,” says Janson. “I said, ‘Grab it! I’m only in it for the sport, you’re a professional, grab it with both hands!’ He did and we’re still the closest of friends.”

A friendship with some pretty handy benefits. “Over the years whenever I wanted an engine – if I was racing someone else’s car and we needed a decent engine – Larry would be, ‘Sure, I got a spare one, it’s over there, go and get it’,” says Janson.

“I’d say, ‘How much do you want?’ and he’d be, ‘Oh, fix us up later, cobber’. No-one else could get an engine out of Larry unless they bought the cash along. No one else!”

The Cherry Ripe-throwing incident underlines another of Janson’s most unique talents, a philosophy towards sponsorship, promotion and fan engagement that was years ahead of its time for the sport.

Those famous chocolate bar-throwing sessions, typically done on a warm-up lap, were all in the name of giving back to long-time supporter Cadbury-Schweppes.

For spark-plug sponsor NGK he went further, changing his name by deed poll so he could run the name ‘NGK Janson’ on the windscreen, then a sponsor-free space.

“I got a lot of money for it and once I set the precedent on that, everyone could do it,” he says.

“It made people sit back but all the boys loved it because the sponsor got the best spot on the car.”

Prior to that, Janson had rubbed a bit of his promotional magic on the Holden Dealer Team.

“I started that team anyway,” he says. “I put everything together, it was in my name. They registered the Holden Dealer Team to me and Harry (Firth) was the guy at the back who brought in the cars, the engines, everything.

“It was, ‘Well, you’ve got the cars and everything, now go out and get the sponsorship’. That’s when I went out and got Marlboro, TAA, NGK for the first time in its life, and Levis, Castrol. I got them all together and what we did was each one complemented the other. So when we did the big posters that went into every Holden dealership, they went into every Levis shop, every Marlboro outlet.

So you gave more marketing coverage than anyone else.”

Some of Brock’s renowned charm can be traced back to the good Captain, too. “When we got him he was a real country boy,” says Janson. “Harry said, ‘We’ve got to get him going, clean him up’, so he went to elocution to learn to speak properly and got sent off to Henry Bucks.

“All the sponsors I got, he went all around the country as a guest speaker. And that was the first time that anyone had ever decided to work their top driver like they do today, to push the sponsorship. He was so good at it.”

Janson’s future-gazing wasn’t just in the promotional domain. In an age of tents and caravans, he was lording it up in the paddock in a huge setup with all the mod-cons.

“I had the two Kenworths because I was with IPEC,” says Janson. “I also had a 48-foot caravan that had everything. I was the first to have my own chef. We were the only ones who did it and then it caught on.”

Not all of Janson’s exploits were a precursor to today’s slick, corporatised brand of motorsport.

“One year I put my cigar out and I flung it and it went in the pits,” he says. “A thousand people left the pits before you could say what-jot-cock-Werthenstein. I got really fined for that one! Another year the corner broke off the back of the bus and threw shit all the way down the main street of Bathurst. The boys were put into jail and I had to get them out. Every year something happened.”

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SHOOTOUT

TEAMS WE WANT TO SEE RACING AGAIN Holden funding, Walkinshaw Racing had the option to revive the HSV Dealer Team title that won two championships in 2006 and 2007 with Rick Kelly and Garth Tander respectively; to strengthen the relationship between Walkinshaw, Holden Special Vehicles and Holden.

10 NEPTUNE RACING TEAM Neptune Racing Team famously ran Norm Beechey, Jim McKeown and Peter Manton in three different cars. In 1965, Beechey’s championship-winning campaign, this included a Ford Mustang, Ford Cortina Mark I Lotus and Morris Cooper S. Long gone are the days when a team fielded various types of cars, sadly.

3 PERKINS ENGINEERING Brock achieved elsewhere, how we’d love to see the #05 still on the grid under the Team Brock banner.

7 GLENN SETON RACING

Glenn Seton Racing flew the Blue Oval flag for more than a decade with two drivers’ championship wins for owner/ driver Glenn Seton. With Glenn’s son Aaron pursuing a motorsport career and Glenn still racing in the Touring Car Masters, perhaps there could be a revival of the team for the third-generation racer.

6 HSV DEALER TEAM 9 TEAM BMW

BMW is arguably the most successful manufacturer in international touring cars and a perfect candidate for Gen2. Imagine BMW returning in a black and gold throwback livery in honour of Jim Richards’ championshipwinning JPS Team BMWs.

8 TEAM BROCK u

Though Team Brock didn’t notch up the results that Peter

in good stead in Gen2. Imagine history repeating with Gibson running Nissan Skyline GT-Rs…

Following the loss of the Holden Racing Team brand and

5 STONE BROTHERS RACING

Another team rich in Ford history that could help keep the manufacturer’s Australian touring-car heritage alive.

Matt Stone Racing, run by Jim Stone’s son Matt, races in the Dunlop Development Series and could one day revive the Stone Brothers Racing name.

4 GIBSON MOTORSPORT

Gibson won races in Nissans, Holdens and Fords. And its success across Group A and V8 Supercars with multiple manufacturers would hold the team

Larry Perkins’ Perkins Engineering was always a threat at Mount Panorama, using the championship as preparation for the long-distance classic. How about a Perkins Engineering wildcard entry for the Bathurst 1000, complete with Jack Perkins as lead driver in a Castrol-backed #11 Holden entry?

2 MOFFAT FORD DEALERS

Allan Moffat Racing won championships with both Ford and Mazda and four Bathurst 500/1000s with Ford. With Ford Australia pulling its funding in recent seasons, the Ford dealers could go racing yet again under the Moffat Ford Dealers banner with James Moffat leading the way.

1 HOLDEN DEALER TEAM

The powerhouse Holden team remains the most successful at Mount Panorama with nine Great Race wins. With Holden’s support for racing reduced to Triple Eight Race Engineering, what about a rebirth of the Holden Dealer Team with the dealer network backing the motorsport campaign yet again?

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