Garry Roger’s from Wilson Security Racing GRM writes his thoughts on the latest V8 Supercars round at Sydney Motorsport Park….
Round 8 (Races 21-23) of the V8 Supercar Championship and we headed to Eastern Creek (Sydney Motorsport Park). In the lead up we took the time to visit Volvo Car Australia’s head office and enjoyed a chat to all of the staff and were certainly very impressed with the all new Volvo XC90 which has just been released. Personally I get a lot of satisfaction out of visiting our sponsor group and my enthusiasm for what we do is certainly assisted by the interest that these people and companies have in our racing program.
Heading to Sydney and I had very fond memories from last years event. We experienced the lows of racing on the Saturday but rebounded on the Sunday to experience the highs. Saturday saw Dahlgren crash, McLaughlin have an engine failure and then lose a wheel. The day was a disaster. But, Sunday and Scotty put Car #33 on pole and won! It just goes to show that you must stick at it and stay positive and bad fortune and sometimes bad execution can be turned around with the right attitude and work ethic very quickly.
Round 8 was a Sprint Round, which involves 2 x qualifying and 2 x races (60km) on the Saturday and 1 x qualifying and 1 x 200 km race on the Sunday. Before this though we had the opportunity to give some seat time to our Endurance Cup drivers during Friday practice. Chris Pither did a dozen or so laps in Car #34, but Alex Premat was unavailable as he is the US but is returning to Australia for a test day with us next Monday.
Our aim for Chris was to just drive around and familiarise himself with the car. We gave him very average tyres and had no expectations except for him to do as many laps as possible in the 30 minutes allocated. We are under no illusions that Car #34 has had a very testing season so far but it’s also important to always remind ourselves on how close this competition is. In most instances David Wall has only been tenths of seconds off the front runners. Back in my day it wasn’t uncommon for the pole winner to be a second quicker than the second place car, let alone the many seconds that separated the field.
Following the Endurance Cup driver practice there were 2 x 60 minute practice sessions. During these sessions we are trying to achieve a number of objectives. Of course we are initially aiming to find the ideal set up for both the hard and soft tyres that are to be used over the weekend, but also we need to use these sessions to test developmental work that we are consistently undertaking in an effort to improve our performance.
Following Friday’s practice the feeling was very good within the team. Both cars were inside the Top 10 which is generally a reasonable indication for the qualifying to follow the next day. Of course depending on what tyres driver’s set their time on can influence the “trueness” of Friday practice. What I am saying here is during practice teams will have a tyre bank (tyres left over from previous race meetings) that differ in quality and compound. In most cases the soft tyre is quicker than the hard tyre so if you have a good set of softs available this may make you look “better” than you actually are.
Saturday qualifying and the weather was sunny and clear. Qualifying for Race 21 was on hard tyres. These short ten minute sessions don’t allow much opportunity for setup change so you really need to be on top of this prior to the session. As already stated the previous day’s practice is utilised partly to fine tune this procedure but, track conditions do change as more rubber is put down on the track as other categories practice and race.
Our performance in this first qualifying was average. Scott managed to squeeze into the 10 in 9th (5/10ths off) and David was a further 5/10ths back in 22nd. Yet again the Prodrive Falcon’s showed the way led by Mostert on pole and Winterbottom 2nd. Their dominance was evident with 4 of the top 6 cars being Prodrive Falcon’s. A short 10 minute break and some changes made to get ready for the soft tyre qualifying for Race 22. Historically we have performed a little better on the soft tyre than the hard. Scott managed to find several positions to qualify 6th (4/10ths off pole) and David 21st. Again Mostert led the way but this time joined by Whincup on the front row.
Race 21 and unfortunately it wasn’t one that will go down in history as one of the most exciting. Mostert led from start to finish, followed by Winterbottom and Whincup completed the podium. Scott drove well and stayed out of trouble to gain one position to finish 8th. David finished where he started in 22nd. The pleasing part was both cars were in good order. Obviously the season for us has been hampered by mechanical “gremlins” but Christian Dahl and his Polestar team in Sweden have been working tirelessly to rectify these issues and as each meeting goes by our confidence in the equipment is certainly growing. This is obviously of the greatest importance as we head toward the Endurance Cup part of the season.
Race 22 and soft tyres. We are certainly aiming to exploit the extra grip of these tyres and move our way up from 6th and 21st respectively. We are continuing our conservative starting procedure at this meeting to eliminate the chance of a mechanical issue. Traditionally when the cars line up on the grid and the green flag is waived at the rear to indicate to the starter that all is in order to start the race, the driver’s give the car enough throttle so as they are on the rev limiter (7500rpm) and engage a line locker (similar to a hand brake, but a button rather than a lever) from here they release the clutch to the pick up point and wait for the red lights to go out and then release the line locker and off they go.
We have been starting with a few less revs as we believe that our mechanical failures have been linked to the harmonics created as the car sits on the rev limiter for the extended starting time (sometimes up to 10secs.). In starting this way it requires more skill from the driver as if not timed correctly the car can “bog” down off the line and it’s easy to lose several places. I am sure most of you have driven manual cars and experienced that “sinking/bogging down” feeling when you take off from a set of traffic lights when the revs and clutch release don’t quite correlate.
Scotty got an “ok” start but had to be very forceful as the cars headed into turn 1 as Holdsworth and others from behind jumped a little better. Scott did an exceptional job to position himself so as to hold off this challenge and as the race unfolded drove with controlled aggression to pass the exceptionally quick Van Gisbergen and Reynolds. Scott finished 4th, but it was probably his best drive of the year and he certainly returned to the garage full of enthusiasm and eager for Sunday. David gained one position to finish 20th.
Sunday and the weather outlook looked a little ominous. There had been overnight showers and the morning was overcast and drizzly. Days like this are testing for all of the teams. It’s very hard to plan for a race that maybe wet as the car set up is quite different to dry race. Qualifying time approached and the earlier morning races for the other categories had been run on wet tyres (grooved), but the track had dried sufficiently for the teams to qualify on slick tyres. The session was 20 minutes and as much as the track had dried if you got off line there were still wet patches.
The condition of the track was also slightly different to the previous day as the rain “cleans” the track and the grip level changes. Crusty (Richard Hollway), Scott’s engineer did a very smart thing once the green tyres (new) tyres had been fitted to Scott’s car. He advised Scott to do an 80% effort lap and to get a good feel for the grip level on his new tyr es. Doing this sacrificed one of Scott’s opportunities to set a quick lap and he would then only have one go at it as the time clock ticked down. Richard saw the advantage being that on his quick lap Scott would have a much better feel for the grip level and would hopefully work in his favour as he aimed to qualify as high as possible. What a plan!!
With 30 seconds remaining in qualifying Scott sat second last, but put together a faultless lap to claim pole by 1/100th of a second. It really goes to show the importance of a cool head in the heat of qualifying, but equally the importance of a driver who has the faith in his engineer’s plan and the ability to initiate it. David also followed a similar plan and did a very good job to qualify 15th only 3/10ths off Scotty. I was really proud of all of my team and looked forward to what could be achieved in the race ahead.
Race 23 and as many eyes were on the weather radar as on the race track. There appeared to be no doubt that rain was coming, but all estimations of when seemed to pass and the cars all lined up on the grid on slick tyres. Scotty sat next to David Reynolds on the front row and would have a real test into turn 1 as David is one of the best starters in Supercars and Scott would be conservative in how he started. But, he did an exceptional job and as much as Reynolds squeezed up next to him and even marginally in front Scott never gave up and held the lead. We often take for granted the ability of these guys but when you are door handle to door handle at over 200kmh’s per hour and are really squeezed for space and have little grip on cold tyres it really takes “balls” to hang on. There are not too many better than Scotty.
Unfortunately David got caught up in the hustle and bustle that occurs in the mid pack and had a coming together with Todd Kelly that put an end to any reasonable result for either of them. The focus was at the front where Scott led but as the Safety Car was deployed because of the Wall/Kelly incident. As per all of the 200km races the teams are required to put a minimum of 120 litres of fuel in the cars during the race. At 4 litres per second this means at least 30 seconds of stationery time over 2 pit stops. It was decided to put 20 seconds of fuel in Scott’s car at this stop, leaving only 10 seconds at the second stop.
As Scott led the pack of cars into pit lane for this stop his mind went back to Sandown last year when Car #33 was boxed in by the other cars that had entered pit lane and double stacked (which means lining up behind your teammate and waiting for the pit bay to be free). Thinking of this Scott decided not to pull in quite as tight/close and stayed more central in pit lane to allow for an easier exit. Unfortunately in doing this he was too far away from the fuel gantry and approximately 10 seconds was lost as the crew rushed to assist in the refuelling.
Scott rejoined in 5th with Mostert leading. During the stop it was decided to leave Scott on the soft tyre as it still appeared that rain was coming. Crusty was advising Scott to be conservative and to drive within himself as it would certainly ruin any chance we had if Scott overheated his soft tyre and had to go to the hard tyre and then to the wet tyre if rain came late. This is an awkward part of the race as the d river knows that he can go quicker and potentially Scott could have caught and passed the cars in front of him on the hard tyre, but there was no certainty as to how far away the rain was.
At exactly half race distance (25 laps) the rain came. Just in time as the Engineer’s are having discussions of pitting him to change to hard tyres in the nest lap or two. The teams all rushed in to put the wet tyre on as the rain poured down. Scott rejoined 4th and was passed by Coulthard (BJR), but then he had a good battle with Reynolds and passed him to be again 4th. A fast charging Van Gisbergen passed Scott with several laps to go to leave him in 5th. The race was won by Mostert followed by Coulthard and Bright.
Our race was really undone when track position was lost at the very first pit stop with the refuelling mishap. But, we are a little mystified by an incident in the closing laps between Van Gisbergen and Bright. With three laps to go Van Gisbergen was hot on the heels of Jason Bright and as they approached turn 4 made contact to the rear of him sending him into the sand trap. Bright drove across the infield and rejoined the track at turn 8, taking quite a short cut when he could have easily rejoined where he went off.
I sympathise with Jason as the off track adventure was not his fault, but the drivers were clearly told in the Drivers Briefing that they would be penalised if they did take that short cut, and I am also just as mystified as to why Van Gisbergen did not receive a drive through penalty for the infringement. Believe me I am all for a bit of “biff and barge” and I want driver’s to want to have a go, but consistency in the ruling is vital.
I can’t wait for Sandown!!!
Garry
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