Hi to all you Supercars fans around the world!
On the weekend of the 24th to the 26th of August 2018 was the OTR Supersprint at The Bend in South Australia.
Some interesting statistics from the weekend:
- It was Jamie Whincup’s 209th Championship round start.
- Garry Rogers Motorsport celebrated their 300th round.
- Craig Lowndes started his 289th round.
- Also there were 28 cars racing at Tailem Bend instead of just the normal 26.
As they worked through their way of the preliminary activities before the race, there were some unusual results:
- Tim Slade was fastest in Practice 1.
- Shane Van Gisbergen was fastest in Practice 2.
- Nick Percat was fastest in Practice 3.
- James Courtney qualified 24th and Craig Lowndes qualified 25th due to getting held up by traffic in front of them. No doubt a disappointing result for them.
In race 22 Jamie Whincup started in pole position. Alongside him was his teammate Shane Van Gisbergen.
When the cars headed out on to the Tailem Bend Race track, Garth Tander had stopped on the Parade lap because he had electrical problems.
At the start of the 24-lap race there was contact between Jack Le Brocq and Anton de Pasquale. Jack Le Brocq was spun off track. The officials deducted 25 points from Anton de Pasquale’s Championship total and in a post-race investigation issued him a $3,000 fine with $2,000 suspended for ‘careless contact’. This sounds harsh but was backed by the fact this was Anton de Pasquale’s third offence of a similar nature in the last four rounds.
I couldn’t believe how many spots James Courtney made up on the opening lap and during the race. I thought, ‘Wow! That is remarkable’.
Craig Lowndes pitted early on to get clear track and to avoid double stacking. It worked in his favour because he re-joined the race with no one too close behind so that meant he could do it safely.
In the middle of the race Garth Tander found his problem had not been fixed and his car stopped just before the entry to the pit lane. The Vodafone Safety Car was deployed and the race went to ‘yellow’.
Up to this point Shane Van Gisbergen had a good lead but this then went back to zero because the field was all bunched up. Once Gart Tander was towed off the track and the race went back to green, Shane Van Gisbergen wanted to regain his good lead. He just took off and said, ‘Catch me if you can!’
Towards the end of the race no one could catch the top 3 drivers which were Shane Van Gisbergen, who finished 6.2602 seconds ahead of Rick Kelly. Rick Kelly was followed by Michael Caruso 2.652 seconds later. Jamie Whincup leading the rest of the pack was nearly 4 seconds behind that with Scot McLaughlin in close pursuit. Quite a wide spread in the finish of such a short race.
With a win for Shane Van Gisbergen, the gap between him and Scott McLaughlin was now only 41 points.
Results for Race 22
1st Shane Van Gisbergen – Red Bull Holden Racing Team.
2nd Rick Kelly – Nissan Motorsport.
3rd Michael Caruso – Nissan Motorsport.
In race 23 the two Red Bull teammates were again at the front of the grid as in the last race. Jamie Whincup was on pole position with Shane Van Gisbergen alongside him.
At the start of the 41 lap race the best start was from Craig Lowndes, who was 6th on the grid and making excellent headway. He was going so well I thought Triple 8 were going to have a 1st, 2nd and 3rd early on in the race. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
Scott McLaughlin didn’t have the speed all weekend and as result the championship leader qualified 5th both days.
Fabian Coulthard was struggling like his teammate, Scott McLaughlin was all weekend.
The drivers in front made a choice to stay out, which was a good choice but cars further back in the pack came in to not get held up.
David Reynolds was on the charge which paid off for him. Once he gained position he didn’t let up and by the end of the race he had gained 9 spots from 12th on the grid and finished 3rd.
Anton de Pasquale was trying to stay out of trouble. During the Qualifying for the race he had got pinged again for making contact with Simona de Silvestro. Especially after his penalties in race 22 the day before, he had had enough.
It was in the race that Dick Johnson Racing Team Penske took the lead in the Pirtek Pit stop Challenge during Scott McLaughlin’s pit stop.
Craig Lowndes tried to take 7th place from Will Davison but he couldn’t manage the pass and had to stay where he was for the time being.
In the middle of the race Jamie Whincup and Shane were running 1st and 2nd. Roland Dane and his Red Bull Team must have been quite happy at this. Things were looking good.
The Red Bull pair managed to keep their momentum and as the race came to a finish it seemed they were just too quick for everybody else to keep up. Surprisingly this was including Scott McLaughlin.
Results for Race 23
1st Jamie Whincup – Red Bull Holden Racing team.
2nd Shane Van Gisbergen – Red Bull Holden Racing Team
3rd David Reynolds – Freightliner Racing.
Shane Van Gisbergen is now the new Supercars Championship leader but only by 19 points. Can the Red Bull Holden Racing team keep the lead or will Scott McLaughlin take it back? Things are getting very exciting.
The next event is the Rabble Club.com Sandown 500 on the 14th to the 16th of September 2018 which is in 3 weeks’ time.
If you have any thoughts on how the weekend panned feel free to give me your opinon via my Facebook Fanpage I would like hear your feedback.