Hi to all you Supercars Fans around the world!
On the weekend of May 20 – 21, 2023 was the Ned Whiskey Tasmania Supersprint held at the Symmons Plain Raceway.
The raceway was first opened in March 1960. After the closure of the Longford Road circuit Symmons Plains quickly established its own reputation as Tasmania’s home of Motor Racing. The track is 2.4 km with 7 turns and must be one of the shorter tracks used in the Supercars Championship.
The Tasmania Supersprint was round 4 of the championship. Brodie Kostecki came into the round with a 100 point lead over Chaz Mostert in 2nd place.
It is the 50th time that the Supercars have visited. The track seems to be favoured by Triple Eight. They have won 25 out of the last 36 races in Tasmania.
Both Andre Heimgartner and Nick Percat had milestones. It was Andre Heimgartner’s 100th round start in Supercars and Nick Percat started his 300th race in Supercars.
In the pre-Race sessions:
- Brodie Kostecki was fastest in Practice 1
- Brodie Kostecki was fastest in Practice 2
- Will Brown was fastest in Qualifying
In Race 10 Will Brown started on pole position with Jack le Brocq alongside him.
At the start of the race Will Brown got the jump and led into turn 1 for the first of 42 laps. The opening lap was relatively clean until James Courtney went into the wall at turn 6.
Coming out of turn 4 on the following lap Cameron Waters made contact with Brodie Kostecki which put him in the wall. Then Broc Feeney made contact with Chaz Mostert spinning him around. Scott Pye gave Broc Feeney a nudge and put damage on car 88 but he was able to keep going.
The result of the chaos had Chaz Mostert and Brodie Kostecki heading to the pits for repairs. As it turned out Chaz Mostert was not able to re-join the race.
James Courtney was another casualty from the turn 4 incident. A few laps later he went into the garage to replace a bent steering arm.
Will Brown was still leading with 1.8 seconds over Cameron Waters.
Shane Van Gisbergen was up 3 places from his grid start position and now in 6th.
It wasn’t long before Cameron Waters showed how much he wanted the win. He did the fastest lap of the race clocking in at 51.67 seconds.
Shane Van Gisbergen also showed his desire for a podium finish and got up the inside of Cameron Hill for 4th position.
The first car to pit in this race was Scott Pye on lap 14. He came in from 21st position and returned to the track in 22nd.
Mid-field Will Davison got up the inside of David Reynolds exchanging 15th and 16th place.
In the middle of the race James Golding pitted and David Reynolds followed him in. Andre Heimgartner and Cameron Waters then pitted from 3rd and 4th position.
Race leader, Will Brown made his pit stop on lap 23. He returned to the track in 5th place giving Shane Van Gisbergen the number 1 spot. At this stage there were still 8 cars to pit.
Shane Van Gisbergen pitted on lap 27 from the lead of the race.
After Jack Smith took his pit stop he was investigated for an infringement. He was issued a 15 second time penalty post-race finish.
Now there were only 3 cars yet to pit; Todd Hazelwood, Matt Payne and Broc Feeney. Once they did Will Brown assumed the lead of the race.
Towards the end of the race Will Brown was still in the lead with 1.3 seconds over Andre Heimgartner. It was another 1.1 seconds back to Cameron Waters in 3rd.
Once Todd Hazelwood had pitted on lap 30 he re-joined in 15th place.
After this it was a sprint to the checkered flag.
Shane Van Gisbergen was in 4th position with fresher tyres for the sprint to the finish line but he was 8.2 seconds off the lead and 5.8 seconds away from Cameron Waters in 3rd place.
In the final Will Brown was still holding the lead over Andre Heimgartner. Shane Van Gisbergen was obviously not satisfied with 4th and managed to finally get past Cameron Waters to steal 3rd place.
Results for Race 10:
1st Will Brown – Erebus Motorsport
2nd Andre Heimgartner – Brad Jones Racing
3rd Shane Van Gisbergen – Red Bull Ampol Racing
In Race 11 Brodie Kostecki started on pole position, alongside him was Broc Feeney.
At the start of the race Brodie Kostecki pushed Broc Feeney wide at turn. Will Brown used the opportunity to go up to 2nd place while Broc Feeney was displaced back to 4th.
The opening lap was relatively clean until turn 6 when Shane Van Gisbergen went into tyre wall after a bump from David Reynolds. Shane Van Gisbergen managed to get the car out but had to head straight to the pits. The damage was worse than first thought. The damage would take so much time to repair he wasn’t able to return to the race. Luckily he was able to participate in the final race of the weekend.
Shortly after Will Brown took the lead off his teammate Brodie Kostecki.
The top 5 cars were packed close to each other and anything could happen to change the results.
Aggressions seemed to be increasing and Declan Fraser received a 15 second time penalty for a driving infringement.
Meanwhile, Will Davison clocked the fastest lap at 52.011 seconds.
The first car to pit (aside from Shane Van Gisbergen) was Mark Winterbottom on lap 13. Noone else followed him in.
By the middle of the race the top 13 cars had still not visited pits. It seemed they all were afraid to give up their positions.
Once Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown had pitted there was a 35 second gap between the two.
Towards the end of the end of the race Broc Feeney was in the lead with 0.721 seconds over the championship leader Brodie Kostecki. It was a further 1.4 seconds back to Will Brown in 3rd.
In the final laps the gap between the top 3 cars became even tighter.
Broc Feeney was looking solid out front even though they were right on his tail. The drivers behind were really battling for the minor places.
On the last lap Broc Feeney was in cruise mode with a confident lead of 2 seconds.
He kept his hard-earned lead to finish line ahead of Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown.
As he crossed the line Broc Feeney announced over the radio, “Team Sunday is back!”.
Results for Race 11:
1st Broc Feeney – Red Bull Ampol Racing
2nd Brodie Kostecki – Erebus Motorsport
3rd Will Brown – Erebus Motorsport
In Race 12 Brodie Kostecki started on pole position with Will Brown alongside him.
As they took off Will Brown got the jump and led into turns 1 and 2 for the first of 42 laps. Andre Heimgartner went off the track at turn 1 and so did Anton de Pasquale.
While the 2 Erebus Camaro’s were commanding proceedings everybody else was trying to play catch up. Further back in the field the 2 Penrite Racing cars were battling for positions outside the top 10 in 14th and 16th place.
At the second last corner Declan Fraser got turned around by Jack Smith.
Things went smoothly until lap 9 when Andre Heimgartner gave James Courtney a bump and they both went off into the gravel.
On lap 10 Broc Feeney managed to get up the inside of Jack le Brocq for 3rd place. Will Brown and his teammate Brodie Kostecki were still holding the number 1 and 2 spots.
The first car to pit in this race was Nick Percat on lap 12 from the back of the pack and had a loose brake pedal as a secondary issue. Shane Van Gisbergen also pitted. He was in 18th and when he came back out on the track was in 23rd place.
By the middle of the race Shane Van Gisbergen had worked his way up through the field and was able to take 11th place from Jack le Brocq. At this stage there were 9 cars yet to take their stops.
Will Brown pitted on lap 24 which left Broc Feeney in control of the race.
Towards the end of the race Will Brown had a 5.5 second lead over Broc Feeney. It was only 0.633 seconds back to Shane Van Gisbergen who had now worked his way into 3rd place.
Matt Payne’s car had suffered damage earlier and the tyre was rubbing on the front bumper. It was too close to the end of the race so he kept going to the finish line.
At the front of the pack Will Brown still kept his lead and finished with a 4 second gap over Broc Feeney and Brodie Kostecki.
Another spectacular finish for Erebus to end the weekend.
Results for Race 12:
1st Will Brown – Erebus Motorsport
2nd Broc Feeney – Red Bull Ampol Racing
3rd Brodie Kostecki – Erebus Motorsport
Brodie Kostecki still leads the championship by 87 points over Will Brown. Erebus are also leading the teams’ championship by 276 points over the Red Bull Ampol Racing team.
There are only 8 rounds to go in the 2023 Supercars season. The next event is the Betr Darwin Triple Crown on June 16th to 18th 2023.
Looking forward to it already!