Hi to all you Supercars Fans around the world!
On the weekend of the 8th to the 10th July 2022 was the NTI Townsville 500.
This track, the Reed Park Street Circuit first opened on the 10th of July 2009. It is 2.8kms with 13 turns.
This year’s event is the halfway mark of the season and will consist of 2 races, 88 laps each.
Triple Eight Race Engineering, Dick Johnson Racing and Tickford Racing have proven to be the dominate teams in Townsville. Between them they have won the last 22 races dating back to the 2014 event.
Seven-time Supercars Champion Jamie Whincup’s record of 12 Townsville wins has a new challenger in Shane Van Gisbergen. The Kiwi has won 8 races in Townsville. Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert is still chasing his first win in Townsville. So, there was an incentive for some great driving.
In the pre-race sessions:
- Shane Van Gisbergen was fastest in Practice 1
- Andre Heimgartner was fastest in Practice 2
- Cameron Waters was fastest in Qualifying
- Shane Van Gisbergen was fastest in the Top Ten Shootout
In Race 19 Shane Van Gisbergen started on pole position and alongside him was Will Davison.
At the start of the race Will Davison delivered a spectacular take-off and led into turns 1 and 2 while the cars behind were 3 wide.
Before the rest of the pack reached turn 1, James Courtney made contact with James Golding putting him into the wall. The officials reviewed the incident and later issued James Courtney a 15 second penalty.
Broc Feeney hit the wall in between turns 1 and 2 after contact with Jack Le Brocq.
Tim Slade started on the Super Soft tyres and was putting them to use straight away. He made 3 spots by the time they got to turn 3 and was in 6th position. He placed himself on the inside with Andre Heimgartner right in front of him.
Shane Van Gisbergen was lucky to stay in front of Cameron Waters who was aggressively attempting to move up places.
While there was battling for positions 2, 3, 4 and 5 Will Davison had a 1.2 second lead. Straight away he could take the pressure off himself and had plenty of flexibility for strategy but he still had Shane Van Gisbergen on his tail.
James Courtney and James Golding were 21st and 25th after they had made contact at the start of the race.
Tim Slade found another gap and got up the inside of Andre Heimgartner for 4th position. His next target was Cameron Waters in 3rd place just 0.514 seconds ahead.
The cars further back in the pack were bumping and duelling through those first laps.
Soon Tim Slade had got passed Cameron Waters for 3rd position and had his sights firmly set on defending Supercars champion, Shane Van Gisbergen in 2nd place. Shane Van Gisbergen was 1.5 seconds adrift of the leader Will Davison.
At turn 10 on lap 2 Tim Slade managed the pass and was now in 2nd position.
I was amazed at how fast Tim Slade was moving up the order from his starting spot of 9th. Wow! I was thinking if he keeps going the way he is, he will get the lead of the race.
At the end of lap 2 James Golding was in the garage due to the contact with James Courtney at the start.
On lap 8 David Reynolds got up the inside of Shane Van Gisbergen taking 3rd position and dropping the series leader into 4th.
Tim Slade who was driving faultlessly and made his move successfully from 2nd to 1st. The race had a new leader.
On lap 9 David Reynolds clocked the fastest lap of the race, 1min 14.310s. It must have had something to do with having Shane Van Gisbergen right on his tail. The gaps at the front of the field were getting tighter.
Tim Slade’s great driving form continued and as the laps went by and he increased the lead to 5.6 seconds. David Reynolds had taken 2nd place from Will Davison and then Shane Van Gisbergen took 3rd place from him.
When David Reynolds pitted on lap 28, Tim Slade had a 13.541 second lead over Shane Van Gisbergen.
On lap 29 Cameron Waters and Bryce Fullwood came into the pits.
At lap 31 Shane Van Gisbergen finally had to pit. The Red Bull Ampol Racing Team filled his car with 101 litres of fuel as a strategy to shorten his 2nd pit stop.
In the middle of the race Andre Heimgartner was battling with Shane Van Gisbergen for 5th and 6th position. By the final turn on lap 44 Shane Van Gisbergen passed Andre Heimgartner taking 5th place.
There was stiff competition from drivers to get into the top ten. Thomas Randle moved up to 11th pushing Bryce Fullwood back to 12th. Tony Woodward, Andre Heimgartner’s race engineer said to him over the comms, “We are pulling in Chaz Mostert half a second a lap. Keep it up.”
Chaz Mostert was first to take the 2nd mandatory stop on lap 53.
By lap 55 Will Davison was back up the front and putting pressure on Tim Slade for the lead. Will Davison chose to not fight for the lead and pitted on lap 56.
Tim Slade pitted a couple of laps later on lap 59. Once he pitted Shane Van Gisbergen assumed the race lead. Tim Slade had led the race for 30 laps. Quite incredible considering he started in 9th place.
Townsville was typically warm and by this time of the day it was incredibly hot inside the cars. When Brodie Kostecki came in the team pulled out the driver’s side window to help cool the driver down who claimed his feet were burning up.
With 26 laps to go Shane Van Gisbergen had a +26.369 second lead over Bryce Fullwood. On the next lap the leader pitted.
On lap 69 Mark Winterbottom was in the garage with the bonnet up and mechanics looking for the cause of his issue, a power steering failure.
At this stage the 3 leading drivers were Will Davison, Chaz Mostert 5.1 seconds behind, then a further 9.4 seconds to Shane Van Gisbergen.
From about lap 72 Shane Van Gisbergen was on the charge. He needed to find 4 seconds to get to the back of Chaz Mostert in car 25.
With 15 laps to go he closed the gap by approximately 3 seconds. Within a further 3 laps Shane Van Gisbergen was only 1.3 seconds behind and closing.
On Lap 76 Shane Van Gisbergen passed Chaz Mostert for 2nd place. Now he had to smash the 7.7 seconds gap between himself and Will Davison.
Shane Van Gisbergen was hard at it and on the next lap knocked a further 1 second off the gap. He was flying towards the lead of the race. With 11 laps to go the gap was 6.7 seconds and the defending series champion was getting closer and closer to the back of car 17 of Will Davison.
On Lap 78 (10 laps to go) Shane Van Gisbergen had worked the gap down to + 5.9 seconds.
Will Davison momentarily lost concentration and nearly hit the wall. He came within an inch of having damage.
With 9 laps to go Will Davison was coming up to the lapped David Reynolds. Reynolds stepped aside to let Will Davison press on.
With 8 laps remaining the gap was down to 3.7 seconds between Will Davison and Shane Van Gisbergen. Just behind the two leaders Andre Heimgartner was battling with Chaz Mostert for 3rd place.
With 7 laps to go Shane Van Gisbergen was closing fast and was only 2.2 seconds behind. By the next lap the gap was 1.9 seconds, then it was 1.7 seconds.
With 4 laps to go Shane Van Gisbergen finally got passed Will Davison and took the race lead.
With 3 laps to go Shane Van Gisbergen had position 1 locked away but the battle for 3rd and 4th were far from over. With 2 laps left Andre Heimgartner was in 3rd until Cameron Waters passed him at the final turn.
Shane Van Gisbergen used the remaining laps to secure his win. He kept inching away from Will Davison.
Shane Van Gisbergen held his good form and crossed the finish line 4.9 seconds clear of Will Davison.
Cameron Waters also held his position and came in 3rd.
This was Shane Van Gisbergen’s 9th win for the season. It also put him 1 win closer to Jamie Whincup’s record of 12 wins at Townsville.
It was a spectacular finish for him.
Results for Race 19:
1st Shane Van Gisbergen – Red Bull Ampol Racing.
2nd Will Davison – Shell V Power-Racing Team.
3rd Cameron Waters – Tickford Racing.
In Race 20 Cameron Waters started on pole position. Will Davison had qualified 2nd but was issued a 1 grid spot penalty for impeding James Courtney during the qualifying session. So, it was Anton de Pasquale alongside pole and Will Davison starting 3rd on the grid.
At the start of the race Anton de Pasquale got the jump and led into turns 1 and 2.
On the exit of turn 3 Will Davison made contact with Scott Pye. Although Will Davison went off the track, he was able to continue but had lost 21 spots all the way down to 24th position. Scott Pye was left stranded in the middle of the track. The rest of the cars following behind somehow all missed him. The safety car was deployed to remove Scott Pye’s car and he wasn’t able to return to the race. He was the only NC (Not Complete) for the race. I feel sorry for Team 18, Scott Pye and owner, Charlie Schwerkolt. Pye has had so much bad luck this season.
The restart was on lap 4 and Cameron Waters tried to get up the inside of Anton de Pasquale but he wasn’t able to get the job done. Anton de Pasquale held onto the race lead even though it was only by 0.439 seconds.
Shane Van Gisbergen was under pressure from James Courtney in 3rd and 4th place.
Thomas Randle got up the inside of Chaz Mostert moving the rookie into 5th place, up 5 from his grid starting position.
Thomas Randle was now putting pressure on his teammate, James Courtney for 4th position. Soon enough he got down the inside of him at turn 2.
Now Randle faced the seemingly impossible task of challenging the series leader Shane Van Gisbergen for 3rd. The rookie was on fire and a few laps later at turn 11 got up the inside of Shane Van Gisbergen. That’s pretty incredible!
Thomas Randle was now only 1.6 seconds behind his teammate Cameron Waters in 2nd, with Anton de Pasquale still in the lead by 0.8 seconds.
The rookie continued to impress all viewers. A few laps later he got passed his teammate Cameron Waters for 2nd place. Everybody seemed to be asking, “Was he going to pull off the impossible and take the race lead from Anton de Pasquale?”.
On lap 8 Thomas Randle did do the impossible and took the lead. It must have been an incredible moment for the rookie and his team.
Further back in the pack Mark Winterbottom was assisted off the track onto the grass by Jake Kostecki. Mark Winterbottom didn’t suffer any damage and was able to continue minus a few places.
Shane Van Gisbergen got passed Cameron Waters for 3rd place putting him 2.2 seconds behind Anton de Pasquale.
All of this had happened before they reached lap 12.
Tim Slade was the first driver to pit on lap 22. The first of the front runners to pit was Cameron Waters on lap 26. Then Will Davison following him lap 28.
On lap 29 Shane Van Gisbergen and James Courtney also came into the pits.
By the middle of the race Shane Van Gisbergen had the lead and a 3.3 second gap over Anton de Pasquale. They were followed by Cameron Waters and then Chaz Mostert.
After pitting Thomas Randle was under pressure from his teammate James Courtney for positions 5. Tim Slade was battling with Andre Heimgartner right behind them for 7th and 8th.
At lap 47 Shane Van Gisbergen was showing what I think were signs of fatigue, changing gear with his right hand and using his left foot on the throttle to give his right foot a break.
Will Davison was mid field in 15th position looking for a way to get back into the top 10.
Jake Kostecki was the first car to take his 2nd pit stop on lap 52.
Towards the end of the race Shane Van Gisbergen was still in the lead and looking like making it 2 from 2 for the weekend.
In the last few laps Anton de Pasquale was right on his tail. He has been one of the fastest drivers this year and was proving to be a real threat to Shane Van Gisbergen’s lead. Any mistake would be taken advantage of by Anton de Pasquale. Shane Van Gisbergen could not shake him.
They also had to navigate around some lapped cars which wouldn’t make things easier.
In the last lap Anton de Pasquale was like Shane Van Gisbergen’s shadow. There were literally only centimetres between the two cars. Shane Van Gisbergen went out wide on approach to the last turn before the final straight to the checkered flag. As he swept through the turn Anton de Pasquale tried to make a pass on the inside but timed it all wrong, colliding with with the back of the leader’s car and spinning him to face the oncoming traffic.
After letting 2 lapped cars pass, Shane Van Gisbergen took off like a shot from a complete standstill. Anton de Pasquale who was up ahead had slowed down to ‘redress’ (that is to give back to position after an unfair pass). Shane Van Gisbergen was almost up to full speed. With less than 100m to the finish line he suddenly slowed down to pull in behind Anton de Pasquale as they crossed the finish line.
By not accepting the offer of ‘redress’ it forced a penalty onto Anton de Pasquale. He was issued a 5 second penalty after the finish line but it wasn’t enough to take him off the podium. The next closest car was Cameron Waters 13+ seconds later.
It was an unusual finish but gave Shane Van Gisbergen a second win for the weekend.
Results for Race 20
1st Shane Van Gisbergen – Red Bull Ampol Racing.
2nd Anton de Pasquale – Shell V-Power Racing Team.
3rd Cameron Waters – Tickford Racing.
The next event is the OTR Supersprint on the 30th and 31st of July 2022.