Hi to all you V8 Supercars fans
On the weekend of the 6th – 9th of October 2016 was the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000. This is the one race that both Dad and I stay glued to the TV to watch the race, he goes for Craig Lowndes and I go for Jamie Whincup. We become armchair critics through the whole race… Hehe…
At the beginning of the race we had the main drivers in except for these co-drivers, Tony Dalberto, Renee Gracie and Aaron Russell.
Jamie Whincup started on pole position alongside him was Scott McLaughlin for the 161lap race.
On lap 1, Jamie Whincup got the jump and led everybody up Mountain Straight. Scott tried to him catch him at turn 2, Bloodstone bend but wasn’t able to get the move done. Going across the top of the mountain everyone had to stay single file until the cars got onto Conrod straight.
On lap 2, everyone had started to settle down into a race pace. But there were no safety cars for the first couple of hours.
On lap 3, with Jamie Whincup still out in front saying catch me if you can.
On lap 4, Shane Van Gisbergen tried to pass Garth Tander but wasn’t able to get it done unless the other driver left a lot of room.
On lap 5, the crowd did a standing 0oation for the late great Peter Brock. Lee Holdsworth’s car sounded sick.
On lap 6, the Red Bull team was happy to see Jamie Whincup pulling away early on.
On lap 7, the pack settled down Jamie Whincup started his 400th race, Rick Kelly went up the inside of Cameron Waters at turn 1.
On lap 8, Shane Van Gisbergen was in front of the three time Bathurst winner Garth Tander. Russell Ingall made his 25th start at Bathurst on the weekend.
On lap 9, Craig Lowndes was moving up from 21st to 13th.
On lap 10, Rick Kelly was behind Chris Pither but he made contact with his car at turn 1.
On lap 11, the reason why most of the co drivers were ready just in case there was going to be an early Safety car.
On lap 12 Chris Pither had dropped all the way down to 25th as a result of contact with Rick Kelly.
On lap 13 Craig Lowndes was up to 12th spot after getting passed Tony Dalberto, after that he set his sights onto Will Davison.
On lap 14, the first car to make a pit stop was James Moffatt handing over to the rookie James Golding. The Nissan motorsport crew had to use the pit board due to radio failure.
On lap, Rick Kelly and Dale Wood pitted for a drive change tyre change and fuel. Rick had a 10 second stop and hold penalty at his next stop.
On lap 16, Craig Lowndes was chasing his teammate down for pit priority.
On lap 17, Dean Canto was chasing Jack Perkins.
On lap 18, Steven Richards came in to get fresh air and to not get caught up in traffic.
On lap 20, both Scott Pye and Matt Campbell nearly hit the wall coming out of the cutting and approaching the top of the mountain with the car was stuck in gear. Brad Jones Racing had an oil fire on the right front calliper. I was laughing at Mark Skaife and Neil Crompton when they said its pot of Penguins. Neil’s response ‘was handy if you’re at Phillip Island not so at Mount Panorama’.
On lap 21, then everybody started to file through one car at a time, because teams that have two or three cars have got to have different strategies from those that have only one.
On lap 22, the leaders stayed out on the track, meanwhile the cars further back pitted to not get caught up in traffic.
On lap 24, the leading cars were breaking laps records, Jamie Whincup holds the lap records at Bathurst now.
On lap 25, the next cars to stop were Jack Perkins along with Dean Canto respectively.
On lap 26, Rick Kelly was going off his brain about not having a good race which ultimately cost him any chance of a solid result.
On lap 27, Paul Dumbrell was sitting in the pits watching Jamie Whincup do his stuff in the car.
On lap 28, I couldn’t believe there was no safety car early. Drivers must have been behaving themselves.
on lap 29, the co-drivers were in the cars for their stint.
On lap 30, Paul Dumbrell still had the race lead by over 30 seconds.
On lap 31, Ash Walsh came into to hand car 14 back to Tim Slade in the process the Freightliner Racing doing the brake pad change, there was a fire due to the pistons popping out of the calliper which had put them 2 laps behind.
On lap 33, the leaders were still controlling the race out front Tim Slade was running 2nd behind car Jamie Whincup.
On lap 34, the Team Vortex crew had to put car 888 the defending winners of the great race, into the garage to repair the broken gear linkage.
On lap 35 in the middle of the race the Bathurst 1000 was still under green flag.
The first safety car wasn’t until lap 92, for the crash involving Andrew Jones.
On the restart the two Red Bull cars were in control of the race.
Towards the end of the race there was a safety car to rescue Frosty because he was stuck in the sand trap down at the chase.
With 10 laps to go Jamie Whincup was behind Scott McLaughlin going down the Conrod Straight then he was told to stay behind Scott McLaughlin for the redress due to an small tap previously. This end up causing an incident between Scott McLaughlin and Garth Tander. I’m sure you have heard all about it.
In the end, Will Davison and Jonathon Webb took the Bathurst 1000 victory which is Will’s second win and Jonathon Webb’s first Bathurst win.
Results for the 2016 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
1st – Will Davison & Jonathon Webb – Tekno Autosports.
2nd – Shane Van Gisbergen & Alex Premat – Red Bull Racing Australia.
3rd – Nick Percat & Cameron Mcconville – Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport.
The Next event is the Castrol Gold Coast 600 on the 21st – 23rd of October 2016.
Now for some fun…