NOW MORE than ever, ‘the moment’ is critical in the way motor sport is portrayed.
What do I mean by ‘the moment’, then?
As good as an entire endurance race or indeed an entire weekend can be, it’s the 30-second piece of vision, commentary or string of images that get posted on to social media that get more people engaging with the sport than perhaps anything else. The Moment.
It could be a key overtake or an outrageous burnout to celebrate victory. Could be a controversial interview or an emotion-overload chat after someone achieves a career goal and has to talk about it on live TV.
They’re the moments that really sell the sport so well.
Here’s some of my favourite from a year traversing Australia in 2019.
- MATT CAMPBELL PASSES THE MERCEDES
MUCH has already been written regarding the subject of Porsche’s remarkable first victory at Mount Panorama in early February’s Bathurst 12 Hour this year, but most of it centred around Matt Campbell’s (main picture) stunning drive to the front of the race in the closing stages.
In a race where track position (i.e. being in front) was key for 11 hours and 30 minutes, Campbell had to pass cars to win for Porsche – and pass them he did. While the move on Jake Dennis in the Aston Martin was sensational, I think it was his move on Raffaele Marcello’s Mercedes in turn one just a few laps earlier that was the best of the race – possibly of the year.
With great drive out of Murray’s, Campbell clearly had a run on the struggling AMG which by that point was out of rubber and hanging on. Marciello covered his line by placing his car in the middle of the road, so Campbell naturally went to the right, as if to get a better run off the corner. But, at the last minute, he went full-send and fired his car down the inside. The Mercedes had no idea and the Porsche was now second. The rest was almost inevitable.
Porsche needed the 12-Hour victory. They had been cruelly denied a year before when, after having four cars positioned as the first to make it to the end on fuel, the race was red-flagged half an hour short of its full duration. It was also the only endurance ‘major’ the brand had yet to triumph. It was ironic and fantastic, then, that they won it properly in such a fashion. It was one for the record books and one that surely helped Campbell gain his full-factory driver status, eleven months later.
- SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN CELEBRATES BATHURST
FOR ALL the drama that would follow, the raw emotion shown by Scott McLaughlin as he rolled into victory lane at Mount Panorama will long be remembered. Through everything the race had thrown at car 17, here was the champion-elect having to hold off Shane van Gisbergen in a one lap dash for the victory in the biggest race of the year.
And it wasn’t just any victory – it was the only victory missing from his already superb copybook. What’s more, ‘The Captain’ Roger Penske was watching on, also looking to add a Bathurst triumph to his slew of major race wins in other international majors – Indianapolis, Daytona, LeMans and more.
In what was probably the hardest 6.213km of his life and under searing pressure from one of the fastest and most aggressive blokes in the game, Scotty held on and won the race and all of the team order dramas, the engine issues and the politics will never be able to take that moment away from him.
Ticking off the final box on his Supercars ‘to do’ list at the ripe old age of 24, McLaughlin at that moment was a Bathurst winner and the celebrations that followed showed just that.
- THE FIRST S5000 RACE START
FOR OPEN-WHEEL purists in this part of the world, this was a moment in time that many thought would never come.
After several false-starts, the usual politics and the ‘Will they or won’t they’ time in the middle, that S5000 existed at all was bordering on a miracle. That it got to race one and put on the show that it did was even better.
When the field of 13 blasted off in front of a surprisingly big Sandown crowd towards the first corner all seemed right in the world. Big, thundering, fast and impressive wings and slicks cars on an Aussie circuit once again. Few could have expected that first race to go so well; the cars were reliable, they were spectacular and they could race a bit.
This was the moment that had been built to for over three years and in an instant gratified those who had believed and – if only briefly, such is the way of a keyboard warrior – shut those up who didn’t.
S5000 has a long way to go before it is secure in its place within the sport in this part of the world, but that first race start was a sign of how far it had come in the first place – and the potential that exists in a truly excellent racing product.
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