Auto Action #1890

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SUPERCARS GETTING CLOSER TO IMPORTANT TRC CHANGES

SUPERCARS IS inching closer to getting the changes it believes it needs to grow the sport in both the short and long term. While no-one from Supercars wants to talk about it, Supercars chairman Barclay Nettlefold was active in Townsville, wandering from team to team for one-on-one meetings with the team owners to discuss the need for changes to the Teams Racing Charter.

The original TRC, which replaced the Racing Entitlements Contract on the sale of the business to Racing Australia Consolidated Enterprises (RACE) in 2021, was drafted by Triple Eight Racing Engineering’s Roland Dane, and was weight heavily towards the teams. That has hampered some of the steps Supercars wants moving forward, particularly the need for more rounds and varied race formats.

Every team owner we spoke to was positive about the need for change, but couldn’t say whether they would support the changes until a document is tabled. Most of them were circumspect around the changes to numbers of rounds and what payments the teams were entitled to, but also acknowledged that for Supercars there was no extra TV revenue from

Fox for more weekends of racing.

Exactly what other changes were being discussed is not clear, with the team owners surprisingly unwilling to talk openly – but we do know the payments for extra rounds and the amount of racing kilometres each season were the key discussion points.

Supercars is this year right on the limit for the number of racing kilometres per year, and that limit was one of the key factors that led to the two-race weekend SuperSprint meetings that so far have fizzled.

The total kilometre number is based on an

average per round, multiplied by the number of rounds. The addition of extra rounds will see the limit increase proportionately, but it remains a limiting factor on the race formats for a weekend.

Without a change, the SuperSprint format could remain as is, which concerns Supercars based on the feedback from the two rounds with that format so far this year – in Perth and Darwin.

Additionally, it is known that Supercars wants more rounds next year, with the series starting at Sydney Motorsport Park on the first weekend of March and running through to Adelaide in late-November. The Bend will return to the schedule with an endurance race, effectively replacing the Bathurst sprint round, but Supercars wants to race at Queensland Raceway and Winton as well, bringing the series to 14 rounds before further expansion in 2026.

The teams agree that 14 rounds would be good, and that 16 may even be the ideal number of rounds, but they are concerned about how they pay for it – which means they are unlikely to concede too much ground on the $60,000 per car they are entitled to for any

round in excess of the 12 mandated events.

Faced with a bill of $2.88 million for the two rounds and no extra TV revenue, Supercars is exploring ways of at least halving that by not paying teams for home rounds, but may also look at some novel solutions.

No team owner we spoke with thought extra rounds was a negative – they just want to know how it will be funded.

One team owner, who didn’t want to be named, was a bit more forthcoming about the need for changes to the TRC, and suggested the best way forwards was a dictatorship and that maybe the teams need to just play ball.

“Look at Liberty in F1 and the Frances in NASCAR ... it works,” he said.

Other changes to the series for next year, such as a change to the tyres or race formats – within the kilometre limit – is not directly tied to the TRC and Supercars will likely approve a new tyre compound for next season.

Supercars needs a ‘special majority’ of 75 percent of the team owners to enact any changes and have a revised TRC in place. It is believed the changes will be tabled for a vote in Sydney.

Andrew Clarke

THE BIG SHAKE UP IS COMING…

THE SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP COULD BE SET FOR A SERIES OF RADICAL CHANGES IN 2025 ...

By Paul Gover

A MAJOR review of the series is under way, covering everything from the calendar and race formats to tyres and point-scoring.

Nothing is decided yet, but a series of proposals and suggestions will soon be presented to the board of RACE to set the direction for 2025 and beyond.

The new work is being driven by Tim Edwards, the former team principal at Tickford Racing who is now the General Manager of Motorsport at Supercars.

Edwards is not prepared to give any firm detail but admits he is considering anything that will spice the Supercars show.

“Yes, we’re a sport, but we need to be entertaining,” Edwards told Auto Action “We’re in show business. We’re here to entertain people. And we’ve got to put on the best possible show.”

Edwards was talking to AA following a major tyre test at Queensland Raceway which points to simplification of the Dunlop contribution to the championship. He is close to eight months into his

new job, and halfway through this year’s championship, and believes he has the research and experience to recommend improvements for 2025.

He admitted he is closing on final proposals for change but would not go into any detail.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a clean-sheet approach. But we’re looking at all the formats, the tyres, how it all works together,” he said.

And the result?

“I’ve got a couple of different versions.

And one, you would say, is a radical departure from the moment.

“It depends where we arrive at. But it’s too early to give you an honest answer about that.”

Edwards gave a blunt reply to what is needed to boost the following of Supercars, both at the track and through broadcast channels.

“Run a better show,” he said. “I think we could put on a better show than what we are doing at the moment. And I think that’s the view of all the senior staff at Supercars.

Even so, he admits change will not be easy.

“You’ve got to take the teams on the journey. Whatever tyres or race formats or whatever we roll out, they have to be on board.”

His measurement of success is one of the easiest parts of the puzzle, according to Edwards.

“Putting on a better show works for everybody. If crowds are increasing, and more people are watching on television, then everyone makes more money.

“The winning part, that’s down to the teams.”

Edwards hints about changes to race formats, and race weekends, and there are also rumours about everything from NASCAR-style ’stages’ at the Bathurst 1000 to cuts to staff numbers on race weekends.

“I’ve looked at all of it. Everything. You always take your inspiration from what you see in other categories around the world.

“We have to entertain people. And we need to focus on growth.

“We need to bring new people to Supercars, not just the people who turn on and watch us all the time.”

THE CHANGES THAT AUTO ACTION HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT MAKING ...

FOR THE past year or so, Auto Action, through its pages and podcast, has been talking some radical ideas about how to improve the show. Here are our headline stories ...

STAGES AT BATHURST – Allocate championship points at 40, 80 and 120 laps using the same allocation as a three-race weekend, making a clean sweep of Bathurst worth double the points of a normal round. Could throw in extra conditions, like the co-driver must take the flag at one or two of the stages. We’re also not sure if we go to a full course caution or keep racing between stages.

SUPERCARS PLAYOFFS –

Australians are used to Grand Finals – we have the only major soccer competition in the world with one – so why not introduce one to Supercars. The top eight winners are granted a spot in the ‘Adelaide 500 Playoffs’, and if there are less than eight winners in the season the highest points scorers are included to make it eight. The best four of the playoff qualifiers in the Saturday race go through the ‘Grand Final’ on Sunday, and the highest placed finisher of those is the Champion.

RACE WEEKEND FORMATS – Two or three sprint races on the Saturday (one race chosen at random with a reverse grid if we really want to spice it up) with the same number of 10-minute qualifying sessions – and then a longer race on Sunday that requires two fuel stops, but not two full fills. Melbourne 400, Sandown/ The Bend 500, Bathurst 1000 and Adelaide 500 to remain unchanged.

DOUBLE FILE RESTARTS – if we want spice, get them all lined up sideby-side, like NASCAR, and revert to the tighter space for the restart. These are the best drivers in the country –let’s see what they can do.

THE LONG LAP – introduce a long lap penalty for minor issues. It would mean we wouldn’t be faced with post-race penalties changing the results – and the entertainment value is first class.

LET ‘EM RACE – let the drivers sort out their issues on the track rather than have the Stewards jumping in all the time. ‘Rubbin is racing’, or at least it should be. And while we are at it, do we need blue flags?

CHEAPER BUMPERS – there is no need for the bumpers on the Gen-3 cars to cost $15k – cut the cost of making them and let them go racing.

THREE-STOP SIMULATION A WINNER FOR GROVE

WINNERS ARE grinners, and few in the Townsville paddock could match the beaming smile of Penrite Racing’s Brenton Grove after spearheading a win for Matt Payne.

The decision to run a three-stop strategy was decided by the team engineers, with the simulation programs the team has been developing revealing the advantage.

“It was good old-fashioned race engineering,” he said. “We did some calculations last night and we worked out that strategy would be faster. And it was pretty well bang on with what we estimated. So, for sure, the whole team executed really well, and Matt drove well.

“We thought it’d be about 15 to 20 seconds faster on a three stop. I think we ended up eight or nine, but Matt was cruising for the last 10 or 15 laps, so I think we could have been close to 20 seconds.

“But it’s nice that our tools and our calculations and all the methods we’ve been developing over the past two or three years are starting to pay off now. Because it takes time to get that to correlate, and we’ve done that.”

After starting the year well, Penrite Racing has been through a mini form slump, making the team’s third series win in Townsville even sweeter.

“I think from the outside looking in, we probably haven’t performed at the level that people would expect, but there were certain measurements and KPIs internally that

we were seeing and we knew that a result would be there.

“I think the biggest thing was that the whole engineering group looked inwards and looked at where we’ve been wrong or where some assumptions we’ve made have been wrong. And we started to correct and we came here with a completely different philosophy as to how we’d set the car up and how we’d operate over the weekend.

“That hard work has resulted in this result. It’s good that everyone can see that we’re on the mend and we’re there, but unfortunately, we haven’t just executed the last couple of rounds.

“I think we were at a point where we knew we needed to do something different, and there was a buy-in into shifting the philosophy. Whether that pans out at the

next race, who knows – we’ve got to keep this journey of understanding.

“But I think the biggest philosophy we had was how do we want to be fast? And then from that, we started to put the pieces together rather than trying to evolve every weekend. So, let’s see. There’s a long way to go and it’s a very fierce championship.”

With Payne winning races and pulling clear of teammate Richie Stanaway in the Championship, focus will shift to the older Kiwi in his first year with the team. Grove says that is natural, but the team judges it differently to those on the outside.

“I think there’s a couple of things Richie is able to take from what Matt is doing, like Matt learned quite well last year from how Dave drove the car. And then we tried to

evolve Matt’s driving style to something slightly different.

“Richie has got access to that and we’re showing him that. So hopefully he can execute on that and I’m confident he can perform close to what Matt’s doing. But now is the time when he’s got to be able to take that step forward and start to put some pressure on Matt.

“Obviously, it’s hard for him. I mean, your teammate just won, so it is hard to take but he’s got more access to what Matt just did and the setup we’ve got and the philosophy we’ve got than anyone else in the field. The answers are there and we’re working with Richie on that.

“Right now, it probably hurts, but at the end of the day, he’s happy for the team. The team has won. He knows the car can do it. He knows the people he has got can do it. It’s now just trying to understand what that secret sauce was for Matt and then going and doing it himself.”

In closing, he added that he didn’t think it was the Auto Action feature on the team that resulted in the form drop, but for a while they didn’t discount anything!

“There were a lot of different superstitions as to why we haven’t performed, but at the end of the day, we are realists, we understand where we have missed the mark, and we have an open chat every weekend. Hopefully, this chat leads us to more success and we can have other chats down the path.” Andrew Clarke

EREBUS INCHING BACK

AFTER A tough start to the year, Erebus is fighting its way back the front and up the ‘live’ pitlane that has caused it so much grief this year. In Townsville, it scored a pole position and moved up one spot after a pair of good finishes for Jack Le Brocq.

It could have been better too, with Brodie Kostecki edging closer to a return to his championship winning form, but hampered by early race contact.

Brad Tremain is the Team Principal, and he

said the weekends are starting to feel better after starting the year with two new drivers:

“Yeah, a pretty good day,” he said. “Jack had a really solid weekend with sixth and fourth. It’s probably his best weekend of the year so far. And a pole, of course. I like race wins, but it’s always good to get a pole.

“Brodie had really good car speed yesterday and, even after the crash, the car was still real fast. They were confident it was going be the same today – we’re not too sure

why it wasn’t at the moment.

“He said he was struggling all race, just pushing and oversteering so the car burnt the tyres up. It’s something for us to look into.”

Le Brocq looked a contender all weekend, but ultimately he didn’t have the pace of the flying Fords out front.

“It is frustrating to get so close to the podium. We only race to win, we don’t race for second, third, fourth, or anything else.

But it’s good to prove that we were there all weekend. It wasn’t just a one-off. We had good pace on both days.

“It’s always nice to get trophies, but I’m still happy with today.”

It is hard to talk Erebus without reference to the start of the year, but the team is putting that nightmare behind it and looking to the future. Tremain thinks the team has only recovered to where it should have been at the start of the year.

“I think we’ll find our second half of the year will be strong and hopefully we are third or fourth in teams by the end of the year. It was a rocky start, but I think we’re well on our way back to it.

“Every morning we’re talking about how many points we need to jump to the next team and cars. We got PremiAir yesterday, so that is one more.”

He also said it was good to have a refreshed Barry Ryan back in the camp after his first mid-season holiday in 20 years.

“It’s good to have Baz back. He puts a lot more into the team than he thinks he does. It’s always good to have someone above you, you can bounce ideas off and all sort of stuff.”

He was hopeful that the team’s form in Darwin (without Ryan) and at Townsville (with Ryan) would shut people up. But he also doubted some would ease up and accept they were wrong ... Andrew Clarke

DJR LICKING ITS WOUNDS

DICK JOHNSON Racing had a tough weekend in Townsville with an inability to convert its qualifying pace into anything meaningful. Both cars made both Shootouts and Will Davison topped qualifying, but he and Anton De Pasquale only returned one top-10 finish in the two races.

To be fair, De Pasquale was effectively taken out of the first race on the opening lap, but he lost five spots in the second race and Davison lost four and seven in the two races.

“It was a mixed bag,” DJR CEO David Noble said at the end of Sunday. “Overall, it was disappointing. The pleasing bit is we were able to get the cars into a good spot from a qualifying perspective, but our one-lap pace isn’t converting into race pace which, at the end of the day, is not good enough to win races and not good enough to win championships.”

He said it wasn’t a matter of tyre wear; there was just no correlation of the speed between qualifying and the race.

“It’s hard to get a read on Anton’s car because he was out early yesterday, and the guys did a terrific job in putting it back together and to get into the Top 10 Shootout. But it seems like, in general, we’re not able to be as competitive out there as we want to be.

“The reality is that it’s not good enough and we’ve got to

go back and look at ourselves and make it better.

“We’ve got to give the drivers a better and more consistent package. We’re able to do it for qualifying but that’s not what wins the races. The big piece for us is now getting the race setup right.”

He said qualifying is critical in Supercars, but, especially in the longer races, the race set-up is more important. The challenge is to qualify on the first two or three rows and then race hard.

“To win and be competitive at the top end of the race is hard. You’ve got to be consistently at the pointy all the time and we’re not doing that at the moment.

“It’s complex, and there’s so many things that come into it, and we didn’t get it right, so that’s why it’s an inward-looking weekend for us.

“So anyway, we’ll go back, lick our wounds and reassess, and have another go.” Andrew Clarke

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THE BULLS LACKING IN TOWNSVILLE

RED BULL Ampol Racing boss, Jamie Whincup, said his team was lacking qualifying pace in Townsville, which left both its drivers to fight in unfamiliar territory.

While Broc Feeney made both shootouts, Will Brown missed on both days to make his weekend hard. He battled strongly to a podium on Saturday, but was a first lap victim on Sunday when he broke the nose of his Camaro in an incident with Dave Reynolds. Whincup said that is what happens when you are ‘down there’.

“It’s disappointing. We didn’t ultimately have the qualifying pace and, when you’re back in the pack, you’re vulnerable, and that’s what happened today,” Whincup said. “Our race pace was good, but we just couldn’t qualify well. We’ve just got some work to do with our qualifying pace.

“That was just a disappointing weekend all in all.” He rejected ideas around tyres as the issues, saying his team has performed on all the different compounds and didn’t think batches were an issue.

“We’ve performed a lot better than this on soft tyres, so I don’t think tyres were the issue. I don’t know the answers, if we did, we would’ve fixed the problems this morning. That’s what the breaks are for – work out where we were wrong in qualifying and try to rectify it. We have some work to do before we come back here next year.

“We’re well-resourced and we’ve got the best people and the best equipment, so there’s no reason to be performing that poorly, really.

“We don’t rock up to make up the numbers and have fun. We rock up to get a result so when you don’t get a result it’s painful.”

Brown qualified in 13th and 17th for the two races and finished third and 24th after losing time with crash damage. Feeney qualified in eighth and sixth and finished both races in seventh, after winning both races in Darwin.

In Championship terms, Chaz Mostert, who finished on the podium twice, closed the gap to Brown in the Championship lead by 105 points, and Feeney narrowed the gap to the lead by 30 points and remains second.

COURTNEY PLEASED WITH PROGRESS

by Andrew Clarke.

JAMES COURNEY knew his new home for 2024 at Blanchard Racing Team was going to have its own set of challenges. It was, in his eyes, akin to a start-up operation with the expansion to two cars, and patience was always going to be required.

Making a Top 10 Shootout and starting the Sunday race in third is a sure sign that the small Melbourne-based team is making progress.

“And with Jack [Perkins who won for the team] doing so well in the Super 2, it was nice to be able to reward the guys after all their hard work.

“In the race she couldn’t hold onto its tyres, so we need to work on that a bit more, but it’s definitely promising.

it didn’t change his view that they are making progress.

“I think we’re heading in the right direction. We’re not at the front, but we’re going forward, which is good.”

He has no regrets about the move to the team – he knew what he was doing and what to expect.

Despite being the dominant team, having missed the podium only eight times for the season, Whincup said he was “too scared to look to be honest” at the championship. “I don’t know where we’re going to play out, but don’t want to look!” Andrew Clarke

“This morning was quite good. We didn’t obviously hit the set up in the race, like it was the reverse,” he said. “But everyone can see it’s been pretty tough times here over the last few rounds, and to give those guys a little bit of hope with the qualifying this morning, it was good.

The Auto Action

RevLimiter podcast

The team that’s not trying to make friends or look after sponsors!

It’s hard and it’s fast and sometimes it’s a bit rough, but we call it how we see it and pull no punches.

Plenty of analysis and lots of opinion from some of the most experienced motorsport media people in the business - Bruce Williams, Paul Gover and Andrew Clarke.

“We’re running off an oily rag, I guess, in the engineering department. These guys are trying to do a lot with not a lot of resources. It makes it a lot harder for them than others, and with the way the cars are, and fine adjustments make such big changes on the car as well, it’s tough – but it is what it is. We’ll press on.”

He felt the Shootout showed they had enough speed for a three-stop strategy and could have made that call but stuck with the more conservative approach which cost them spots in the race. But

“I always knew it was going to be quite tough coming into a team that’s theoretically a start-up team. But I’m having a good time with Tim [Blanchard] and JB [John Blanchard] and the guys here, and we’re building something.

“We’re nowhere near where we need to be – we all know that. And no one here is satisfied with the results we’re getting. So we’re digging deep, trying to better ourselves and, trying to creep our way up the pit lane.”

NEW EPISODES OUT EVERY WEDNESDAY

ONE TYRE FOR SUPERCARS

DUNLOP TESTING OPENS THE DOOR FOR A NEW TYRE APPROACH

By Paul Gover

A RADICAL switch to a single Dunlop control tyre could be implemented in Supercars for 2025.

Early testing at Queensland Raceway has put a new Dunlop ‘Development’ tyre up against the existing Soft, Super Soft and Hard tyres in both speed and durability runs.

More testing will follow, although there are no plans for any running during this year’s championship events.

“It’s a very different compound to what we use at the moment. It’s very tolerant to heat and abuse,” the General Manager of Motorsport at Supercars, Tim Edwards, told Auto Action.

The target for the tyre is to provide spicier racing and perhaps – in the most radical move since Supercars switched to a single brand for the series – a relaxation of tyre requirements for teams.

“We are working hard on mixing it up for next year,” Edwards said.

“How we use tyres next year is part of a bigger picture. We’re working that at the moment. Nothing is off the table.”

So, could that mean a single Dunlop control tyre for the whole season?

“Absolutely,” Edwards replied.

The tyre test at QR was run using single cars from Dick Johnson Racing and Matt Stone Racing, with Will Davison driving the Ford Mustang and Nick Percat wheeling the Chevrolet Camaro.

“They are Queensland based and they had capacity to do it. Obviously we wanted one from either marque. We allowed the teams to run themselves, but we co-ordinated the runs at the same time.

A second MSR car was in action through the same day, but Edwards said it was not involved in the Dunlop test and was instead doing rookie driver work.

“They were running their second car separately. Nothing to do with us.”

Dunlop brought 60 sets of the Development tyre to the test under the direction of its motorsport manager Kevin Fitzsimons, but less than half were used.

“It was about 40 to 50 tyres, something around that, across the two cars,” said Edwards.

“We compared the Development tyre to the three incumbents. We learned a lot.

“We did qualifying runs on the Hard, Soft, Super Soft and Development. Just to understand the outright pace. And we did 25-lap runs on the Development tyre and the Super Soft tyre, to compare it.”

So, what were the times? And how was degradation?

“Not saying,” said Edwards.

“Ultimately, the outright speed is not the objective. We’re looking for something that will be a better tyre to race on.”

But he did give one hint about lap times.

“It’s similar to the Super Soft on outright pace,” Edwards said.

It was a big day for Dunlop, Supercars and the teams.

“Both of them did over 500 kilometres each. It wasn’t about tuning the car. It was jumping into the car and going for a 25-lap run. Then a break, then another 25 laps.”

The outcome was much as expected and Edwards was up-beat.

“Very positive. That’s one data sample for use at QR, which is low-deg circuit.

“We wanted to get through that first, and now we’re planning when we can do some more testing with it. We’re weighing up the options.

“Kev (Fitzsimons) brought in 60 of the new Development tyres and we’ve only consumed around 20 of them so far. So we have another 40 tyres we can test with.

“It’s hard to run through the course of a race weekend. But it could be pre or post an event.

“We don’t need any single lap runs. We just need to get to a track, run the tank dry, and see what happens.”

Once the testing is complete, Edwards already has an objective for the new Dunlop rubber.

“It’s not about saving money. This is how about how we put on the best possible show.”

Dunlop’s Kevin Fitzsimons said the tyre is only a different compound and there were no structural changes to the casing or any other part of the tyre.

Supercars will need to decide its tyre strategy by August to get tyres into production for next year.

SUPERCARS TO ‘RACK-OFF’

EXCLUSIVE - by BRUCE WILLIAMS

AFTER CONSIDERABLE work by Tickford Racing, Supercars teams will start transitioning from its current steering rack to one developed by the Ford team, from the start of 2025.

The Gen-3 Supercar has, from its inception, run with a Sportech steering rack, supplied by CoolDrive.

There have been ongoing issues with the Gen3 steering rack from the start of the program, highlighted by the nowdeparted Shane van Gisbergen, with the durability, as well as the ‘feel’ of the unit.

At the time, in mid-2023, the rack was described by then Tickford team principal Tim Edwards – appointed later in the year as Supercars General Manager,

Motorsport – as “not fit for purpose.”

Since then, Tickford has worked on a completely new steering rack, featuring different piston sizes and thus steering ratios/feel as well as overall durability.

After successful testing – and with more to come – the Tickford part was discussed and approved in principle by the Supercars Commission, made up of representatives from all the teams, at its most recent meeting.

The Tickford rack – still with further testing involving further different piston sizes, potentiometer (electronic resistance) changes and even installation requirements –has been approved for use for 2025, with the existing rack still

As the rain started to come down, Oscar Piastri had closed in on team-mate Lando Norris, leading the race, and looking to pass – here with some ‘opposite lock’ on through the esses approaching the start/finish straight. In the end, the team’s tyrechange strategy ruined Piastri’s race ... Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

NOT BAD FOR A NUMBER TWO …

A FAMOUS QUIP FROM HIS MANAGER SUMS UP THE WIN THAT GOT AWAY FOR OSCAR PIASTRI AT SILVERSTONE ...

FOR THE second Grand Prix in two weeks, it was a case of what could – and should – have been for Oscar Piastri at the British Grand Prix.

While the issue in Austria was a tight ‘track-limits’ call in Q3 that moved him down the grid, this week it was fairly and squarely – both in qualifying and the race – team strategy decisions which cost the McLaren youngster what could easily have been a sensational win.

It started in the crucial final run in the Q3 qualifying session with an amateur-hour late release which not only saw Piastri have to abandon the usual careful tyre build-up in order to start the lap before the chequered flag waved, but also saw the #81 McLaren complete the lap very much in the wake of Carlos Sainz’ equally late Ferrari. It meant a grid five race start, which so easily could have been two, or three spots better. In the race, Piastri found himself behind team-mate Norris (who had let his buddy Verstappen get by in the opening lap

scramble) and, when light drizzle began to fall – which clearly suited the McLaren’s set-up, on slicks – followed Norris past Verstappen, Hamilton and Russell into a promising McLaren 1-2.

Piastri was now the fastest car on the track, closing in on Norris as the rain intensified – almost on his tail, even looking for a pass, as decision time for the switch to Intermediates came.

When it did, it was disastrous – for Piastri.

Rather than ‘double-stack,’ as Mercedes did, which might have cost the Aussie a couple of seconds, McLaren chose to send him round for one more lap. It effectively took Piastri out of contention. By the time he’d slithered round and stopped for Inters, Norris was over 20 seconds up the road, and Piastri was sixth – behind the rest of the contenders, all of whom had stopped that crucial lap earlier …

It got worse for McLaren as, with the circuit drying out later in the race, the question of which slick tyre to go

for, became crucial. While Norris and his engineer conducted a round-table discussion before going for the wrong, used Soft, tyre, Piastri was decisive –“Mediums.” (both cars had a new set of Mediums available).

As the race wore out and Lewis Hamilton, doing a great job having also gambled on used Soft tyres, came home to an emotional – and well-earned – win, Piastri scribbled a telling ‘PS’ to his team, closing down that 20-second gap to Norris to just five seconds at the chequered flag. Do the maths – it was a potential win thrown away by the earlier first stop error. Even Piastri’s usual calm postrace demeanour couldn’t totally hide his disappointment, though he did allude to the fact that “we” made a couple of tactical mistakes, rather than throwing the team under the bus completely. Inside, he must have been burning.

What next for McLaren? With two highlylikely wins thrown away and its more

‘senior’ driver quite publicly struggling with self-doubt, maybe it’s time for the team to stop treating Piastri as some sort of Lando back-up?

Interestingly, Piastri’s manager, Mark Webber, has real-life experience in this area, after his own trials with Red Bull a decade or so ago when – having had the team’s one remaining ‘new-spec’ front wing taken off his car to replace the one damaged by team-mate Vettel – he beat Vettel to win the 2010 British Grand Prix, uttering the famous “not bad for a number two” quip as he completed his victory lap. You’d guess that, behind the scenes, Webber could well be reminding McLaren management of that …

An upside? At least Oscar’s day wasn’t as horrendous as that of his ‘adopted’ uncle, Charles Leclerc – lapped after a series of Ferrari tyre calls that made the papaya boys look good!

Next time, Oscar … Chris Lambden

SVG WINS CHICAGO XFINITY… CRASHES IN CUP SERIES

SHANE VAN Gisbergen started his Chicago return visit with a dominant win in the Xfinity Series race after a great battle with Kyle Larson, but ended his Grant Park 165 defence early after getting punted into the wall moments before a rain-induced red flag.

The DNF in the main race was gutting for van Gisbergen who was lining up to replicate the famous win in Chicago last year that changed his racing trajectory. But he ran the race as the driver to beat and won the first stage before dropping into the middle of the pack in the pitstop window.

The Windy City again turned into the wet city, and the start of the race was delayed,

large portions of the race were run under yellow, and cars were jumping on and off wet weather tyres. SVG looked a class above the field again, until he got tagged by Chase Briscoe who lost his Chevrolet heading into Turn 6, clipping van Gisbergen’s car, enough to send him into the wall.

The damage to his car put him out of the race on the spot.

At least he leaves Chicago with a win though, after taking out The Loop 110 the previous day. That win gave him three Xfinity Series road course wins in a row and rocketed him to the top of the play-off standings and to 11th in the overall pointscore.

“The first stage race, with Kyle there, my car was really weak,” van Gisbergen said. “I couldn’t get going at the start or the restarts, and then take two or three laps, and he’d always pass me.

“Then, when my car would come on, I’d be attacking him ... but yeah, just awesome. Awesome, fun racing with him. His car was a little better over the bumps and under braking, and he was driving very well as well. But yeah, gave him a thumbs up, he was waving back, and we,had a blast.”

His next race is at Pocono this weekend, which will be another completely different experience for the series rookie.

Andrew Clarke

STOP / GO

PERCAT IN IT FOR THE LONG TERM

After a successful start, the Nick Percat and Matt Stone Racing partnership has hit the next level with a new long-term deal.

Percat signed an extension to be locked in at MSR as its team leader until the end of 2027.

“I’m extremely excited to have extended my contract with Matt and the MSR family,” Percat – who will be 39 when it expires – said.

“From the moment I met the guys and girls at MSR, I knew it was the team I wanted to be at.

“Throughout the season so far everyone has continued to lift and I can see the momentum building.”

VIC LIGHT CAR CLUB CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

A LUNCHEON to celebrate the centenary of the Victorian Light Car Club will be held on July 19 in Fitzroy, Melbourne.

After its first official meeting on November 5, 1924, it went on to be chief organiser of the Alpine Rally, and held the first Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island in 1928. It established the Rob Roy and Lakeland hill climbs, and also initiated enduro touring car racing by organising the Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island - later becoming the Bathurst 1000 classic. It also organised the first World Sports Car event in Oz, held at Sandown in ’84. Tickets are available from David Hardy at $75 per head. Call 0418319602, or email [email protected].

WAU JOIN GIRLS ON TRACK PATHWAYS VENTURE

Walkinshaw Andretti United have joined Triple Eight and PremiAir as the Supercars teams to open their workshop doors to the Girls on Track Pathway program, at their Clayton, Melbourne, base on August 29. Are you the next Romy Mayer, Alice Buckley, or Molly Taylor? Applications are now open, with the program geared towards girls in the 15-22 year age bracket that have an interest in pursuing motorsport, helping to give them the means in getting their foot in the door. With limited spots available for the Supercheap Auto sponsored event, visit the MotorSport Australia website and follow the links for more information.

ENDURO DRIVES FILLING UP FAST

WHILST THE solo Supercars stars raced hard on the track at Townsville, it was also busy off it with more endurance drives locked in.

Many of the remaining vacant codriver roles have been filled, whilst the Matt Chahda Motorsport wildcard will return to the grid.

Having made its Great Race debut in 2022, Chahda will return to the Mountain two years later with Tickford Super2 driver Brad Vaughan to get his first shot at Supercars in the Triple 8 built Camaro.

“Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to race in the Bathurst 1000,” Vaughan said.

“To do it as a wildcard as well ... there’s a little less pressure, but I think we can still go out and get a good result.”

“Last time was a dream come true,

and now we’re just really expanding on it,” Chahda said.

“It’s so special. Our whole family puts it together and puts everything into it. It’s hard to explain really.”

Another Super2 driver who will get their first shot at the big time will be Aaron Cameron, who will partner Aaron Love having enoyed championship success in TCR and S5000 before his consistent start to life in Super2.

“I am thrilled to join BRT as co-driver for the 2024 Supercars endurance season,” Cameron, who impressed at recent BRT evaluation days, said.

“The opportunity to work with an emerging team and showcase my skills with another young guy in Aaron Love is very exciting.

“I look forward to contributing to the team’s success on the track.”

As expected, Jayden Ojeda will complete Erebus Motorsport’s endurance line up.

He will share the #9 Camaro with Jack Le Brocq in what will be the biggest opportunity of his career after stints at Garry Rogers Motorsport and Matt Stone Racing.

The duo know each other well having raced together at Matt Stone Racing last year, finishing ninth, but contended for a top five spot before a late slow stop.

“I’m really looking forward to driving with Jack again,” Ojeda said.

“We had a good run last year and I’m eager to build on that, particularly now with the Erebus crew behind us.

“The team is top-notch, and I can’t wait to see what we can achieve together.”

Thomas Miles

PERKINS SUCCESS BRINGS BRT TO LIFE

JACK PERKINS’ Super2 Townsville glory was extremely significant for a number of reasons, for both driver and the Blanchard Racing Team.

For the first time in 11 years, Perkins took a pole position and race win in Super2, producing plenty of emotion for the second-generation racer.

Meanwhile, it was also a timely boost for the young BRT outfit, which expanded to two Supercars in 2024 and returned to Super2 with a bang.

Perkins brought them back to the Dunlop Series with a 1979 Peter Janson/Larry Perkins tribute livery and it was fast, converting Saturday pole into race victory, whilst a third place on Sunday secured the round honours.

With the young Supercars squad carrying on its tough up-and-down campaign, BRT’s John Blanchard revealed the addition of silverware came at a good time.

“Jack’s win was a big lift for the whole team, both for the Super2 guys and the main game ones because we prepare all the cars together,” Blanchard told Auto Action.

“We are a main game team now so we should be able to come out and put a competitive show on in Super2 and we did it.

“We just came in and bang – the team did a great job prepping the car and setting it up, so we were very pleased to get the result.” Blanchard revealed the connection between Perkins and the family goes way back to the very start.

Fellow BRT owner Tim Blanchard raced with Jack, aged nine, in the gokart days.

This kind of connection meant that Perkins was not the only one emotional after the drought-breaking success.

“Tim and Jack used to race together when they were nine years-old and even had the same guy prepping their karts, so they were very excited to do

something together,” Blanchard senior said.

“Jack has done Super2 in the past but has not necessarily been that competitive but I always wondered how good a car he has had.

“There have been a few comments flung around, so he wanted to prove to a few people he can still drive when he has the right gear and we wanted to give him a good car and every opportunity to get a good result.”

Perkins will carry on racing the retro livery in the Dunlop Series at the Sandown 500, whilst it is undecided if the Super2 program will carry on at Bathurst.

Thomas Miles

Image: MARK HORSBURGH

WHEEL NUTS DRIVING MOSTERT NUTS

CHAZ MOSTERT has labelled the Gen3 Supercars wheel nuts as the “worst I have ever seen around the world.”

The Walkinshaw Andretti United driver’s frustrations stemmed from cross-threaded wheel nuts forcing the team to experience longer fuel stops on both days of the Townsville 500.

With the #25 finishing 1s and 8s away from the victory on Saturday and Sunday respectively, those moments could have denied him he chance of a maiden win at the street circuit.

Instead he had to once again settle for further minor trophies, expanding his Townsville podium tally to nine, by far the most for a driver without a win.

But with cross-threaded wheel nuts a regular occurrence at race meetings since the inception of Gen3, Mostert did not hold back at calling them out.

“The team executed really well but we had a few things go wrong – we got cornered into placement on-track just from problem pit stops,” he said.

“These wheel nuts in these Gen3 cars are still the worst wheel nuts that I have ever seen in any racing category around the world.

“So whoever homologated them, I don’t know what you are doing, but they were terrible.

“They are just so fragile – like, the poor guys on the wheels can’t even have a real go because its crazy. It is 50-50.

“It kind of forced us to fuelling to a wheel nut jam, but we thought hard and executed the best we could.”

Thomas Miles

PREMIAIR GOING BACKWARDS TO GO FORWARDS

A DIFFICULT weekend at the Townsville 500 for the Nulon Racing team saw the Queensland outfit seemingly take a few steps back three weeks after it took its maiden podium in Darwin.

Both Hidden Valley’s pole man James Golding and top-10 runner Tim Slade struggled with their set-ups on the Townsville streets, but Nulon Racing Competition Director and #23 engineer, Ludo Lacroix, said it’ll take time to build its ‘behind the scenes’ vision.

Along with German engineer Romy Mayer (James Golding’s engineer, and the first female engineer to work on a pole winning car), and the addition of potential future star Cameron McLeod into the driver line-up in Super2 and as a Supercars co-driver, the team is still setting its foundations for its future.

“It is a slow journey – you don’t put a footy team together even with the best players and get results the next day,” Lacroix told Mark Larkham in the pits at Townsville.

“There’s still fundamental things like little mistakes we make in the race and during pit stops that we need to get better at. In the Engineering department we’ve gone from three to four this weekend, and we may even be five at the end of the year just to make sure we turn over all the stones that need to be turned.

“These cars are so pointy that you see people getting race wins after being 15th in qualifying, and to try and understand in all that fog, what is good and what is bad is very difficult.”

In terms of applying the Darwin form to the street track, Lacroix pointed out that it’s a different kettle of fish.

The differing nature of tracks and race distances in Supercars make the journey toward consistency a longer process.

“We came here with some good results in Darwin, and we thought we had some good days on some things, but on a street track it doesn’t work the same. We are not putting the right camber, and we are not putting on the right pressure in my opinion. It didn’t work this weekend.

“So somewhere, we are outside that zone. When you look at the qualifying performance, that’s where we are missing.

“It’s not an easy one to say ‘hey, let’s go’ –then I’ll put five psi more in the tyre, and the guy will come back and say ‘thanks mate, that didn’t work at all ...’ Well, that was your good set of tyres (etc). So it’s going to take us time.”

TW Neal

STOP / GO

BOGUCKI BREAKS THROUGH IN KNOXVILLE

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN Sprintcar racer Scott Bogucki took his first Ever Knoxville 410 Win in Iowa over the weekend. Hailing from McLaren Vale in SA, Bogucki passed US star Aaron Reutzel on the low side in heavy traffic as they approached the white flag lap, taking out the US$6,000 prize in the Liebig Motorsports #10 machine.

“I can’t thank my guys enough,” said Bogucki in Victory Lane. “It’s 12 hours (from Rapid City) one way, and they do this week in and week out … I finally got the boys one!” Bogucki returns to Knoxville on July 13 for the Marion County Fair 988 Lifeline 410’s.

SPECIAL HOT LAPS

VIC V8S along with the Warrandyte Lions Club will create some lifelong memories by taking visionimpaired enthusiasts and their families for hot laps around the iconic Sandown Raceway this Sunday, July 14. Across eight race cars, including XV, VF, VT Commodores, more than 100 vision-impaired people will get a memorable ride. Whilst the cars are limited to 100km/h it is still a special experience for both the driver and passenger. “Some are totally blind or impaired, so they like to touch and feel the cars. It is a good feeling for them and for us to see them enjoy it so much,” Vic V8s treasurer Arthur van Orsouw said. The program will be held from 9.00-14.00 AEST this Sunday with other car and motorcycle clubs also present.

TARGA NZ COMING TO AUSTRALIA

TARGA NZ is heading across the Tasman to reveal how it is offering a bridge for Australian competitors to get their rallying fix. With no Targa Australia events on the calendar for the foreseeable future, Targa NZ is holding information sessions in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane later this month. At each venue, Targa NZ Company Director Peter Martin, plus guest speakers, will discuss the 2024 and 2025 event and calendar and outline how Targa-starved Australians can get be a part of it. Separate Competition, Tour and Time Trial products are on offer that include entry free, shipping, whilst car lease and accomodation options are available. The sessions will be held at Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane on consecutive days from July 29-August 1 from 17.30.

HISTORIC BALLARAT CLUB’S UNCERTAIN FUTURE

DESPITE 75 years of history, the Ballarat Light Car Club faces an uncertain future with the sudden reality of losing its long-term home.

The Ballarat Light Car Club, that currently has around 200 members, has been told by the City of Ballarat council it must leave the Ballarat Airport base it has enjoyed since 1979 by August 31.

Even considering the challenges of COVID, former Ballarat Light Car Club president Wayne Drew said this is the club’s biggest ever obstacle with a race against time to find a new home and the possibility of the club stopping or closing very real.

“This by far is a bigger challenge than anything including covid, to lose the cause facility of your entity is massive,” Drew told Auto Action “Yes covid was difficult and a terrible thing but we were still able to interact.

That was a challenge but this is much bigger.

“We have been involved in the community in a big way and it is a shame this potentially could be the way it all finishes.

“Without a facility and the ability to conduct your core activity clubs really do risk disappearing, so I really hope someone out there will be able to make some suggestions or offer a solution to help us out.”

Drew explained the reason why the Ballarat Light Car Club must leave its premises is due to an airport extension that is being developed by Development Victoria.

However, he is disappointed the club has “been dismissed as irrelevant” and received no support from the council despite being asked to make such a massive move.

“The land that we lease is through

the City of Ballarat but actually crown or government land on the edge of the airport,” he said.

“Three or four years ago the City of Ballarat applied successful government funding for a runway extension.

“We are part of that process that has not been factored in in any way shape or form.

“We have been dismissed as an irrelevant entity after 45 years of leasing this parcel of land.”

The Ballarat Light Car Club is now turning to the public for support to find a location for its new home.

The Ballarat Light Car Club has a Motorkhana and Khanacross event on July 21, which could be the last at Ballarat Airport before it begins to dismantle the venue that holds 45 years of memories.

Thomas Miles

SSV TOASTS YOUNG STARS

THE INAUGURAL Speedway

Sedans Victoria Awards Night in Ballarat was hailed as a success with the best on and off the track were celebrated.

Some of the biggest cheers were saved for young guns River Paterson and Axel Robinson, who received Junior Driver of the Year and Junior New Stars awards.

In addition to winning the Victorian Modified Sedan title, Brad Wicks was also named as the Senior Driver of the Year. Leading the way was over-all

Production Sedans Victoria Series champion Trevor Mills, who also won the Southern Series, while Jaiden Healey took the Northern Series.

The driver who finished third in the Southern Series, Jack Bear, was nominated as the Most Consistent driver.

Best Presented team honours were received by Zoey Salau, who drove for the #52 Swan Hill team.

Dale Morrison secured the Coastal Series honours in the Alexandra #13, whilst Steve Watts

in the Warrnambool #5 was dominant in the Northern Chapter and did enough to secure the overall series victory.

Both Morrison and Tim Hutchinson shared Most Consistent Driver honours, while Jayden Bromeley’s Ballarat #62 team was the best presented.

Long-term and widely-respected SSV member Luke Brown was popularly named as the Volunteer of the Year.

Hamilton’s Western Speedway was named as track of the year, while Mildura’s Timmis Speedway was crowned as the Most Improved Track.

A special award presented by SSV president Rod Meakins went to Kenneth Mankey.

The award recognises hard work, respect, reliability and an all round bigger picture type attitude.

Mankey sold his own race car to further pursue an official role, giving up his fun of driving himself to put others before himself.

Finally, SSV life membership went to Kellie Atkins, who was completely surprised by the honour.

QUEENSLAND YARIS DISASTER

THREE TOYOTAS STARTED, THREE TOYOTAS CRASHED ...

By Paul Gover

THE FIRST day of Rally Queensland

has been described as “the worst of my career” by Toyota team boss Neal Bates.

All three of the GR Yaris contenders from the Canberra-based crew were out before lunchtime.

Even worse, all three had crashed.

Harry Bates didn’t make it through the first stage before whacking a bank and smashing into a hole, Lewis Bates went soon after thanks to a multiple rollover on Stage 4, and Luke Anear ran off the road and could not get back on track.

“Three cars started and none of them made it to the first service,” Neal Bates told Auto Action.

“I think it’s the worst day in my rally career. We’ve never had three cars crash on the same day.”

Harry Bates was able to bounce back for a win on Sunday, and still leads the championship standings, but Scott Pedder and Glenn Macneal were untroubled at the front as the former champion took his first overall win for a

decade in his Skoda Fabia.

Although Harry and Anear’s cars were easily repaired for the Sunday heat, it’s a different story for the Lewis car.

Although Bates will not go into detail, the brand-new Rally2 car needs a total

rebuild and repair job before it will be ready to return for the Gippsland Rally at the start of August.

“The good news is that it’s not as bad as we thought. The chassis is fine. It’s all cosmetic, although it needs some new

body panels,” Bates said.

“It’s part of motorsport, part of rallying. It happens and you have to learn and move on.

“If you have a look over the last few years, we’ve had a very good run. The good part is Harry and Coral Taylor recovered very well on Sunday and took the heat.”

The factory Toyota GR team is well into repair works on the Yaris runners, with the objective now a full-scale test in Canberra at the end of July to learn more about the European-built Rally2 cars.

“We haven’t had the chance to do a proper test yet. We’ve been so busy with everything else,” Bates said.

“We’ve been using the European settings the cars came with. We just need to go and get some kilometres and try a few things.

“We’re not sure yet if Lewis’s car will be repaired in time, but we will definitely be testing with Harry to learn more about the new cars.”

PATO HALTS PALOU IN INDYCAR’S HYBRID DEBUT

INDYCAR’S NEW hybrid era kicked off in Ohio’s Morrow County on Sunday, with Pato O’Ward taking out the win against series leader Alex Palou.

The #5 McLaren driver held off Palou in a thrilling battle to the line to win by 0.499 seconds, whilst former Supercar champ Scott McLaughlin took third place.

For the first ever race featuring the hybrid componentry, the drivers gave it a universal tick of approval.

The new hybrid system features a lowvoltage (48V) Motor Generator Unit (MGU), and an Energy Storage System (ESS) consisting of 20 ultracapacitors, both of which fit inside the bellhousing, located between the internal combustion engine and the gearbox.

“In my opinion, it was great,” said reigning champion Palou.

“Much better, much more fun than I anticipated. Every lap you can do something different to try and fix your car. I would say that it made even more of a difference

during the race than qualifying. I’m 100 percent up for it.”

It also made a notable difference late in the race, to keep the racing green when Romain Grosjean spun and subsequently stalled. Via the new technology, he was able to re-fire his Chevrolet via the supercapacitors – as

the Indycar machines contain no onboard starter.

McLaughlin also gave his thoughts, saying that it only added more competitive tools to what is already one of the closest racing series in the world.

“That’s what I think is really cool about

deploying – literally, we push a button, and so much changes, whether you’re battling with someone or by yourself trying to get lap time …that and the Push to Pass on top of that.

“It makes it busy, but I think that’s where you’re going to see the difference, and there’s going to be some mistakes creeping in. There’s a lot going on.”

The only issue that arose was Scott Dixon’s Chip Ganassi machine shutting off due to what he said was an issue with the hybrid system on the warmup lap – but even then, the CGR crew located and fixed the issue.

The next big test is the Iowa Speedway’s double header on July 13-14, with the new hybrid componentry to get its first test of oval action.

That kicks off the ‘Oval Season,’ with six of the last eight rounds coming on oval tracks, as Palou leads the championship from Aussie Will Power by 48 points, with O’Ward further 22 points back.

TW Neal

WORLD TIME ATTACK IS BACK

THE 2024 Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge (WTAC) at Sydney’s SMP – the mecca for high performance motorsport machinery – is fast approaching, on August 30-31, with plenty of announcements already made, and many to come.

Last year’s event saw more on-track records tumble, with Barton Mawer putting down an uncharted 1:17.860s in his RP968 prototype, whilst the crowd reached over 35,000 fans.

First news off the tarmac for 2024 is that drifting icon Mad Mike is bringing his Pikes Peak four-rotor Mazda-3 conqueror to SMP: a flaming 2.6L turbocharged beast with 1400 horsepower at hand.

Another exciting addition is that Sebastien Bourdais’ 950HP Gold Coast Indy Winner has been confirmed.

The 2005 World Champ Car Series winning NewmanHaas Racing Lola B05/00 machine is going to feature on and off the track over both days of the event.

This 2.65L V8 monster unleashed up to 950 hp back in its heyday, seeing 14 months of action for seven poles and seven victories across 2005/2006, including winning the Indy 300 on the Gold Coast in ’05.

Last year also saw Japanese ‘Drift King’ Keiichi Tsuchiya debut the IONIQ 5 N with a sequence of demonstration laps, but this year it will be in full competition mode with Nurburgring master Misha Charoudin behind the wheel as the WTAC’s first ever EV entry. Also, coming over from NZ is Benji Sneddon and the Mukka Motorsport team, bringing their screaming PPRE 6 rotor RXT.

Built from the ground up, it could potentially compete across Drift, the Flying 500, as well as the Time Attack!

It simply wouldn’t be a WTAC event without some heavy Japanese hitters, with drift ace Daigo Saito confirming his entry in the Garrett International Drifting Cup. Saito is bringing his mental methanolfuelled, 3.5L 2JZ-powered Toyota JZX100, which cashes out at a not-so-humble 1000 hp.Adding to that, is also the addition of a 1000HP fire-breathing 2JZ S14 Silvia piloted by Drifting legend Masashi Yokoi … the GID Cup is going to get pretty smokey.

Not to be outdone, and from across the Tsushima Basin, is the first-ever team and driver from South Korea, Team Neotech, with renowned drifter Miji Kang behind the wheel – she’ll be piloting a newly-built K24swapped Honda Civic EG hatch.

Back across the Korea Strait, the strong Japanese contingent continues with Yasuhiro Ando and the Scoot/Auto Rescue team bringing its Izu FD3S Mazda RX-7, which has a potent  peripheral-ported 13B powerplant that throws out over 630 hp.

Also returning is a Corvette out for redemption in the shape of Feras Qartoumy’s twin turbo monster. Despite claiming the Plazmaman Pro-Am victory, Qartoumy feels that he still left something out on the track, despite posting a class-blistering 1:27.016s.

Stay tuned to Auto Action for more WTAC announcements.

TW Neal

SWEET RETURN

AMERICAN SPRINTCAR legend

Brad Sweet is to return to Australia in the 2024/25 season where he will race for Landrigan Motorsport.

For the third season in a row, the Port Hedland, Western Australiabased Landrigan Motorsport team and Sweet will join forces.

It will see Sweet steer the USA # 49 NAPA Auto Parts / TLC Contracting supported Maxim.

As last summer, he will compete in Western Australia during the busy Christmas-New Year period for the second season in succession.

He put on a mighty show out west, winning three races from five starts in a memorable USA v WA Speedweek.

Sweet is an all time great of sprintcar racing having won five World of Outlaws Sprintcar Series championships in a row from 20182023.

This year he is now competing in the High Limit Racing series which he owns with NASCAR champion Kyle Larson.

Sweet is well on his way to adding another crown as he currently leads the High Limit standings by 83 points.

“The Landrigan Motorsport team is currently working hard during this off season in readiness for Brad’s return to Australia,” enthused Landrigan.

“Brad is one of the world’s best Sprintcar racers and it’s a big honour to be able to once again have him running for the Landrigan Motorsport team and being a part of the current Sprintcar racing boom here in Western Australia.” Thomas Miles

ONE RACEWAY GOING HI-TECH

THE MOMENTUM at One Raceway (formerly Wakefield Park) in NSW continues to build, with announcements on new trackside technology announced, with the all encompassing MyLaps system to be employed.

As the bi-directional raceway nears having its asphalt put down, by mid-July (weather pending), as well as the new 2000 space car park, it is also imminently closer to having its licensing ticked off with regular and satisfied visits from MA2 and MA4.

Ahead of October’s planned opening with the Australian SuperBikes expected head the bill, the unique nature of its two available tracks – named the Wakefield (clockwise) and Shelley Circuits (anticlockwise) – means that new owner Steve Shelley will also employ some unique technology: the MyLaps solution – which

utiles advanced light panels for marshalling, pinpoint GPS, and an highly integrated, multi-use, camera system.

It means that OneRaceway will operate marshal-free in its infield, with the only marshal points to exist externally.

The external points can be manned by choice if a category wishes, with the operator having the option to control the simulated flag light panels via remote control. As well as the obvious safety and general utility benefits of removing the infield posts, the system also aims to eliminate any human error.

There will be 11 highly-visible light panels covering both directions of the circuit, which includes two three-by-one metre light panels on the control line, as well as two that operate the pit lane entry and exit.

“The panelling will be completely agnostic, it can be used for anything” Shelley told Auto Action

“You can clearly communicate to any driver independently, you can advertise on it, and you can send any of the various flags you need, and the visibility can work under any condition you throw at it, even with full sunlight as a backdrop.”

MyLaps also utilises an advanced GPS tracking system that’s also employed for safety procedures as well as timing.

With three sectors on the circuit, there will be three timing loops focused on the circuit as well as three in the pit lane. There will also be a pit speed radar trained on its 400 metre stretch.

“We’re working closely with MyLaps, because obviously what one day will be the pit lane entry, will be an exit on another

day, which is an unusual problem to have,”

Shelley continued.

The MyLaps solution also allows monitoring of all vehicles on track, which includes the safety vehicles. There will be 64 surveillance cameras (PTZ - Pan tilt zoom) around the circuit that will closely integrate with MyLaps, with the tech immediately alerting officials to any incident, whilst the camera also trains its eye on the incident.

With the NSW labour government also having delivered on its million dollar promise to OneRaceway from March 2023, it’s a track on the move, and it’s getting there nice and fast.

“We’re relieved to have received that election promise, it’s contributed to the cost of the modifications greatly,” Shelley added.

TW Neal

MOTORSPORT HEAVYWEIGHTS BACK EXCEL RACING FUTURE

AN INFORMAL meeting in Brisbane to discuss the future of Excel racing was held two weeks back, with representatives from all over the country present.

The aim was to start a constructive discussion to put forth ideas to recommit to the long term viability of Excel racing as a more singularly viewed entity, with the category seen as an important development pathway for young drivers. Present in person (via Zoom) was meeting organiser Garry Connelly of the Racing Together program (also an FIA Formula 1 steward), Brett Peters of Track Attack, the CEO of Motorsport Australia Sunil Vohra (Zoom), Roland Dane, Paul Morris, Brodie Kostecki, Arch McMurray, as well as numbers of owners, builders, engineers, and team owners.

Key points included the divide of regulations and how the various state series’ could unite under one set of regulations; the closer policing of safety and driving standards; and the possibility to implement a national control tyre and control parts.

Through Connelly’s experience as the indigenous ‘Racing Together’ founding chairman, he noted there wasn’t a common forum for interested parties to make their ideas heard.

“We were really pleased with the turnup; we spoke productively for over two hours. It gave a forum where there has been one lacking,” Connelly told Auto Action

“We came up with suggestions that will be put forward, relating to tech-regs,

driving standards, making the scrutineers job easier, and how to promote Excels top kids coming out of Karting, among other things.

“It was about looking forward and seeing how we could help those that run the sport make it more accessible … keeping costs under control, and ensuring fair and close racing.

“Another salient fact was that at a lot of race meetings, particularly in Queensland, the big Excel fields make

them more financially viable, and we believe there’s even more we could attract.

“It was also a unanimous view that it should stay state-based, and any national championship should be a one-off event.”

Track Attack category manager Brett Peters confirmed the productiveness of the meeting, saying that the notion of an informal and unified meeting was long overdue.

“By the time I came to Excel racing there were two distinct groups that had formed. I’ve been asked a few times whether I’d come to a similar style of meeting, but this is the first time it’s happened, so I take my hat off to Garry,” Peters told AA

“There were some very intelligent people present, and I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘our’ regulations or ‘their’ regulations …i t shouldn’t be us or them. It’s about coming up with one set of regulations, and if that can be achieved it’s a really good thing for the young drivers coming through Excels.”

TW Neal

CARAVANS CAN WAIT

TIM EDWARDS CHOSE SUPERCARS OVER RETIREMENT ...

By Paul Gover

RIGHT ABOUT now, Tim Edwards should be unhitching his caravan somewhere in the depths of the Australian outback and firing up the coffee machine.

Instead, he is sitting behind a desk at Supercars central and plotting the future direction at the pinnacle of Australian motorsport.

He has also been prowling the Supercars pitlane since the start of season 2024, after first installing his coffee machine in the Supercars’ garage, looking for the good and the bad as he prepares the competition blueprint for 2025 and beyond.

It’s not what Edwards had planned when he decided to pull the plug after 19 years in the top job at Tickford Racing and placed an order for a home-on-wheels for himself and his wife Trudie.

But the caravan never made it onto the back of a Ford Ranger and instead the Edwards’ family hit the road for Southport in Queensland.

It was a pivotal moment, not just because he was finished as a team principal but because he was jumping the fence into the Sheriff’s office at Supercars.

“I just felt a bit burned out and I needed a change,” Edwards, known throughout the pitlane as ’Ted’ for the contraction of Tim into

Edwards, told Auto Action

But is it really true? Or is it a cover story for a clandestine recruitment by Supercars once Adrian Burgess had decided to switch to Team 18?

“One hundred per cent. I bought the caravan. I thought that was the change that was meant to be. We were 100 per cent doing that,” he states emphatically.

But now he is neckdeep into revitalising everything about Supercars to create a better show, in his role as General Manager of Motorsport.

He’s looking at tyres, at race formats, at cars, at the pitlane order. In short, everything.

“It’s everything motorsport that’s technical and sporting,” he began.

“As a thief turned gamekeeper, yes, I have some responsibility in what’s happening with the thieves, and

I’ll offer my thoughts and experiences. But, ultimately, my responsibility is the sport.”

Edwards, aged 57, has been involved with motorsport since the early days of his apprenticeship as a mechanic in Melbourne from 1983 and 1987.

He had big ambitions and headed to the UK in 1989.

“My first job was with Alan Docking, running Formula 3 and Le Mans. Me and Frank Adamson ran the Mazda 767 in the world sports car championship. He really landed on his feet with Eddie Jordan, and was a key member of the Irishman’s grand prix team. There were even visits to home when the Australian Grand Prix came to Melbourne.

Edwards then got a surprise call in 2004 from Ron Walker, boss of the AGP, to work as a special advisor on the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

“That was until DR (David Richards, head of Prodrive in the UK) tracked me down.” A deal was done and Edwards can now look back on his favourite times through those 19 years at the Ford team:

“Winning a couple of Bathursts. 2014 was just an unreal race. We had the fastest driver and Chaz forced Jamie to run out of fuel. Nobody recognises that.”

So, if he was still in team manager mode, who would he pick as his drivers?

“I’m going to piss off a lot of drivers if I answer that. If I say Chaz then Cam will

be offended. But I’ve got to have two drivers, so I’d take Chaz Mostert and Cam Waters.”

There is no need to pick drivers at Supercars, so what are his biggest challenges?

“When Shane Howard and Barclay Nettlefold approached me, I thought about it for a bit. This is the first time in 36 years I’m not on the competition side.

“I’ve always been part of the administration anyway. I had four years on the board of Supercars. I did more than a decade on the Supercars Commission. I’ve been on countless committees and I was on the board of Motorcycling Australia for five years.

“The protection of the sport is the best way to describe it. Then the normal day-to-day part of the business – technical issues. The development side. The show we’re putting on.” And right now?

“We’ve got to put our best foot forward, on what we need for next year,” Edwards said simply.

He believes there is more commitment to change now, although he has to keep an eye on the basics.

“ We have to ensure we have technical parity. I won’t say it’s number one, but it’s a key metric. That’s what the teams signed up for.

“I knew the business was prepared to invest in that area. Within a few days of starting I was in America for the Windshear test.

“I felt it did need a little bit of a refresh. Part of it was having the right tools, and investment. I’ve got more tools at my disposal now than the business has had in the past. And there are some great people working here.

“We’ve decided on the direction and we’re trying to make our mark on the sport.”

He has a crew of 15, split between the technical and operational sides of Supercars, but with a stronger emphasis on engineering. Every weekend they are kept busy with ’the show’, while back at home base they are planning for the future.

“If you just focus on round by round, we’re constantly monitoring all the parity tools and measures. It’s ensuring we gather all that information and come away confident we’ve done our job.

“Every weekend you’re faced with different challenges – scheduling issues, or we might have found something on a car. You want the show to go as seamlessly as possible.”

So Edwards’ crew has pinged a team this year? “Yep. But what happens depends on when you find it.”

And the team?

Now the well-known ‘grumpy Ted’ chimes in with a death stare and nothing remotely like an answer.

Moving on, does Edwards believe Supercars should continue, long term, with V8 engines?

“Ultimately, we’re in show business. From my perspective, the noise the cars make is part of the theatre.

“To lose that sound would completely change the theatre of what we do.”

But there is plenty of work on making Supercars a greener form of motorsport.

“We’ve very close to having fully sustainable fuel. And there are plenty of forms of hybrid.

“There are so many avenues we can go down to build on our green credentials. But to think we can run around the track silently - I don’t see that happening.”

Edwards also has a view on the Gen3 cars themselves.

“I wouldn’t say I’m 100 per cent happy with them. They are probably not as robust as I would like for our form of racing. We are a contact sport.

“And they are not quick enough to repair after they’ve had a shunt.”

Edwards and his team are currently involved in the puzzle pieces for 2025 and beyond, but there are some areas beyond his job.

That includes the number of races on the calendar.

“Barclay has already been very vocal about that. It’s not a Tim call.

“But it’s also the number of races you do on those weekends.”

What, then, about talk of major changes for Supercars’ marquee race, the Bathurst 1000?

“I think we learned from using the soft tyre there last year it turned it from a strategic race into a tyre race. I don’t think it really worked.

“So we’ve gone back to the hard tyre for this year, to give us a more traditional Bathurst.

“Other than that, Bathurst is Bathurst. It’s sacred.”

So he knows what to keep, what to change, and what to look at for future developments.

He said he has not set a time limit for his own involvement, but is clearly planning for the long term. He and Trudie have moved to the northern Gold Coast, away from the glitter strip favoured by many drivers, with space for his motorcycles and motorised toys, as well as visits from his sons Harrison and Benjamin.

“There is no fixed timing. I’m thoroughly enjoying the task. And the move to Queensland,” he said.

“It’s much like my time on the Commissions. I did get voted onto the Board and Commission, time after time.

“What I’m excited about at the moment is actually 2025, actually being in step with everyone at Supercars to put on a better show next year.

“What’s the goal for me? We’ve got the cars and we want to make this thing better.

“I do this because I love the sport. Driving around Australia in a caravan would have been nice but I can do my part.

“Ultimately, whether we get it right will be up to the critics. Especially in the world of social media. It’s a thankless task.

“I don’t have an issue with that. They can be as vocal as they like.”

LACEY BREAKS THROUGH IN JAPAN

JESSE LACEY added to his Junior Formulae trophy cabinet by getting his first Japanese Formula Regional Series victory at the Okayama International Circuit at the weekend.

Winning Race 2 of the third round at the former home of the Pacific Formula 1 Grand Prix between 1994 and 1995, Lacey also added a fourth place finish in the finale to secure third in the championship, just seven points from second, after having taken at least a podium in all three rounds.

Racing for the Bionic Jack Racing team in a DOME F111/3 chassis, powered by an Autotecnica 270hp turbo engine, Lacey managed a front row start for all three races, and opened the weekend with a sixth place points finish.

He led the opener before a Safety Car threw off his rhythm, with his cold tyres seeing him drop back on the restart.

On a wet track, the second affair saw the young Victorian struggle for grip early, slipping to fourth before moving back up into P2 as the fastest car on track.

With the series leader, Swiss driver Michael Sauter, receiving a 10sec penalty for a jump start, Lacey maintained second and managed the gap nicely to ensure he took his debut win after seven races on Japanese soil.

Despite a strong start on Race 3 where he again took the lead early, controlling proceedings for seven laps, he too suffered a jump start penalty which dropped him to fourth by the chequered flag.

The next round of the JFRS is at MotoGP circuit Motegi on August 2425. TW Neal

SMITH’S PB AS WHARTON DEBUTS

A WILDLY unpredictable FIA Formula 3 race at the Silverstone GP circuit provided varied results for the three young Aussies on the grid, with Tommy Smith highlighting the trio with a careerbest fourth place finish.

The weekend also saw 17-year-old Victorian James Wharton make his F3 debut for the Hitech Pulse Eight team in place of the suspended driver Martinius Stenshorne, with the current Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine driver turning some heads with a big charge in the Sprint Race.

Smith – in his second year for Van Amersfoort Racing – started the race in a distant 26th, but as the bipolar weather came into effect, drivers dived in and out of the pits to switch from slicks to wets and vice-versa, with no particular choice proving the answer until the final laps.

Smith moved into the top-10 early by staying on the slicks, and cycled up to fifth by the Safety Car on lap 5.

Despite dropping back again, he moved back through the field when the rain returned to finish 19.567 seconds back to score his first F3 race points in 32 attempts.

“We made the right call on strategy today – a little disappointed not to get on the podium, but just lost too much time going through the field,” a smiling Smith said.

“First points in F3, took far too long if I’m being honest, but very happy.”

In Wharton’s first F3 race weekend, the former UAE F4 champion and Ferrari Academy Driver impressed early by placing fourth in the Practice session.

After qualifying in P27, the odds were against him to claim any points on debut in the Sprint, but a good start saw him creep to P22 by the first Safety

Car, and as he’d shown consistently throughout his junior formulae, showed great passing ability in picking his way up to 13th in a great drive.

In the feature race he climbed as high as P8 from the rear, before losing ground with the slick rubbered machines having a bigger advantage as the treads on his wets became difficult on the drying track, dropping him back to 20th by the race end.

Christian Mansell left a race point-less for the just the second time this season after qualifying in seventh. Going for a third straight podium weekend, he dropped out of the points late in the Sprint, before succumbing to the wild tyre gambles in the Feature to finish 13th.

Mansell holds onto seventh in the championship, however, with the next round in Budapest on July 19-21.

TW Neal

GARDNER MAKES MOTOGP COMEBACK

FORMER MOTOGP KTM outcast, Aussie rider Remy Gardner, made a surprise comeback to the top-tier over the weekend, filling in for the injured Alex Rins at the Sachsenring in Germany.

“I mean, honestly, I was never expecting to come back riding a GP bike again,” Gardner said prior to Germany, “but it’s always nice to come back, riding these amazing machines.”

With the two-bike Yamaha YZR-M1 team struggling this season, Gardner was never expected to come in and take points on short notice, but put in some nice laps in practice to top the Honda bikes, as well as having an off after going too hot into Turn 13.

Although the current World SuperBikes rider qualified at the rear, he still managed P20 in the Sprint whilst taking P19 in the Grand Prix, showing competitive pace early.

Team director Massimo Meregalli said that:

“Remy did a good job … it’s not easy to fill in for a MotoGP rider on such short notice. Gigs like this come with a lot of pressure, but he

handled it well. He’s new to our team and to riding the M1, but he did good lap times on the first day, and we’re impressed.” Whilst Rins will likely step back in after the

summer break, Gardner’s unexpected ride could have served as an audition for 2025, when Yamaha joins up with Pramac as its factory support next season, meaning the Yamaha will have two more bikes.

The 26-year-old son of ’87 500cc champion Wayne Gardner, said that, whilst the PramacYamaha possibility is on his mind, he’s remaining focused on what he can control.

“I guess you could say that the stars are kind of aligning,” he noted.

“But honestly, I’m not thinking about it. There is no offer there at the moment … the main focus is having a strong SuperBike championship and see where it goes from there.”

Gardner currently sits seventh in the WSBK, taking his first podium at Assen recently, with Donington to come on July 13-14. TW Neal

AN EXCEL-LENT INITIATIVE

THERE’S MOVEMENT AFOOT TO KEEP AUSTRALIA’S LOW-COST GRASS-ROOTS TOURING CARS EXACTLY THAT …

WHILE PUBLICATIONS such as this do concentrate on the top-endof-town worlds of F1 and, locally, Supercars, the other end of the spectrum – the grass-roots, entry level doorway to motorsport – is the other very important area, to be nurtured.

It was interesting, then, to read of a get-together recently of interested parties (see page 15 News) to discuss how Hyundai Excel racing might progress – in particular how to stop costs getting away from the original ‘grass-roots’ level, which has started to become an issue.

Excel racing has been the supergrowth category of club and state racing over the past few years and has been the first step – after karting – for a number of talented youngsters on the way to tin-top, and other (S5000 winner Cooper Webster came straight from a single season of Excels …) categories further up the ladder.

Hyundai Excel racing is the new HQ racing – and is facing some of the challenges the old in-line sixcylinder racers (which originated in Tasmania, I recall) did as naturally competitive minds started to up the ante.

As HQs started to find themselves popping up on the program at some higher-level events, there were some pretty ‘trick’ engines emerging in the category, with costs to be competitive heading north until the HQ Association tightened things up. Since then, the front-wheel-drive Hyundai Excel has literally burst onto the scene. From a humble club-level start, with a few thousand dollars max invested, the category has spiralled in numbers and now pops up at various SpeedSeries and Super Series events, usually with big numbers. That in turn

with Chris Lambden CL ON CALL

has, as is human nature, exercised the minds of more experienced technical types within the sport, and more professional teams, in terms of car construction and engine preparation, with the result that, if you want to be competitive, people are apparently now talking $30,000+ for a competitive car.

The recent meeting was an attempt to bring together separate Excel groups, currently spread across states, to create some uniformity, including a hoped-for common set of regulations to get costs back to genuine ‘entry-level’.

It’s a positive initiative and, if successful, ought to see the core Excel racers – some of whom are starting to feel they’re being outmoneyed – retain their enthusiasm and involvement in Excel racing.

If the group wanted to check out a category which has, generally, managed to maintain a solid lowcost base over many years, they could do a lot worse than look across at Formula Ford. The longtime training ground for many a young Australian star – both those later heading OS to seek singleseater glory or staying domestic with Supercars – has managed to maintain its relatively moderate cost-base, along with a highly competitive national series.

Formula Ford continues to provide its unique training ground in the UK, the US and Canada, and New Zealand, allowing ex-karters and

beginners to learn the crucial basics in an achievable, but highlycompetitive contest.

Former Supercars star (and current GT racer/TV commentator) and former Formula Ford champ Garth Tander recently reminded AA readers of the benefits of the category’s H-pattern gearbox –teaching the vital ‘heel-and-toe’ technique still an important skill in the modern Supercar.

Talking Formula Ford: news that Marcos Ambrose’s daughter Tabitha (after debuting in an Excel, in Tasmania last year) tested a Formula Ford at Winton a week or so ago, under the watchful eye of her father, is a reminder of the value of Formula Ford – and would be a boost for the category’s perception should it evolve into an ongoing entry with her father’s involvement.

It was, of course, Marcos’ father Ross who was one of the two original founders of the famous Van Diemen Formula Ford marque, in the UK – hence the ‘Tasmanian’ name ...

Formula Ford has contested a national series (an Australian Championship series until the title was taken away in 2014 as part of the push for F4) since the 1970s and its ongoing success owes much to the constant restraining of costs, while still introducing viable safety updates along the way. It continues to have a very strong safety record, while much of the cost-containment is about

standardised, common key parts.

While the other Formula Ford countries appear content to maintain the category in its current form, there have been moves, over the past couple of years to ‘upgrade’ or re-vamp Formula Ford in Australia.

The first proposal, from a prominent motorsport individual with a high-tech manufacturing facility, involved an ‘all-new’ chassis, containing some elements of FIA-approved carbon-fibre structure – nose, side-protection in particular. It was eventually put aside – once you’re talking FIA, and FIA-approved crash-tested products, you are genuinely talking serious added cost, none of which Formula Ford could seriously contemplate.

There is talk now of a possible redesigned tubular chassis. Again, in the current economic (motorsport) world, particularly in Australia, decision-makers will need to be careful what they wish for – sales of new Formula Fords are modest right now.

An interesting, relevant stat is that, of the new cars manufactured by all-Australian Formula Ford manufacturer Spectrum, most –that is 80-90% – are for overseas purchasers.

Formula Ford in Australia cannot afford a ‘re-vamp’ that isn’t entirely cost effective – as will need to be the case with its ‘tin-top’ equivalent, Hyundai Excels.

I mention Formula Ford in this vein as there is a key element of its cost-efficency that the Excel group might want to consider. While Excel engines are sealed, after checking for compliance, by a number of accredited ‘sealers’, Formula Ford has one single ‘sealed’ engine supplier (currently Craig Hasted’s Cragsted company).

There are tales of Excel enginebuilders scouring wreckers for inlet manifolds which can, within tolerances, vary enough to provide a power gain – that is, compliant in a regulatory sense, but not really what a grass-roots category needs. A single supplier/builder/sealer overcomes the issue. It ensures one constant level of compliance – and importantly performance –for Formula Ford’s current 1.6-litre Duratec engines, maintaining cost and ‘parity’ across the category. It’s something the newly-formed and enthused Excel group might consider if the economics and organisation of it adds up. Getting key practical ’motorsport people’ involved, as they have, first-up is a good start.

WHY BLANCHARD IS STEPPING BACK FROM CO-DRIVING DUTIES

FOR THE first time since 2010, Tim Blanchard will not be driving in the Great Race as he steps back to focus on BRT and give youngsters a shot.

Even since starting up BRT as a standalone operation in 2021, Blanchard has still performed co-driving duties in the enduros in the flagship #3 CoolDrive Mustang with Tim Slade and then Todd Hazelwood.

But for 2024 he will focus on the race team and the CoolDrive business, providing an opportunity for Aaron Cameron to get a long-awaited shot for Supercars.

Cameron has been a star of TCR since its inception with seven wins and 27 podiums,

while he also won S5000 last year and first appeared on the national scene back in 2017.

Still only 24, Cameron, who has almost a year of Super2 under his belt, will make his Supercars debut alongside fellow youngster Aaron Love in the #3 at the enduros.

BRT’s John Blanchard revealed Tim felt the time was right to with the race team and CoolDrive business taking up too much time to properly prepare for the biggest races of the year.

“He (Tim) just wasn’t happy being a bit off the pace last year and made the call because he is struggling with time being

extremely busy running the team and CoolDrive,” John told AUTO ACTION.

He continued stating the signing of Cameron is further proof of BRT’s commitment to giving youngsters a shot at Supercars.

In addition to last year’s wildcard and now full time program with Love, part of the team’s expansion to two cars has been bringing in lots of new personnel who are new to the pinnacle of Australian motorsport.

“The whole point of the team is giving the young guys a go,” he saod.

“Neither of the Aarons are paying anything for their drive and are both being

paid. We are just trying to give them an opportunity they have earned.

“We have full confidence they will do a great job in the enduros.

“We want to try and build the team with a lot of first year engineers, managers, mechanics that have never done Supercars before.

“A third of the team has never done Supercars before and we are just trying to get good people and build our own identity.”

Whilst it will be a 14-year first Tim will not be racing, the Blanchard name will still be front and centre in the enduros as BRT aims to continue its progression.

LOWNDES TO TAKE ON ADELAIDE RALLY

SUPERCARS STAR Craig Lowndes will enjoy another new challenge in November when he takes on the 2024 Adelaide Rally.

Lowndes and wife Lara will compete in the Adelaide Rally single-day Prima and three-day Main Tour parts behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Corvette in the November 8-10 event.

In addition to competing, the seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner will also be busy off the track being a guest speaker at the Prima Tour lunch on Friday, November 8. He will also be part of other social parts of the rally including the Gouger Street Party on the Saturday and Strathalbyn Lunch Stop and Town Stage on Sunday.

Craig’s wife Lara all has plenty of rallying experience having spent time in the World

Rally Championship with Peugeot.

The Adelaide Rally is one of the largest tarmac rally events in the world, incorporating 30 stages in and around the Adelaide Hills.

It will be a different challenge for Lowndes, who recently took part in the Finke Desert Race in a Chevrolet Silverado with Dale Moscatt.

The rally will carry on Lowndes’ association with General Motors where he won all three of his V8 Supercars crowns with at HRT, plus four of his seven Great Race triumphs including his last three.

The other three were with Ford as part of the famous hat-trick with Jamie Whincup at Triple Eight.

The 2024 Adelaide Rally will be held from November 8-10.

TEAM 18’S TOWNSVILLE ISSUES

TEAM 18 did not have its best weekend at Townsville and the squad revealed both Mark Winterbottom and David Reynolds battled dramas throughout the round.

Despite the weekend ending on a positive note with Winterbottom charging into the top 10, it was mostly a battle.

It started when things got serious on Saturday and the teammates occupied grid positions #20 and #21.

Both drivers were able to make solid ground in the race however with strong final stint pace pushing Winterbottom to 13th and Reynolds to 15th.

Despite discovering some race pace, the one-lap speed could not quite be found on Sunday either although they did take a step

forward, lining up alongside each other on the eighth row.

Things took a big step in the right direction for Winterbottom in the race though as he rose from 15th to eighth having been as high as sixth.

It was a nice way to end a “really tough weekend” for “Frosty” who endured troubles under brakes.

“It was a really tough weekend. We just struggled with a lot of brake locking for the whole weekend,” he said.

“The team worked really hard. We had glimpses of hope with Friday practice with third, but I knew we were in trouble because when you had to push harder the brake locking got worse, so we battled through that.

“We had a rough day Saturday and just survived and then today qualified a little bit better, still not where we want to be in 15th, but had good pace at moments.

“There were glimpses of hope as we got through to sixth and then a few guys on tyre strategy pipped us at the end with eighth.”

Unfortunately for Reynolds things did not turn his way in the race as he got innocently caught up with Will Brown in the opening sequence of corners.

With the damage sustained from Brown closing the door on him on the approach to Turn 3, the #20 crawled to 22nd.

Reynolds said it was a tough way to end a tough weekend.

“Just a really tough day from the outset. I got

a reasonable start and got caught in a crash with the championship leader which I’m very disappointed about,” he said.

“After that we tried to truck on and we just had no pace in the car.

“It has pretty much stemmed from qualifying and practice. Our engine was pretty much busted and we didn’t find it until that night so all our things we tried didn’t really make sense and we had no pace on Friday.

“It is always a knockoff effect, like having small dramas in practice like the engine drama and then you sort of second guess your set up changing too much stuff and not sticking to your guns.”

Team 18 looks to enjoy a cleaner time in Sydney on July 19-21.

SPORTS SEDANS READY FOR SUPERCARS STAGE

BOTH THE Precision National Sports Sedan Series and NSW Sports Sedan Championship are ready to race on the Supercars stage for the first time in 2024. Both championships will be on the supports bill of the upcoming Sydney SuperNight event on July 19-21, which will be the seventh round of the 2024 Supercars Championship.

It will be the Precision National Sports Sedan Series’ first appearance racing with the Supercars after the 800-plus horsepower thrilled at the Bathurst 1000 and Gold Coast 500 events last year.

It will be one of the highlights of the year with the Des Wall Memorial Trophy on the line that was won by Tony Ricciardello last year.

Peter Ingram heads to SMP as the hunted however, being the championship leader in his black carbon fibre turbocharged rotary Mazda RX7, commonly referred to as the “Batmobile.”

He took the championship by storm by sweeping the Tasmanian opener.

Leading the charge behind him are Geoff Taunton and Steven Lacey in their MARC GT SS cars.

Lacey will be especially determined to perform with SMP being his home track, while he will be a busy boy as he doubles up in both the national and NSW series.

In addition to being third in the national series, he sits second in the NSW standings, eight points behind Brad Shiels in the lightning-fast turbo Fiat 124 Coupe.

Last time out at Tailem Bend the Precision National Sports Sedan Series was taken aback by Supercars star Thomas Randle, who swept the weekend in the SAAB.

However, it was far from an easy drive

having survived some thrilling battles with the likes of Ingram, Taunton and Lacey. Also racing a Marc are of Axle Donaldson and Nick Mantikos with the full entry list to be revealed.Sydney marks midway of the 2024 Precision National Sports Sedan Series with Sandown and Bathurst to come.

PRECISION NATIONAL SPORTS SEDAN SERIES SMP SCHEDULE

Race 1: Saturday 12.50

Race 2: Saturday 16.05

Race 3: Sunday 11.30

WAKEFIELD RELEASED ON SUSPENDED SENTENCE FOR DRUG POSSESSION

FORMER SUPERCARS driver and nightclub owner Wayne Wakefield has recently been released from court on a suspended sentence for drug possession.

Wakefield, 53, faced a series of charges relating to two police raids on his homes in the space of a year starting in May 2020.

He pleaded guilty to 18 charges, including possession of a dangerous drug in excess of two grams, contravening an order to access an electronic device, and possessing a controlled substance. However, a more serious trafficking charge was dropped.

Wakefield was a successful race car driver and raced alongside Marcos Ambrose in the iconic #4 Pirtek SBR AU Falcon in 2001.

Despite a promising start after Ambrose took a famous pole position in his first trip to the Mountain, the race did not go as planned, and the pair retired after 42 laps with engine issues.

He was a former development series (Super2) frontrunner and regular in the now-defunct V8 Ute Series.

In the inaugural Super2 Series, Wakefield finished third behind Dean Canto and Matthew White and won the first race at Eastern Creek in 2000.

After the 2001 Great Race debut, Wakefield continued to drive in Supercars sporadically until 2003 and in

Super2 until 2007.

More recently he competed in the V8 Ute Racing Series in 2013 and 2014, where he took victory in Adelaide.

Wakefield’s defence stated that he had attended rehabilitation for abusing a medley of drugs as a result of his business going bankrupt when COVID-19 restrictions were in place.

During the first police raid on May 19, 2020, police found 4.8g of pure MDMA, 1.82g of pure cocaine, 0.51g of a substance containing methamphetamine, and 525.07g of GBL, a chemical that converts to the drug GHB when consumed.

In March 2021, police were alerted to the presence of an envelope outside an apartment building in the inner-Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley.

Wakefield had been captured on CCTV footage dropping the envelope, which was found to contain five clip seal bags each containing approximately one gram of substance containing meth.

A subsequent search of Wakefield’s apartment in May 2021 revealed clip seal bags with 1.08g of substance containing cocaine, 0.7g of a crystal substance containing meth, three vials containing 6.48g of pure GHB, and 13.97g of morphine.

Police also found a cutting agent used to dilute drugs, a large plate with white

WALKINSHAW GIVES GEN3 PARITY TICK OF IMPROVEMENT

THIS TIME last year the Gen3 parity debate was raging on, but 12 months on it is a improved story with Ford’s Ryan Walkinshaw giving it the all clear.

The first year of Gen3 in 2023 saw parity between the Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustang a painfully constant topic.

After the first six rounds, Ford had won just two of the 17 races albeit Cam Waters’ Newcastle success arriving after both Triple Eight Camaros were disqualified, whilst the top four in the championship were all Chev drivers.

But at the same stage of the season in 2024 Ford has been twice as successful with four victories from 14 races and generally been much more competitive, whilst three Mustangs are in the top five of the standings.

The changes have come after aero adjustments were made following a historic wind-tunnel test in America over the off season, whilst AVL testing also in the USA will take place following the next round in Sydney to work on the engines.

powder and a rolled-up $5 note, two electronic scales, four glass pipes, $500 in cash, and $675 in casino chips.

Wakefield’s defence argued that he had the drugs for his personal possession, but some of his offending was aggravated by being committed while on bail.

Wakefield has used his time in custody and on bail to get off drugs and find fulltime employment. His defence stated that he now looks like a completely different person.

Kimmins said Wakefield has used his 146 days in custody and lengthy period on bail to get off drugs and find full-time employment.

“I have known Mr Wakefield for some years. He now looks like a completely different person,” Kimmins said.

Justice Kelly said Wakefield had shown genuine remorse.

“Your experience in custody was incredibly difficult and onerous. It has left you with a firm resolve to never return to custody and to avoid the circumstances that gave rise to your offending,” Justice Kelly said.

Wakefield was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment, to be immediately suspended for a period of 15 months.

As he left the court building, Wakefield said he felt “good.” It remains to be seen what the future holds for the former race car driver.

The last three Supercars rounds have been fluctuating affairs with the momentum swinging from one make to the other.

Both Wanneroo and Townsville have been Mustang territory with Tickford, WAU and Grove Racing sharing the spoils, while Hidden Valley was dominated by Camaros.

Even at Albert Park and Taupo where Chevrolet swept the weekends, the Fords were fast and put themselves in winning positions only for incidents or bad luck to get in the way.

These results mean WAU boss Walkinshaw believes the parity situation has greatly improved over the last 12 months.

“Parity has become a bit quieter this season and it should be because a lot of work has gone into it by Supercars with wind tunnel testing to fix the clear and obvious issues we had last year,” he said.

“There is AVL testing on the engines very soon which will hopefully clear up if there are any discrepancies on the engines side.

“But at the moment every other round either side of the camp are still complaining there are parity issues.

“When you have both sides complaining equally at each other you are probably doing something right.”

VAN GISBERGEN AND LARSON BOUNCED OFF EACH OTHER IN BATTLE

LEADING THE way in both the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series were Shane van Gisbergen and Kyle Larson, who learnt lessons from each other as they fought on the streets of Chicago. Especially in the second tier where they diced multiple times for the lead

in a thrilling fight across the first two stages.

Although van Gisbergen drove clear of Larson with a storming performance in the final stage to take a third win of the year, many were talking about the clash between the Kiwi and the 2021

NASCAR Cup Series champion.

So was SVG himself, who despite being renowned as the road course NASCAR specialist due to his Supercars career, revealed he learnt a lot from racing a similarly versatile Hendrick Motorsports driver.

“That was a pretty awesome race. I had a blast racing with him and went side by side through places I never thought you could get two big American V8s through,” van Gisbergen said.

“In the first stage my car was really weak and I could not get going at the restarts so he (Larson) would always pass me and then when my car would come on I would attack him.

“It was just awesome fun. We were constantly feeding off each other. I would give him the thumbs up and he would wave me back.

“His car was a little better over the bumps and under braking and he was driving very well too.

“It was amazing how he got his car to rotate so I thought my car does not have enough grip and when I adapted to what he was doing my car was fixed.

“I was learning off him too. Some of his techniques, lines and car placement was very different to mine and I adapted a bit to him, especially in turn 6 with how he would brake and turn.

“He is just sharp and calculated taking risks, places the car in good spots and everywhere you go he is fast which is a pretty cool thing to aspire to match.”

Having also fought side by side in the Xfinity race at COTA, fans will be looking forward to the next instalment of the SVG and Larson rivalry.

MCLAUGHLIN AND POWER PLEASED WITH PROGRESS

THE TRANS-TASMAN Team Penske teammates Scott McLaughlin and Will Power put their foot down and made valuable ground in their first race with the new IndyCar hybrids at Mid-Ohio.

Leading the way was McLaughlin, who after just missing out on the Fast Six, he utilised the overcut to soar up to third and collect a third podium of the year.

After the disappointment of Laguna Seca, it was an important bounce back for the Kiwi.

He made up positions as soon as the lights went out securing fifth on the opening lap before entering fuel-save mode for the rest of the stint.

This allowed McLaughlin to take on the overcut by staying out slightly longer and it proved to be a masterstroke as it promoted the Kiwi ahead of Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson and up to third.

Being 15s behind the leaders and a further 8s ahead of Herta, McLaughlin then enjoyed an untroubled finish to the chequered flag.

McLaughlin was happy to return to the podium and get to know the hybrid a bit better.

“We were in no man’s land there at the end, so I had my own race and was just playing with the hybrid a bit and learning it as well” McLaughlin said.

“I am just really proud of everyone on this Sonsio Protection Chevy.

“We have been up and down all year and it’s nice to get a solid result.

“Hopefully we can build on to this. Now we go to two ovals, that I really enjoy and just keep building some momentum.”

It was a tough weekend for Power, who battled flu-like symptoms and a fever throughout the Indy 200.

Despite qualifying a disappointing 17th, he bolted on alternate red tyres and made some early ground before a timely yellow arrived.

This allowed Power to use the primary rubber for the final two stints where he continued his progression and ended up falling 2s short of the top 10 with 11th.

The rescue mission was important as it kept Power second in the standings ahead of winner Pato O’Ward and 48 behind leader Alex Palou.

“Solid day for the Verizon Chevy team,” the Aussie said.

“After our issue in qualifying we needed to do something

off-strategy, so we started on the alternate tires and we were able to make them work better than most, it seemed.

“Just maximised our day as best we could by running on the primaries the rest of the way. Good day on pit lane too.”

Meanwhile, there was a special moment for Hunter McElrea away from the spotlight.

The Kiwi who has spent five years racing in America got his first tase of an IndyCar at Mid-Ohio.

There is a short wait for the next IndyCar meeting which will be a doubleheader at Iowa Speedway this weekend.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Email: [email protected]

Postal: Suite 4/156 Drummond Street. Oakleigh Victoria 3166

PARITY’S SPOT ON, SO JUST LET ‘EM RACE HARD

IT’S INTERESTING to note that the two different Gen3 Supercars each seem to perform better on different tracks.

In Perth the Mustangs won both races.

In Darwin the Camaros dominated.

Now in Townsville both races have been dominated by Mustangs with only a couple of Camaros in the top 10.

All the Ford fans whinged after Darwin, but Townsville showed they had no grounds to complain.

The parity in Supercars is the best it’s been for years.

No need to ‘fix’ anything. Nothing’s broken.

Ian Fidge, Mt Isa, Queensland

BETTY KLIMENKO, YOU’RE SIMPLY THE VERY BEST

CONGRATULATIONS TO Betty Klimenko and Auto Action for clearing the air (AA, #1889, Betty Klimenko – on the record).

It was great to finally get the Erebus story from she who really knows.

Betty came into Supercars, she conquered it by winning Bathurst and the championship and she remains the shining light in the sport.

She’s given her heart to it and her and her team have put up with a lot of misdirected stick a

lot of the the time.

Just keep doing what you do Betty and don’t dare leave Supercars.

You’re the sport’s biggest asset.

Keep up your inside stories too, AA. Good journalism is hard to find in this day and age.

Michael Maloney, Maitland, NSW

TOWNSVILLE RACES

MADE BERRY

GOOD VIEWING

AM ENJOYING the Berry hot springs in Darwin but had to write to Auto Action about how good Saturday’s race was in Townsville.

It had everything except a Safety Car.

The ponies were awesome with Will Brown’s Bull chasing them down for a podium.

Sunday’s race was very interesting too.

No Safety Cars and penalties, just the two different strategies. It was a very entertaining weekend of racing.

The drivers’ championship was a big winner with gains on Will Brown’s lead from Broc Feeney.

You have to love it.

Nomadic Phil Darwin, Northern Territory

F1 COMMENTARY IS GETTING WAY BEYOND A JOKE

THE BRITISH F1 commentators on Sky who we have to suffer through Fox Sports are an absolute joke.

SOCIAL DISCOURSE

WITH HARD RACING IN BOTH SUPERCARS AND F1, THERE WAS PLENTY TO SHOUT ABOUT IN AUTO ACTION’S SOCIAL CHANNELS.

WATERS V MOSTERT

Brad Morton

I have to applaud these two for having a good race where Cam didn’t take Chaz out.

Rod Norris

One of the best full races I’ve ever watched – no Safety Cars, no staged finishes like Indy or Nascar, just pure out and out hard racing for an entire 88 laps.

NORRIS V VERSTAPPEN

Ben Larcombe

They never made the connection that McLaren ruined Oscar Piastri’s qualifying, again. They sent him out with only just enough time to do a lap and he was behind another car.

Those commentators were just fixated on three Poms being in the top three spots.

Yes, that was a fact, but don’t those clowns realise that the broadcast is going to lots of other countries besides that little patch of dirt in the North Sea.

Ivan Schmidt, Maroubra, NSW

CLEAN OUT THE DEAD WOOD  FROM GP GRID

YET AGAIN we see evidence of what a farce Formula 1 is.

Sergio Perez in the sandpit in Q1!

How on earth has this guy got an F1 seat, let alone with the top team?

It must be only a matter of time before Red Bull give him the boot because he could cost them a Constructors’ Championship.

They must be missing out on millions in prizemoney too with his poor results.

Not sure Daniel Ricciardo is up to replacing him either if he can’t beat Yuki Tsunoda.

Zhou, Bottas, Sargeant and maybe a couple of others shouldn’t be in F1 either.

It’s a circus.

Terry Sullivan, Grafton, NSW

“You’ve got to be fierce, you’ve got to be strong, you’ve got to be hard.” Lewis Hamilton on being an F1 World Champion. Harden up Lando. Forget your pretty hair. Max knows what Lewis said is true and that’s why he has your measure. If you don’t take a little cement in your coffee and harden up, Oscar will be McLaren’s only hope.

Phillip Heath Max’s fault but he probably would have been looking at the apex that late in the entry to the corner. Lando lucky not to cause a collision in the earlier dive bombs. Good hard racing that was enjoyable to watch as a fan of neither of them.

EXCEL FUTURE

Daniel Scicluna

It’s a great series to teach drivers about racecraft. My only concern is that it’s getting more and more pricey to be competitive in this series with top Excel cars with all the top tier parts costing around $30k just for the car! If you’re paying that much for an Excel, you might as well go up to the next level in the motorsport pyramid like a Formula Ford or even an Aussie Racing Car.

DMT Speedway Media

The cost is too far gone. Those that spent 20k, 25k, 30k to get their cars are not going to have a bar of trying to find a way where the cars are only worth 10k, 13k or 16k now.

Instead of the two grades currently in the class based on experience or age of the driver, perhaps allow those with the most expensive cars on track to make further modifications and grade them as ‘Excel Modifieds’ and those that do not make these modifications to strip back on a couple of specs as they currently sit and become ‘Excel Standards’.

BRING BACK THE BIFF

SUPERCARS IS TRAILING ON ENTERTAINMENT ...

HOW GOOD was the furore around the Austrian Grand Prix.

That’s not a question, it’s a statement.

The aggressive driving and carto-car contact between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen is just what Formula One needs.

It triggered a firestorm on social media, fuelled hundreds of stories in the old-school media, and even sparked a surge in ticket sales for the British Grand Prix.

The producers at Netflix? You can imagine how they felt and what’s going to happen when the 2025 series of Drive to Survive is being edited and assembled. Is there a lesson for Supercars? You betcha.

And what about NASCAR, which has a new prominence in Australia thanks to SvG and the recent cameos by Cam Waters and Will Brown?

There is body contact every time at every race, sometimes by mistake but often with a fair degree of intent.

Biff, bam and bash is part of the regular menu at all levels of NASCAR racing. Australia? Supercars? Not so much.

with Paul

THE PG PERSPECTIVE

Step out of line in your Camaro or Mustang and you will be pinged. Perhaps a time penalty, perhaps a drive-through ruination for your race.

So, is it time for Supercars to follow NASCAR, and even Formula One, on full body contact?

There is a growing feeling in Supercars that drivers should be freer to race, even if that means contact.

It would definitely inject more action into races, which have often become a snooze-fest, decided by qualifying positions.

The idea of parity in Gen3 racing is great, but it means all the cars do the same things at the same time on the same tyre. That’s boring. Supercars wants to provide more entertainment and get new fans but it won’t happen

without some genuine drama and excitement and – yes – a bit of biffo.

Look back to Formula One. The cars are running closer than they have for a long time and that’s triggered competition, impatience, frustration and even anger.

During the Spanish Grand Prix there were two ‘race-rage’ incidents during the build-up to the grand prix.

Lance Stroll drove straight into the side of Lewis Hamilton’s car in the first one, then Charles Leclerc brake-tested Lando Norris and there was car-to-car contact. If either incident had happened at a local go-kart meeting, the drivers would probably have been sent home for dangerous driving.

In F1? The Stewards called the drivers to hear their story, then let both incidents go.

Could you imagine that happening if Chaz Mostert spat the dummy – not that he would –and drove into the side of David Reynolds?

Old-school motorsport fans often talk about the need for ‘proper’ racing, where drivers held their line and there was no swerving or contact.

But some of the best times in Australian racing were when there was serious contact between Allan Moffat, Bob Jane and Norm Beechey.

Jane was so incensed after one incident, when Moffat used his Coke Mustang to push Jane’s ’Stang clean off the road, that he confronted his rival afterwards in the paddock.

Then Jane punched Moffat, who had been warned to stay in his car with his helmet on.

Today? A life ban?

Then? No action.

The lack of contact in Supercars also raises questions about the luvvy-duvvy approach by far too many drivers.

They had coffee together, they have dinner together, they train together.

Allan Moffat and Peter Brock

were such bitter rivals they would not even travel to race weekends on the same plane.

Lando Norris and Max Verstappen became new-age buddies during their run up to the front of Formula One, but that’s likely tempered – a little bit – after Austria.

NASCAR? Some of the drivers could only be described as bitter enemies. Just ask Shane van Gisbergen.

For Supercars, the time has come for the gloves to come off. Team bosses will complain if repair bills go up, but fans will love more action.

It will also ignite more passion, as we’ve seen from countless commentators, keyboard warriors, and even the drivers.

Best quote, so far? That would be mighty Max, answering a journalist’s question after the Red Bull Ring.

“You could have let him by. You are leading the championship,” the reporter asked Max Verstappen.

“ I could also stay home. I’m here to win, not finish P2,” the hard-edged Dutchman responded.

VERSTAPPEN AND NORRIS PATCH UP DIFFERENCES …

IT’S ALL good between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, after the two spoke a couple of times in the short break between the Austrian and the British Grand Prix.

That was the message both drivers sent on Thursday, insisting ther friendship has not been affected by the clash and that all that happened at the Red Bull Ring was good, hard racing, vowing to keep racing each other the same way in the future.

Friendship was, actually, the priority for Verstappen, who immediately said that, “the only thing that I cared about is maintaining my relationship with Lando, because we are great friends. That’s why, after the race, I said we have to just let things cool down because emotions run high.”

The Dutchman revealed that, “we immediately spoke on Monday, and we came to the conclusion that we actually really enjoyed our battle. We looked at the incident – it was such a silly little touch that had great consequences for both of us, and a bit more for Lando with how the puncture then evolved. But we like to race hard. We’ve done this for many years, not only in Formula 1, even in online racing, where we’ve had a lot of fun together, and these things, they have to carry on because that’s what we like to do, and I think it’s great for Formula 1 as well.”

Asked if they now had the exact same view on the incidents, the Red Bull driver explained that “we agreed with 99% of everything. That’s a lot already. And naturally I said to Lando, ‘when you go for moves up the inside, outside, you can trust me that I’m not there to crash you out of the way.’ The same the other way around, because we spoke about that as well. Naturally, there’s always a human reaction when someone dives up the inside or outside, that you have a bit of a reaction to it. But I felt everything that I did was nothing massively over the top.”

A much more subdued Norris than the

… AS MOST DRIVERS TALK OF A “RACING INCIDENT”

Lando was a lot more reflective several days later, at the Silverstone press conference –with the F1 drivers as a whole, interestingly, happy to move on from what they see as a ‘racing incident’. It raises the issue of ‘over-zealous’ officiating ...

one we heard in Austria backed down from his previous claims, now saying that “I don’t think Max needed to apologise. I think some of the things I said in the pen after the race were just more just because I was frustrated at the time. A lot of adrenaline, a lot of just emotions. And I probably said some things I didn’t necessarily believe in, especially later on in the week. It was tough.”

Speaking about the clash, the McLaren driver agreed that “it was a pretty pathetic incident in terms of what ended both our races. It wasn’t like a hit; it wasn’t like an obvious bit of contact. It was probably one of the smallest bits of contact you could have, but with pretty terrible consequence for both of us, especially for myself.”

He then reinforced that: “I don’t expect an apology from him. I don’t think he should apologise. I thought it was, as a review, good racing. At times, maybe very close to the edge but like we said, we’ve spoken about it, we’ve talked about it and we’re both happy to go racing again.”

And looking at future battles, Norris said he was sure that “Max isn’t going to want to crash. He’s not going to want to ruin his own race and his own chances.”

Always self-critical, the McLaren driver added that “there are definitely things I need to do slightly differently. I don’t think I need to change too much. Could we have avoided the crash? Definitely, because it’s something I could have done. I easily could have used more kerb.”

But he still had a bit of an issue with some of Max’s moved, making a point of saying that “there’s things on both sides that I’m sure we wanted to do better or in a slightly different way, but on the whole, I think avoiding an incident from moving under braking is probably the biggest part of it. There could very easily be an incident that comes from such a thing, and I think that’s the only thing we have to be very careful of is something that could happen.”

THE INCIDENT between Verstappen and Norris in Austria was, obviously, still the talk of the day at Silverstone, and it was interesting that most drivers considered it had been good, hard racing, with some even surprised the Dutchman had been handed a 10s penalty for “causing an avoidable collision.”

As usual, some of them used the question to vent their own issues about penalties they received in the past, but one man who didn’t want to be drawn into it was Lewis Hamilton, who offered a quick “I didn’t think anything of it” when asked about his view on the incident.

And even asked if he would want to offer advice to Norris, who was sitting next to him, on how to race Verstappen in the future, he simply said “I don’t think I need to. They’ve raced each other for many years.”

Then, with Andrea Stella saying the issue the FIA had to deal with now was a consequence of Max not having been properly penalised in 2021 for his multiple clashes with Hamilton, the Mercedes driver just said “I don’t agree with that, no.”

By then even Lando Norris was amused, interjecting with “I’m sure Lewis would agree with it two years ago or three years ago! 100%.”

On the subject of how drivers approach racing, most of them insisted that they race everyone the same way but, like Fernando Alonso, a couple of them told us that “there are two or three you have to approach a

bit differently,” refusing to name them, but adding that, “I’m sure you know who they are.”

Charles Leclerc, on the other hand, drew parallels with his own battles against Verstappen at the Red Bull Ring, reminding us that, “we had a very similar situation back in 2022, where I was squeezing Max a bit on the outside and he had to go on the kerb. So, I think it was avoidable from both sides.”

But the Monegasque was one of those who insisted that “I’ll always try and fight everyone in the same way. It mostly depends on the situation you are in, and of course if you are fighting for a P6 in the championship, and Max is 100 points ahead, you might not fight him as hard. But when a win is on the table, I will always go flat out with whoever I’m fighting with.”

Nevertheless, he admitted that “you get to know the drivers more and more and, with Max, he’s probably the driver that I know most on the grid, as we have driven against each other for a very long time, since back in 2010, I think. I think you know more or less how each driver is going to react or fight or defend or attack you.”

Teammate Carlos Sainz, was the only one who wasn’t worried about singling out the World Champion as the driver one has to be most weary about, saying that “I race everyone the same – hard but fair. However, we all know that when you go wheel to wheel with Max, the chances of having contact are higher than with the other drivers!”

SAINZ ADMITS SPLITTING TIME “IS NOT IDEAL”

WITH THE drivers’ market in full swing and a lot of drivers waiting for Carlos Sainz to make his move, the Spanish driver admitted in Silverstone that he’s been having to split his time between working hard to find what’s the best move he can make for 2025 and beyond, but also being 100 per cent focused on the job he still has to do for Ferrari until the end of the year.

“On Mondays to Thursdays, before I arrive to the track, there’s a lot of phone calls, a lot of time spent on the phone, meetings with my management team, but also with the teams that I’m talking to, trying to understand and trying to have a full picture of the situation.”

That’s why he admitted that “it’s probably quite stressful and timeconsuming, as instead of maybe being

able to fully disconnect and recharge, my mind is still somewhere else and thinking about your future and wondering what will it be … so not an ideal situation.”

Nevertheless, the Ferrari driver was adamant that the extra effort hasn’t affected his ability to extract everything out of the SF-24 from the moment he gets on track:

“When I arrive on Thursday I feel like I’m able to perform as soon as I get into an engineering meeting. As soon as I put the helmet on I feel 100% in the car and I think the Austria weekend kind-of proves that I’m still at a very high level and performing at one of my best seasons in Formula.”

Still, Sainz conceded that “as I’ve always said, I’m not going to be a hypocrite – I believe there’s always

more performance in being in a stable contract situation than being where I’m at now, so I’m never going to deny myself on that, as I’ve said always.”

Yet to make a decision and sign a contract for 2025 and beyond, Sainz admitted that the outcome of his career will depend on “a bit of guessing, a bit of luck, a bit of obviously try to educate yourself on what’s happening around in Formula 1.”

He then explained: “Don’t judge the move in the short term or in the next few races or in the next year, I think you always need to see and criticise or analyse a driver’s move with perspective in time – is this the right move for Carlos in five years’ time or not? That’s why I think I’m going to take every time possible that I can, to take such an important decision.”

BRIATORE CONFIDENT

“WE’LL

WIN RACES IN 2026!”

FLAVIO BRIATORE is back in Formula 1 and has already promised that Alpine will be a force to be reckoned with from the start of 2026.

In an interview with Italian state radio RAI, the veteran promised that “in 2026, Alpine will be on the podium; I will win races!”

Although his official title is Executive Advisor to Renault’s CEO, Briatore has confirmed that “I received full powers from Luca de Meo and that’s what I’m used to. That’s why I guarantee it: in two seasons, we will be talking about podiums.”

Asked about his motivations for an unexpected return to running a Formula 1 team, almost 15 years since he was forced out of Renault, first, and then Grand Prix racing altogether, for his role in the 2008 Singapore ‘Crashgate’ scandal, Briatore was adamant that “I’m here because I want to be. I’m not doing this for the money, I wanted to come back to Formula 1 to help this team. I decided to come back to Enstone for the third time, but only to win.”

He then revealed that “I’ve turned down many offers to come back to Formula 1, but I said yes to this one because it’s sexy and because I’m sentimental.”

Looking at the team’s current situation, Briatore admited that “this year there are too many handicaps, but we are reshaping the whole team.”

The recent announcement of three highprofile hirings and the arrival of a total of 26 new engineers, who were welcomed to the Enstone factory last Monday, is the work of Team Principal Bruno Famin, who has been reshaping the technical structure since he took over from Otmar Szafnuer almost one year ago. Briatore’s first two priorities seem to be gettng an engine deal with Mercedes from 2026 and, right now, secure the services of Carlos Sainz for the near future.

On the subject of the Spanish driver Briatore insists that “he’s the best driver still in the market, by a long way, and we’re very lucky he didn’t sign with anyone else yet. All the teams with vaccant seats are after him. We are trying to show him the plans we have to bring Alpine back to the front of the grid and I’m hoping that, very soon, he’ll agree to join us, because he’s a very quick driver and he’s been doing an outstanding job all year.”

And when questioned about his fitness to be back full time in Formula 1, as his health issues are widely known, Briatore joked that “my heart works! And you won’t believe it, but I have feelings now …”

TROUBLE BREWING AT AUDI’S TOP LEVEL?

THERE’S RUMOURS of trouble brewing at top management level at Audi’s Formula 1 program, with Chief Representative Oliver Hoffmann and Sauber Group CEO Andreas Seidl at odds and, allegedly, in a battle to get rid of each other.

The team’s inability to attract Carlos Sainz to join from the start of 2025 and the risk of being left with no good alternative to partner Nico Hulkenberg from next year, has increased the tension inside Audi’s top management and, certainly, the fact Sauber is the only team yet to score a point this year isn’t helping improve the internal athmosphere.

It’s more or less clear to everyone that Sainz will accept Alpine’s offer, as soon as Flavio Briatore can guarantee there will be Mercedes Power Units in the back of the French cars and that is likely to lead Valtteri Bottas to Williams – as negotiations between the Finn’s management and James Vowles are now at full steam – with Esteban Ocon prefering to go to Haas rather than join Sauber, according to sources close to the Frenchman.

That’s why Seidl is now trying to secure Liam Lawson’s services, with manager Mark Webber spending quite a bit of time with the German engineer in Austria. But the Kiwii’s future is in Red Bull’s hands and he is likely to be retained, as Yuki Tsunoda’s team mate, for VCARB in 2025.

Should that happen, Seidl’s options are limited to struggling veterans, like

Magnussen and Ricciardo, current charge

Zhou Guanyu or unproven younsgers like Felipe Drugovich, Paul Aron, Gabrielle Bortoletto or his own junior driver, Zane Maloney. And none of those prospects is likely to please Audi’s Board of Directors.

Behind the scenes there’s an ungoing battle between Hoffmann and Seidl.

According to German sources, Hoffmann is planning to sack Seidl and replace him with Aston Martin’s Mike Krack, who would become Audi F1’s Team Principal, with the

German becoming Sauber Group CEO as well as Audi’s Chief Representative.

At the same time, according to the same sources, Seidl is putting pressure on the Board of Directors to sack Hoffman, get all the powers he has as Chief Representative and also appoint Krack as Team Principal!

But Hoffmann also seems to be under pressure from higher-placed Audi managers, as German press has reported that the company’s Chief Executive, Gernot Doellner, wants to sack the engineer,

blaming him for the stalled development of the the road car projects.

With so much instability at the top it’s no wonder Carlos Sainz and his management are not too keen on joining Audi’s Formula 1 project. At an even lower level, in the technical department, there are signs some key members of the team are now actively looking for jobs elsewhere, disechanted with the lack of progress made in the last 18 months, since Seidl became the team’s CEO.

HAMILTON IN MOTOGP LINK

LEWIS HAMILTON is believed to be willing to put his support into the takeover of a MotoGP team, according to Italian and British sources.

A self-confessed big fan of motorbikes, Hamilton is believed to be in advanced negotiations with Ducati’s satelite team Gresini, the plan being to completely take over the Italian team and start running from the start of 2025.

The rumours started circulating when Lewis Hamilton’s close friend and manager Mark Hynes was spotted in the Dutch

MotoGP paddock, in Assen, meeting up with the sports’ organisers, Dorna, and also with a few team owners, including Gresini’s Nadia Padovani.

Fausto Gresini’s widow has taken the helm of the team the former Italian rider founded and ran for many years, but with the sport about to take a big step forward, may feel it’s time to give way to people with more commercial experience and cash in on the investment made in the last couple of decades.

As has already been announced, MotoGP

is currently in the process of being acquired by Liberty Media, who bought Formula 1 at the start of 2017, with the team’s value growing massively on the expectation the American company will be able to reproduce in the sport the same commercial success it has experienced in Formula 1.

Getting Formula 1’s biggest name to be part of the MotoGP family would be a major boost for the motorbike championship’s popularity, so it will be purely logical if Liberty Media actively

helps Hamilton to take over a MotoGP team.

At Silverstone, Hamilton didn’t deny he’s interested in joining MotoGP in the future, but was not drawn into confirming he’s in negotiations with Gresini or that he’ll be willing to buy any team in the near future.

The Mercedes driver openly admitted that “I’ve always loved MotoGP and I’m interested in the potential growth of the sport, but I haven’t looked that far into it just yet. But anything’s possible.”

He then added that “I’m definitely interested in, as I’ve said before, equity and already with the Broncos, it was already a first step in team ownership. I think over the next five to 10 years, there’ll be hopefully more. We’ll see where …”

Across the Channel, MotoGP was racing in Germany last weekend and a couple of top riders were quite positive about welcoming the seven-times World Champion into their sport.

Spanish legend Marc Marquéz said that “if it’s true, it’s positive for our sport,” joking afterwards that “even if it isn’t true, it’s still positive because we need people talking about this.”

And fellow Spaniard Jorge Martin, who led the championship going into this round, agreed that, “if someone like Hamilton, who is an icon, wants to buy a MotoGP team, it is because something is changing and that seems very good to me.”

Caption contest? Max: “I’m supposed to be staying on next year, but ....”

Daniel doesn’t yet know where, if anywhere, he’ll be in 2025 ... And has ‘Cheko’ blown it?

Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

IN THE KINGDOM OF INSTABILITY

THINGS CAN change quite quickly in Formula 1, but in no other structure can they change as quickly as in Red Bull.

A couple of weeks ago, the narrative was that Daniel Ricciardo should really start getting on with it or face the sack before the summer break.

As Helmut Marko clearly stated, “with Checo signed until the end of 2026, we don’t need a replacement, and we also have to put Liam Lawson in the car, so unless Daniel steps up his game, there’s no point in keeping him in the car.”

Now, that was not only a direct dig at the Australian driver, it was also mainly a dig at Christian Horner and his decision to call back Ricciardo midway through last year, a decision Marko didn’t really appreciate, as he’d rather have put Lawson in the car when it became clear Nyck de Vries was a failed bet.

Nevertheless, Ricciardo was under pressure, even Horner

with Luis Vasconcelos F1

admitting he needed to up his game, but his reaction since the Spanish Grand Prix has calmed the waters, as he started to give Tsunoda a good run for his money.

But that doesn’t mean stability reigns in the Red Bull camp because when one crisis ends, another one tends to surface.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and the biggest story doing the rounds in Silverstone was that Sérgio Pérez had until the Belgian Grand Prix to get out of his current slump or face the sack, to be replaced at Red Bull Racing by … Daniel Ricciardo!

I know, you can’t make up things like this, because reality is far more outrageous than fiction, when it comes to Red

Bull drivers’ management.

And with Max Verstappen still paying attention to what’s happening at Mercedes and back on excellent terms with Toto Wolff, it’s not completely ruled out that he may still leave Red Bull at the end of this year. Unliley? Sure. Impossible?

I wouldn’t go that far – stranger things have happened.

This means the only driver 100 per cent sure of being with one of the two Red Bull-owned teams in 2024 is Yuki Tsunoda, and if you don’t find that hilarious, I can’t help you …

The Japanese is, after all, still a Honda-backed driver and would have never made it into the Red Bull program without

the manufacturer’s support, was touch-and-go to be confirmed for this year and has never been seriously considered to move to the main team. And yet, he’ll be with the one of the Red Bullowned teams in 2024 – that’s something we cannot say for sure about Verstappen, Pérez, Ricciardo, Lawson or Hadjar …

In Silvertone, after binning his RB20 at the start of Q1, a seriously downcast Pérez insisted there were no talks about his immediate future, with Horner or Marko:

“No, no, there’s nothing about it – I’m fully focused on my job, which is to deliver tomorrow, so I don’t have to think about anything else.”

The Mexican explained that, “the most concerned about it is myself, so I want to get back to my form as early as possible, and yeah, just fully focus on my form.”

He then reaffirmed that “I’m fully committed to the team; I’m fully committed to my career; I have a contract with the team

and I will turn things around. I’m working on it and I want to get back to my form and focus on important things.”

Ricciardo, for his side, was as surprised as everyone with the rumour, but cautiously said that “I would never make any predictions in this sport.”

The Australian then offered an interesting theory on why things have changed in the way relationships develop in Formula 1:

“I feel like every year that this sport goes on the more it is becoming ‘Hollywood’ in terms of the profile the sport has.”

And he summed up the situation perfectly, when he concluded: “Do I have any proof that I’ll be anywhere else? I do not. Crazy things happen, but I am certainly not in a place to say that or think that …”

As a man who’s not only been there and done that but also bought the t-shirt, it seems Ricciardo knows exactly how things can roll in the Red Bull family …

MOZZIE ON A MISSION

CHAZ MOSTERT IS HUNTING BULLS IN 2024. POST-TOWNSVILLE HE’S GOT 174 POINTS TO GET TO WILL BROWN, JUST 96 TO FEENEY, BUT HE’S ALSO GOT A 219-POINT BUFFER TO CAM WATERS BEHIND HIM. ANDREW CLARKE SPOKE WITH CHAZ IN THE LEAD-UP TO TOWNSVILLE ...

IT IS 11 years since Chaz Mostert burst onto the scene with a win in his 15th race in what was then the V8 Supercars Championship Series. He’s added another 21 since then, including two Bathurst wins; but the best he has managed over a full season is third.

That said, he was running second in 2015 when he had that horrific crash at Bathurst that kept him out of the remainder of the season … but we’ll touch on that later.

Now it feels like he is coming into his own and that, in 2024, with the parity disadvantage largely removed, he entered the season as one of the pre-season favourites. Last year, with one hand tied behind his back, he and the Walkinshaw Andretti United crew were the best of the Fords, and not far off the Triple Eight pairing of Shane van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney, albeit a mile away from Brodie Kostecki.

With the steady improvement of the WAU team this could be his season. Well, that was the plan ... Unfortunately Triple Eight has had other ideas, and halfway through the season he is chasing a pair of Bulls, but the chase is well and truly on.

In Perth he was dominant in race trim, but then the Super Soft tyre came to haunt

him in Darwin, and it was nose back to the grindstone. Townsville was a great gap reducer.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he said of the suggestion that 2024 is his best chance yet for a title. “We’ve probably had way more ups than downs so far and we’ve been very consistent, but we’re approaching almost the halfway mark and the guys versing [sic] us in the championship have been super consistent and super strong as well.

“So, I don’t know, for me it’s just a shortterm mindset and keep working on our package and make sure week in, week out, that we can believe we can win. Darwin was a bit of a spanner in the works for us with the Super Soft tyre and didn’t roll the results we wanted through there. We learned a lot and reflected on the weekend and hopefully what we learned from Darwin we can make sure we’re better at Tassie and Sandown when we’re next back on that tyre.

“I’ll tell you what though, if I was last on the grid every weekend, it would be pretty tough. If I go look back, sometimes you got to draw on your recent success to help you in a bit of a lull and obviously in Perth we had strong cars and strong results.

I think as a team, we just never felt really like last year that we had a car capable of winning a race ... “ ”

“So, when you do go to the next weekend and you have a bit of a bad weekend, it’s as frustrating as it can be, but you still know that in that package somewhere it’s capable of winning a race because you’ve recently proved it. If I look back to last year, it was probably a lot tougher to keep striving to try and find a consistent result.

“I think as a team, we just never felt really like last year that we had a car capable of winning a race. So even though Darwin was tough for us, we showed great resilience on Saturday and still drove through the field, which was cool, and we were on for another top-10 result on Sunday.

“But, what was cool, was coming back to the workshop and seeing the engineers digging right into it and planning a race three at Darwin and what we would do differently. All that kind of stuff makes sense. We tried a lot of things over the weekend, and we didn’t hit the mark, but it really highlighted some of the areas in the car we really need to work with on that tyre.”

The 17-spot gain on Saturday proved the car on that tyre was OK in race trim, but didn’t fire up for qualifying, but if you are qualifying in the 20s you likely aren’t winning races. Still, it was a great recovery and minimised the points loss.

“I’d almost argue the point that we’re inconsistent compared to a Triple Eight, which has had how many years of momentum and many years of success. If you asked if we’re inconsistent to the rest of the field, then I’d probably say we’re not.

“We’ve already finished fourth in the championship last year and we’re tracking third at the moment. The years before that, we’ve still been up there even when we feel like we haven’t put in as fast and consistent a car throughout a year as we could.

“Even when we’re inconsistent, I’m still pretty proud of our team, that we keep striving each weekend and keep grinding for every position. We don’t just throw the toys out of the cot, and we are not laying over and not trying things.”

The journey since joining WAU has been one of steady improvement with flashes of brilliance. The 2021 Bathurst win was one of the more dominant wins in the Supercars era; that was a weekend of brilliance. But then you get Darwin, or Perth last year, which were horror movies. Mostert wants to make the rough weekends less poor, but not if you flatten out the peaks.

“I think we came to Walkinshaw Andretti United at the time with goals to try and succeed. Obviously, that’s championships and Bathurst wins. Walkinshaw’s history at

Starting a race team this year has been pretty cool in the GT4 space with Method Motorsport. We’re just chipping away there ... “ ”

“It also came at a difficult point from where they were. It is definitely a different team today.

“I think the key people we’ve got in key roles and the way the structure has changed behind the scenes has all been for the better to move forward. There’s not one person in that team that doesn’t want the same result

up and it’s really cool to be part of that culture. It’s different from when I first joined, and the belief of what we can do is still growing.

“Gen3 definitely put a bit of a spanner in the mix on the momentum we were building in Gen2 because, when I first joined, we struggled for a race win. The second year, we got a couple of race wins and the third year in the Gen2 era, we got the most race wins and some Bathurst success and stuff

“I feel like we’re back to that momentum again this year, where we rolled out at Bathurst and we are evolving our car this

“You want to turn something around in 12 months, but it takes time to build success. Sometimes it works quicker for some people and sometimes it takes longer, but the day that we hopefully can achieve what we want to achieve will be really rewarding.”

There are times when you watch Mostert out of the car and you are acutely reminded of the Bathurst crash that, while catastrophic, could have been worse given where it

He snapped his leg on the gearstick, and while the broken bones were an issue, it is the

ligament damage that provides the lasting reminder, particularly in the cold.

He says it has no impact in the car.

“I’m physically fine in the race car. I’ve never had any kind of feedback from my leg in the race car because you can do such little movements with clutch brake and throttle. I’m not going to be an Olympic runner any time soon though, and the cold weather tightens everything up a little bit.

“The day-to-day impacts are more in winter – in summer I feel like a million bucks. But then in winter, sometimes it takes a little bit to get the knee getting back at full range throughout the day. It’s just ligament tightness.

“At the time I had my crash, and then Holdsworth had a pretty big crash too, it highlighted a few things that we could be doing better in Supercars on safety.”

While not wanting to be a crash test dummy (“I’m glad to do it for the category,” he joked) certain changes were made, particularly around the legs, to protect the driver better. He also thinks the teams have become better at the personal side of training, not just for the drivers but for the crew as well, and that today his injury rehab would be different to what is was back then.

While his Supercars life is stable, and you can see him finishing his career at WAU, the rest of his life is full of change. He now owns a GT4 team and, three months ago, became a father to Everly, and his daughter has just been to her first race. For a few months now, fiancée Riarne has been absent from the track, which he says has been hard.

“It’s quite funny when you have a little one at home and your partner doesn’t come to the races as much any more. It feels a little bit lonely at the track. They’re just your rock normally. When you have a bad day, they are the first one to snap you out of it.

“I’m looking forward to getting them back to the rounds, which will be really, really helpful for me. So that’s the most exciting thing.”

As a family man his racing interests are more here while others are chasing NASCAR and the like to fill the racing void that a 12-round championship creates. He has successfully run GT and the like overseas, and still hankers for a run at Le Mans, but otherwise he is looking at getting his racing fix in a different way.

“Starting a race team this year has been pretty cool in the GT4 space with Method Motorsport. We’re just chipping away there.

“We’re two rounds into the championship and we’ve got a lot of young drivers and different drivers that have joined us for a few races as well. It’s just been really cool to be part of other people’s motorsport journey with some cool cars and a cool platform that I think is only going to go from strength to strength.

“There’s definitely an element of Chaz

“I’m probably drawing back a bit, to be honest,” he said of extra races. “I want to be here for my little one growing up, but there’s only so much you can do with a racing capacity. Some guys have a high racing capacity – it could be 42 weekends a year. I went through those years where I did some overseas stuff and overseas platforms at BMW and the race counter went up to, I think it was probably 22 to 25 races meetings a year.

“I remember being more tired than anything and less refreshed. I’m just happy focusing on Supercars now and maybe doing the odd event here or there, but the main focus at the moment is family, and then second is racing and what we do with our new team this year as well, I’m just trying to balance out and find the right balance for me.

“NASCAR is not really an ambition. I think the only things I still want to try and do on my list is either Le Mans one day or try to get to Suzuka. I don’t know why Suzuka, but just love the layout of the track. I would love to try and do a GT race there if the 10-hour ever came back. So, they’re the two for me.”

The new team he speaks of is Method Motorsport in the Monochrome GT4 Australia Series, and he is having some fun with running a pair of McLaren Arturo GT4s in that series. Marcos Flack and Tom Hayman leads the Silver Cup – the premium class – in the #25 car. His role is listed as Team Owner/Driver Trainer.

Mostert fun to it, because you experience a different side of the motorsport world than what you have for the last however many years. I tell you though, it is more nervewracking standing on the side of the fence and hoping that it all goes the right way than being in the car.

“The drivers you have in the cars and whoever’s program you’re running; you want then to get the results that they want. You want to make sure as a team that you give them every opportunity. But in saying that, we’re such a new team too and we’re learning along the way.

“Especially me. You take it a bit for granted for all the people over the years in the background that have done a lot to get you the success you have. I suppose I’m trying to draw on those experiences from my career and try and make sure I can give the same support that I’ve had.”

The one last passion for Mostert to explore, is his desire to help social media become a nicer and safer place for which he has recently been mocked on a fellow drivers’ podcast. He has been a key player behind #nosocialhate and hopes that social media can become a safer place for all.

“I’m pretty passionate about it. I think we

have a long way to go and that is definitely true in our sport … and probably a lot of other sports too.

“I know everyone’s got different opinions on how far it should be policed and what the repercussions are from being negative online, but at the end of the day, it’s the platforms that are the biggest part of it and they don’t really have that much policing stuff.

“We obviously have codes that will tell us about negative comments and delete them and hide them, so why don’t we?

“Social media is almost like your face-toface interaction today, but it’s not really a real-world experience because we’re hiding behind a screen and often talking about someone in a negative way.

“From a sports side, the thing I’d love to see our sport really try to crack down on it harder and have things that if fans are really that bad and negative towards a driver or others, or if there’s death threats or any of that type of stuff, that there’s proper bans put in place to really show that the sport is serious about it.

“But saying that, there’s nothing stopping a lot of people making fake profiles and that makes it quite hard to track them down. I’ve been thinking about it a lot for a long time, but it’d be great if there was a way like we need a license to go drive a car on the road.

“It’d be great to see people have more authentication to have access to these platforms. I know that would probably be a nightmare for a lot of these platforms, but with a little bit of left-field thinking you can prove who the actual person is online. I don’t think people would say so much online if you knew that people knew exactly who you are.

“There’s good momentum, I think that a lot of governments are talking about how old you’ve got to be to use these social worlds. No doubt it is evolving, but it’s definitely not quick enough for my eyes anyway.

“Not everyone is built the same. Not everyone has the same capacity to shrug things off.”

And with that he signs off and turns his brain back to his young family and racing. He has a championship to win.

THE CAR MASTER

WHEN YOU WANT A CAR, PAUL CEPRNICH IS THE GO-TO GUY ...

By Paul Gover

IN THE history of Australian motorsport, noone has built more cars than Paul Ceprnich. He has built so many over the past 35 years that he long ago lost count. The number is something more than 70, likely to be many more.

It’s not just high-profile cars like the Brabham, or Gen 2 and Gen3 competition prototypes for Supercars, either.

There are the IRC Cars, MARC cars, off-road vehicles and a dual-surface hillclimb special, as well as the spectacular drift car wheeled by stunt man Matt Mingay.

His company, PACE Innovations in Queensland, has also designed and made bits-and-pieces for update and upgrade work, bare chassis, roll cages and even individual parts for cars.

When the SuperUtes needed help with a chassis control, PACE had the answers.

When Ryan Story wanted to take a replica of Dick Johnson’s Tru-Blu Ford Falcon into Touring Car Masters, it was PACE that did the design work and put the pieces together.

The stories go on and on . . .

“There would be over 150 chassis. I couldn’t tell you the exact number,” Ceprnich told Auto Action

He began his time in motorsport back in South Africa, has had detours through Europe and the USA, and is now firmly rooted in Queensland.

He founded his company,  PACE Innovations, in 2006 and it is now spread through a group of industrial units at Yatala, just down the road from Dick Johnson Racing.

“I left Paul Morris Motorsport and started PACE Innovations. I sold a house I had in South Africa, for $60,000 and with the money from that I bought a 3D printer,” he said.

“That was the start of PACE. I was just doing design work. Andy McElrea had a business importing furniture and I rented office space

Not surprisingly, PACE became the technical and distribution partner of Reiter Engineering for the Pacific region. The trajectory at PACE has always been

upwards and there are now 14 staff, including apprentices, with five engineers, three specialist fabricators and an expert race mechanic.

The story of Paul Ceprnich, nicknamed ‘Cepi’, is long and has many twists and turns ... “ ”

Dollars and cents have never been as important to Ceprnich as seconds on a stopwatch.

“I was never really a business person, and I’m still not, honestly. I’ve got no ambition to be wealthy. Somehow I’ve always been around wealthy people, because of the racing.

The story of Paul Ceprnich, nicknamed ‘Cepi’, is long and has many twists and turns.

Like the time he went to Britain on the promise of a job with Williams in F1, but didn’t realise he was missing a crucial work permit.

So he ended up with BMW Motorsport in Germany, itself a move which would cover thousands of words including his close friendship with Charly Lamm, well known in Australia thanks to his success with the Schnitzer team.

This time around the story is about Cepi and PACE, starting from the basics.

company’s factory units is stacked with chrome-moly tubing and sheets, sharing the space with high-tech machinery worth millions. Across the parking lot are welding facilities, jigs for all sorts of chassis – including the latest Gen3 Supercars – as well hoists in the assembly area, and stocks of spares reflecting connections to well-known brands including Brembo brakes – an official technical partner.

One room houses a remote pit bunker, complete with computer connections and bank of monitors, and upstairs are the hightech CAD design terminals.

It’s not as spick-and-span as a Formula One operation, but it’s clearly organised and effective and there are smiling faces. At the morning break there are party pies, as a Pace tradition requires anyone mentioning them to pay for snacks for the whole crew.

“What makes me happy at work is I have people who started as apprentices who now have a family and babies,” said Ceprnich.

“The happiness of the people at work here is my goal. We all are doing something that we

love, because we are all racing people.

“We went to a four-day working week because I thought there was an opportunity to do it. If I could do it on a three-day week, I would as well.

“It’s about doing successful things. Building a car and having it run without faults is the thing.

“To me, winning a championship 10 years in a row with the biggest budget and the best drivers is a bit like kissing your sister. I’d rather challenge myself and do different things.”

His different things have been all over the map and all over the motorsport world.

There were South African touring cars in the early days, Super Touring with BMW, Le Mans with BMW, ALMS sports cars in the USA, a drift car for Matt Mingay and a couple of projects for Tony Quinn, including a prototype designed for the Race to the Sky in New Zealand and the Pikes Peak hill climb.

He’s been a winner all over Europe, in Asia, in the USA, South America, as well as New Zealand and Australia.

But it’s the cars from PACE which have given

him the long-term satisfaction.

He built more than 20 New Zealand V8SuperTourer cars – “those cars sold for $200,000 at the time a Supercar was $500,000, and we were out-performing them” – was responsible for the first and second-generation MARC cars, and is now building great looking modular IRC GT cars.

And then a surprising detour.

“We won the Super Tourer championship in New Zealand with Scott McLaughlin. He also did an apprenticeship at PACE,” Ceprnich

That’s the way things go during a conversation with the 55-yearold, who has a son and a daughter with wife Catherine, a kiwi he met in Europe.

It’s not just cars and competition, as PACE Innovations also took on specialist jet conversions for medical evacuation flights.

“We’ve done quite a few of those,” he said.

“Just as Covid was starting we did three planes for LifeFlight. They have done over 2500 Medivac operations with the systems we’ve done for them.”

Just charting his teams and victories is tough enough, as he has helped winners through touring cars since the 1990s and still works as a contract engineer in Australia and overseas.

“I came back here in 1999 because Stone Brothers offered me a job. I did four years at Paul Morris Motorsport.”

He did some very clever work on everything from component locations to weight saving, and even what Ceprnich calls “Simple little things like Sachs dampers”.

“I could show you 20 rule changes that were made because of our car.”

He smiles as he recalls the time at Phillip Island when they made a new front anti-roll

work, then built the two prototypes, and eventually built the Ford Mustang Gen3 prototype and continues to construct chassis for all teams except Triple Eight, Erebus and Walkinshaw, who instead purchase the parts in ready-to-build kits from PACE.

“So basically we designed the Car of the Future. I think every car that won the Supercars championship in that era was a chassis that started here at PACE.”

It’s about doing successful things. Building a car and having it run without faults is the thing ... “ ”

qualification through BMW South Africa, which he was able to pivot into a position with the company’s motorsport division.

“I think it was the best automotive engineering course you could do. I would spend a month in quality control, a month in production, a month in development engineering.

The IRC GT program is now pushing along, with the first cars up and racing in Australia and New Zealand and more on the way. We just completed the tenth car which is left-hand drive, leaving for the USA in 2 weeks.

WHAT’S NEXT

“I stayed in the Motorsport department after I finished my diploma.”

But nothing stays the same and now PACE Innovations has new challenges, including a top-secret single-seater project and roll-cage work for a wide range of cars in different categories.

IN THE BEGINNING

Paul Ceprnich comes from a family of Yugoslav butchers. They were immigrants, heading to South African after the nasty developments in Europe around the of World War II.

But they were also motorsport enthusiasts and that’s what got the young Cepi started.

He helped his father as they worked on Volkswagen Beetles, then trekked up the road to the Kyalami circuit when the grand prix teams came to test in the European offseason.

“From about age 15 I stood outside the gate there and stopped them coming and asked if I could work. When I was about 15 I got in there with the Williams Formula One team. They called me up the next year.

He made his first overseas foray to the UK, then Australia in the Super Touring Days, then Germany, the USA then back to Australia.

Outside of Supercars he has found plenty of challenges with plenty of work.

“The MARC Car concept started when we were approached by a South African company who wanted us to design a platform based on parts from production car parts, like body parts and windscreens and headlights.

“It was a joint venture with them but we ended up going our own ways. Our side of the deal was mainly technical and theirs was financial.

“The day we tested the very first prototype car was at Queensland Raceway and Ryan McLeod was there. He asked for a drive of it and ordered three cars.”

More recently there was the Brabham supercar.

A short walk around the various workshops of PACE Innovations gives plenty of hints about the future.

There are a couple of Formula Ford singleseaters and another bare open-wheeler chassis.

There are boxes of roll-cage bits earmarked for Garry Rogers Motorsport.

And, up on a hoist and nearly ready to roll, is the newest IRC GT waiting for its engine and driveline.

There are suspension sub-assemblies, beautifully artistic pieces of welded chromoly and the jigs used for the assembly of various chassis, including the latest Gen3 Supercars for both Ford and Chevrolet teams.

And there is still overseas travel for Ceprnich, who is a contract motorsport design engineer and on-site performance engineer. He has just returned from time in Europe, but cannot talk about the job.

“There was Thierry Boutsen and Ricardo Patrese and Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell.

One year Keke Rosberg.

“In the beginning I was just polishing the cars. But it became that they would need a whole bunch of stuff, like car batteries and fans, and I would go and buy them.”

Ceprnich’s formal education including time at boarding school before an engineering

“It was a massive part of our business. Because of my early years watching Formula 1 and being a fan of BMW and Brabham, I was besotted with the brand. To eventually have the opportunity to design and build that car was great,” he said.

“We designed, built and had that car testing in 12 months. It was amazing effort by all of our team.”

“I still go away racing. I do Carrera Cup and Sprint Challenge with my son at TekworkX Motorsport. To me, it’s the competition that is challenging. I did a lot of work also with Melbourne Performance Centre and Audi,” he said.

“I’ve raced in every continent at national championship level apart from Antartica. I guess that’s something I’ve always been proud of.”

ACTION MART

SPEEDWAY

KOSTECKI PART OF ‘EMOTIONAL’ NIGHT FOR SPRINTCAR SQUAD

Image: CBM MEDIA/CRAIG MITCHELL

BRODIE KOSTECKI played the role of crew chief in what became a Queensland Titles campaign full of emotion for the Tullboro team at Maryborough.

In what was, without a shadow of a doubt, their busiest night of the 2023-24 season, the Tullboro team fielded a total of five cars across 410 and 360 Sprintcar races, led by current Australian Champion Lachlan McHugh, plus Brent Kratzmannwith current Supercars Champion Brodie Kostecki in the role of crew chief, youngster Bradi Owen and Jason Burton in the 410s, and Western Australian hotshot Ryan Farrell competing in the 360s.

Apart from the hectic night planned, the Tullboro team went into the Queensland Titles with extremely heavy hearts, after the news earlier in the week that veteran crew chief and friend of the team Graham ‘Willy’ Williams, who was set to crew chief McHugh, had passed away suddenly.

Another friend of the team and ex-Sprintcar racer Tony Michell had died, too, in a separate incident.

Despite the emotion, the Tullboro team decided to dedicate their Queensland Title campaigns to the memory of both Williams and Michell.

The highlight of the night was Farrell coming out on top in the Queensland 360 Sprintcar Title.

He started on pole position for the feature

race aboard the #95 by virtue of topping the time sheets in qualifying before going on to win and finish second in his two heat races.

The 2015 Australian 360 Sprintcar Champion then used his three decades of experience throughout the 30-lap journey to inherited the lead from youngster Brodie Davis following him suffering engine issues during the middle stages and then go on to conserve his tyre wear and take out a solid victory.

In the Queensland Title for the 410 Sprintcars, the Tullboro team locked out the

front row for the feature race with McHugh and Kratzmann sharing positions one and two.

Both McHugh and Kratzmann started the night by being quickest in time trials and that put them in good stead for the remainder of the night after they had picked up mid-pack finishes in both of their two heat races.

However, a clash between the pair on the opening lap ended Kratzmann’s night prematurely with car damage and McHugh sustained a heavily damaged top wing.

Despite the damage, McHugh battled hard for the rest of the 35-lap event and brought it home in third place, on the podium.

Sprintcar newcomers and Tullboro team drivers Owen and Burton continued their learning curve throughout the Queensland Title, with Owen picking up his second ever heat race win and then going on to finish the feature race in eighth, while Burton ended up just outside the top 10 in the feature race in 12th.

Tullboro team owner Brodie Tulloch was pleased with the collective effort of the team throughout the Queensland Title event.

“It was certainly our biggest weekend for the whole team by fielding five cars and what made the effort even more impressive was the fact that were down a few crew members, but the team pushed on and we were rewarded with some strong results that was highlighted by Ryan’s Queensland Title win,” he said.

“The whole team dedicated the Queensland Title campaigns to the memory of both Graham ‘Willy’ and Tony, and it was very pleasing to be able to come away from the event with our drivers flying the flag high for the team.”

The next major events for the Tullboro team and Farrell are set to be up in North Queensland for the $5,000 to win King of Kerribee at Mareeba Speedway on July 27.

LEE BEACH WINS BOB HICKSON MEMORIAL

NYORA RACEWAY has held the last event of its season which attracted Open Sedans, Standard Saloons, Ladies Standard Saloons, Junior Standard Saloons and Junior 1200cc Sedans.

Honouring the late great Bob Hickson, who was a beloved fixture at Nyora for many years with his racing family in tow, Open Sedans drivers were keen to win what many consider the venue’s most important annual event.

To get into the 50-lap final, drivers had to qualify by accumulating points in two heats each and for those that did not directly qualify, they could race their way in via a last chance main.

As the main race got underway David Donegan led the first five laps with brothers Damien and Brendan Miller behind exchanging places for second.

By lap 10 Damien Miller was a surprise early exit with Brendan Miller now second and Beach not in the top 10.

But both Miller and Ramsdale succumbed to incidents on lap 11, and a lap later Donegan’s race ended also catapulting Warren to the front of the field ahead of Corey Lincoln with Beach fourth.

Roycroft’s race ended with 20 laps to go as Beach worked his way up to second.

It was with only seven laps to go Beach snatched the lead and take the coveted Bob Hickson Memorial ahead of Warren and Shankland.

The 20-lap Standard Saloon final was

dominated by Jacob Vuillermin from the pole position.

Top three qualifier Aaron Cormack was the first from the top half of the field to strike trouble dropping from third.

Kacey Ingram was working his way forward and passed his father Neil on the way to moving into the top five.

A couple of laps later and Kacey Ingram had moved to third and then moved into second on lap 19.

At the finish, and three seconds out in front of the field, Vuillermin claimed the win over Kacey Ingram and Neil Ingram.

In the Junior 1200cc Sedans racers

competed in two heats and a final with Xander Baxter winning the first and Riley Taylor the second race. Both drivers where first and second in each race reversing the finishing positions in the second heat. Brody Barton was third in both heats putting himself in as possible winner in the final.

Xander Baxter led the field ahead of Brad Marshall and Brody Barton before Jaylen Knight stormed from row four to third inside the first five laps.

With five to go Marshall snatched the lead from Baxter as Doherty moved into third spot.

This position soon went to Riley Taylor, who got it with three to go.

Bree Walker and Caroline Allen shared heat race wins in the Ladies Standard Saloons racing, while the 12-lap final was led from start to the finish by Allen.

She held at bay the former two-time Victorian champion Ally Morrison at the line by just three-tenths with Walker third.

Rounding out all the results was the Junior Standard Saloons, which had limited track time with the feature called by the stewards early.

Tom Braz led early but Nathan Miles headed the field on lap four when the race was called after a number of incidents. Dean Thompson

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WHELL TAKES QUEENSLAND TITLE

THE 2024 Queensland Sprintcar Title went to Nic Whell (right) at Maryborough Speedway on June 22. Whell started 11th in the feature race and worked his way to the front, beating Ryan Newton, plus defending Queensland and current Australian Champion Lachlan McHugh.

Eighteen cars qualified for the 35-lap feature race in a field stacked with talent. McHugh and Brent Kratzmann shared the front row and from the green flag Whell started to move forward and began what would be a very impressive race towards the front.

Through traffic he looked smooth weaving his way through both high and low, looking for that comfortable groove somewhere on the race track.

By mid-race he had passed Darren Jensen and set out after Ryan Newton and McHugh who were having their own battle for the lead.

Deep in lapped traffic they took to the high line to clear the traffic, seeing an opportunity Whell dropped to the bottom and passed both of them and into the race lead.

The race was soon paused when James Matthews became stranded in Turn 2,

leaving Whell to lead the restart from Newton and McHugh.

From the restart there was no stopping the 21 year-old as in those last six laps as he raced away to his first Sprintcar Queensland Title win.

This latest win comes hot on the heels of a very successful 15-night schedule over the summer months for Whell, who just missed a spot in the A-main on only two occasions.

At the Prelude to the Red Hot Summer Shootout in January Whell had a career best finish of third in the A-Main to Carson

Macedo and Brock Hallett.

This result seemed only a matter of time after finishing in the top 10 in his previous four races.

The team again made the podium at the Ultimate Sprintcar Grand final in Toowoomba in April, won by Kratzmann.

When the points were added up over the five USC rounds, Whell finished fourth outright, two points short of third place.

McHugh won the Championship from Michael Stewart and Luke Oldfield.

CARNIVAL-LIKE SEASON CLOSER

HORSHAM’S BLUE Ribbon Raceway

celebrated the end of the 2023/24 summer season, with a two-ay carnival recently.

The weekend extravaganza proved to be a real success, with close to 100 competitors racing across the six competitive classes and the two highly spirited vintage demonstration classes.

Despite the high competitor density of 30 cars, Blake Walsh would prove to be the measuring stick of the Wingless Sprints field, claiming back to back feature race wins.

The opening night win was a hard fought battle, with Walsh starting 12th for the 30 lap final, but raced his way through the field.

Dillon Siley was the runner up and meat in the Walsh sandwich as Blake’s sister Carly rounded the podium in third position.

The following day Walsh would rinse and repeat, this time it was an easier passage to the chequered flag, as he started from the front row to lead every lap for the 30-lap final.

It was a Walsh 1-2 as Carly would go one better, having worked her way from ninth. Keeping it in the family was cousin Mick Rigby who started from pole and settled for third.

Steven Hateley again flew the flag proudly for the locals with a popular fourth placing ahead of Michael Conlan and ‘super sub’ Daniel Storer who stepped in for Raymond Walliss.

The always popular V8 Trucks featured their largest field ever, with a 10 truck convoy led by founding partner Wes Bell, who after 20 plus years racing the big rigs has hung up the helmet. While Bell was the sentimental favourite, that did not stop Luke James from spoiling the party, taking the 12-lap final.

A spirited Bell dug deep in the final, to

charge from sixth to second and sharing the podium celebrations was Jaryd Carman.

The Junior Sedans were broken into three categories but the Top Stars and younger New Stars or the lesser experienced were bundled into one race, in addition to the 1200cc section.

Despite dropping back to third in the early stages, Parry Das would fight his way back to claim victory in the 15-lap final. The runner up racer was Hudson Moorfoot, who really set the cat amongst the Pigeon’s as the first runner home in the New Stars.

Jack Mills took the 1200 Sedans feature race win after a tight battle with Holly Hutchinson, the duo trading places several times over the journey.

While the Production Sedans were low on numbers with only four competitors, Modified Sedan competitor Peter Rizolli was gifted the opportunity to run with them.

While he lapped the entire field of Production Sedans and went undefeated all weekend, the Production Sedan final provided some close racing with Peter Hoggan passing Dean Hughes late in the race to take the honours.

Paris Charles

SPEEDWAY NEWS

Image: PETER NORTON

GOVERNMENT BACKS ACT SPEEDWAY DEVELOPMENT

THE 2024/25 ACT Speedway season is looking promising thanks to a funding grant from the Sport and Recreation ACT Community Sport Facilities Program.

The $180,000 grant will assist the National Capital Motorsport Club with two major infrastructure projects at the Fairbain Park facility.

These projects will be focused on improving the venue and also reducing emissions of staging events across the 2024/25 season.

They include the removal of dieselpowered light towers and the addition of new LED lights.

With the 380m clay circuit set to light up brighter than ever before, ACT Speedway spokesperson Murray Johnson believes it is a massive boost for the sport in the capital.

“We publicly thank the ACT government, the Sports Minister Yvette Berry, and Sport and Recreation ACT for awarding the National Capital Motorsports Club $180,000 in grants to continue to develop Speedway in the region,” he said.

“The club will now turn the project plans into reality, which will continue to reduce the environmental impact of the sport in the ACT Region, with the funding supporting with two major LED lighting projects which will assist with the removal temporary dieselpowered light towers, and increase the illumination of the circuit which will provide a better experience for the spectators, and importantly visibility for the drivers.

“The club will replace the low efficiency halogen track lights with LED units and remove temporary lights with permanent LED installations.

“This is a massive boost for Speedway and Motorsports in the ACT and the region, and continues the supportive and collaborative relationship between the Labour/Greens coalition ACT Government and the club, which has allowed the ACT Speedway be developed to the point that it has now hosted every Tier 1 division of Australian Speedway.”

Works will begin at ACT Speedway soon before being completed in time for the opening event of 2024/25, the ACT Speedcar Title on November 2.

Thomas Miles

NATIONALS WRAP

JOSH HAYNES has snatched back the lead of the 2024 TA2 Muscle Car Super Series in emphatic style, by sweeping the Two Days of Thunder event at Queensland Raceway.

Haynes was on a high, winning all four races around the ‘Paperclip’ to extend his series lead to 28 points ahead of Brad Gartner.

Despite a spin, the #37 started the perfect weekend on pole by being the only car to record a 1m11s lap time.

Haynes’ 1:11.9520 was a tenth clear of Tom Hayman and Gartner.

This allowed him to avoid the lap 1 drama that unfolded behind with Mark Bailey, Mark Crutcher and Hayden Jackson all clashing at Turn 1.

But Haynes was not out of the woods with Hayman applying the pressure through almost the full 12-lap contest.

However, Hayman’s assault was cut short agonisingly on the final lap where he suffered driveline issues.

This released Haynes as Gartner and Jarrod Hughes were promoted to the podium.

Haynes cruised to back to back glories in Race 2 by 2s over Gartner, while there was little in it in the fight for third.

Graham Cheney managed to get the jump on Hughes off the line and held him off by just three tenths.

Josh Thomas was the latest to suffer driveline issues, while Danny Reidy spun and Crutcher flew from last to sixth.

The action livened up on Sunday where

Haynes faced his biggest threats.

Cheney got a smashing start in Race 3, passing Gartner before outbraking Haynes to snatch the lead into Turn 3.

Chaos unfolded at Turn 4, where Des Collier turned Jason Pryde, Hayden Jackson turned John Holinger and Reidy also suffered big damage.

At the restart Haynes pounced to retake the lead from Cheney at Turn 3, but Gartner was on the charge and created a

last-lap thriller.

He caught the #37 ahead of the final lap and launched an aggressive move around the outside at Turn 4.

The pair ran side-by-side through the double left hander before Gartner ran out of road on the outside and lost momentum.

Gartner tried to have another crack in Race 4 but he was disrupted by a Safety Car for the spun Collier.

Hayman suffered more heartbreak, having done all the hard work to get into the top three, only for a steering rack failure to strike.

As a result Gartner and Hughes followed Haynes home.

The TA2s were just one part of a massive 11 categories on show at Queensland Raceway.

The Replica Tourers put on a show with

three winners from as many races.

Ian Woodward’s 1969 Camaro won the opener before John Robinson hit back in his Commodore and Stuart Walker’s Holden overcame a tough start to claim the finale.

The most consistent was Robinson, who took round honours ahead of Rex Scoles.

It was anyone’s guess in Legend Cars Australia with four winners spread across the five races.

Brendon Hourigan was the most victorious winning Races 1 and 5, whilst Race 2 was a highlight with Shane Tate winning by just 0.01s.

But it was the driver who came second best in the photo finish and did not score a single race win that was awarded round honours in Robert Hogan.

Australian Super TT, Stock Cars and Trans Am were combined and Tony Saint (Mazda RX7) Geoff Taunton (MARC Mustang) and John Prefontaine (Ford Mustang) won respectively.

The Hyundai Excels were as competitive as ever with Matt Boylett taking all three wins, but one of them was by a meagre 0.004s.

The one-make Formula RX8 championship was dominated by Brock Paine, while Beric Lynton and Daniel Studderd also took a clean sweeps in Queensland Touring Cars and Production Sports Cars respectively.

The next TA2 Muscle Car Super Series round is at The Bend on August 30-September 1.

Thomas Miles

HAYNES HITS BACK CLOSE FINISHES

THE PIARC Pathway Races at Phillip Island on June 22-23, produced some unforgettable action and nail-biting finishes.

Leading the way was the Toyota 86 Scholarship Series, which held Round 3 of the 2024 season.

The tight battles started in qualifying where Hayden Hume and Max Geoghegan were a cut above the field.

Hume ended up taking pole with a 1:50.2590, which was a tenth ahead of Geoghegan, while the next best was a further half a second back.

The opening race was a thriller with five lead changes across just 10 laps and in the end just half a second covered the top three.

Geoghegan got the early jump before Brock Stinson and Will Longmore took turns in charge as the Hume fell to fifth.

Longmore looked poised for victory, but lost it on the last lap to Geoghegan, who edged him out by 0.1317s.

Race 2 was even closer with just three tenths covering the top three cars.

Leading the way throughout the sevenlap journey was Longmore, but at the end he held on by the skin of his teeth with Geoghegan and Stinson right behind.

It all came down to the final race which was another nail biter with little in it at the front. It proved to be an arm wrestle between

Geoghegan and Longmore with the latter leading a race-high six laps.

However, Geoghegan got his nose in front when it mattered and took the race and round by 0.13s.

As usual the Hyundai Excels also raced door-to-door until the very end.

The tone was set in the opening Excel Trophy race where 0.0670s was he difference between winner Bradley James and Ryan Phillips.

James went back-to-back by the more commanding 4s margin as Phillips was busy holding off Ashton Cattach for second.

The #61 was even more dominant in Race 3, cruising to a 9s triumph, but again the

battle to be runner-up was anyone’s guess.

This time Cattach came out on top as five cars charged to the line right behind him.

James had his work cut out in Race 4 however, with Cattach on the pace and the lead swapping six times in eight laps.

Cattach controlled the penultimate lap, only

for James to sneak ahead when it mattered and completed a clean sweep by a tenth.

Timothy Rowe dominated the opening Excel Masters race, but was disqualified, handing the win to David Musgrave, who fended off Daniel Webster, Donovan Mrnjavac and Glenn Mackenzie as just fourtenths split the leading quartet.

Rowse was able to get redemption by taking out Race 2 with a second to spare on Webster.

Race 3 was another wild affair with Rowse leading all the way until the final lap, where he retired.

This left McKenzie and Donovan Mrnjavac to go for glory and the former did it.

But Mrnjavac enjoyed his time on the top step in the final race by the crazy margin of 0.0001s over Webster.

It was a bit more spread out in the 2 Litre Sports Sedans and Toyota was the car to have.

Steven Howard in a Corolla led Richard Gray’s 86 by 5s.

Race 2 saw the same result, but much closer with just less than a second splitting the drivers.

Cameron Rees was lightyears ahead of the rest in the SuperSprint, with his 1:35.4634 in a Porsche 997.2 GT3 12s clear of the rest.

TAKING THE BULL BY THE HORNS

BRETT BULL (pictured) charged to victory in the latest round of the 2024 Mount Cotton Hillclimb Series.

Bull’s 39.56s time was the only sub-40s time of the third round of the season, held on June 22-23.

His Van Diemen RF03K was more than 2s faster than his nearest rival Jim Milliner.

Bull shot out of the blocks well clear of the rest in the first run and turned up the heat come his third attempt.

This was the first time he broke the 40s barrier with a 39.64 and immediately did it again.

To ensure he remained untouchable, Bull ended the weekend with three scintillating runs that were all sub 40s.

The first was the fastest being the round-

winning 39.56 in Run 7.

Whilst Bull charged clear of the pack, it was an intense fight for second best among the Formula Libre up to 1300cc.

Jim Milliner started strong and improved gradually throughout the weekend with his 41.75 in Run 7 ultimately securing second in his OMS 2000M.

Pressing hard was Luke Weiks, but he had to settle for third a further half a second back.

Also in the 42s window completing a tight top five were Douglas Daniels and James Short, who were split by just two tenths.

Sixth overall and winning Supersports/ Sports 1300 was Ross Mackay in his Williams Sports Racer with a 43.23 time

achieved in the final run of the day. Finishing in the top 10 overall and winning Sports Sedans 2001cc and over was Douglas Anable.

There was nothing in it as Douglas edged out Scott Anable, also in a BMW, by just 0.05s.

It was not as close in Sports Sedans up to 2000cc with Tyson Cowie’s Ford Escort only needing four runs to beat Daryl Morton by beyond 2s.

Ben Stevens was in a league of his own in Production Cars driving a Lotus Elise.

Half a second split Connor Tebble and Jon Young in Clubman Sports Cars, whilst despite mossing the first four runs, both Brendan Merrick (Datsum 120Y) Phillip Rowen (Renault RS 250) and Jay Matsen

CURTIS PREVAILS

AFTER A slippery start to the SGORA

200 Matt Curtis and Grant Prior (GCR Rhino/Nissan – pictured) came home the winners at Port Germein on June 29/30.

Victorians Evan Lampard and Lee O’Grady (Southern Cross/Nissan) chased hard but eventually had to settle for second comfortably clear of third placed David and Matt Hall (Murphy/Nissan).

Mick Parham and Steve Moulder were the early leaders in their Can-Am but as the track dried they were run down by the more powerful buggies but still managed a safe fourth well clear of Sportslite winners Adrian Gardiner and Budgie Langsford.

There was only about half a minute back to David Adams (Desert Rat) with Corey and Jai Haworth (Southern Cross) next home just twenty seconds

up on Mark and Ryder Taylor (Cobra/ Mazda) after a race long tussle for Super 1650 supremacy.

Jack Livingstone and Jake Marks (Can-Am) made P9 not very far behind the battling Class 2’s while Northern Territorians Darren, Chloe and Donna Wright (Southern Cross) were the last finisher despite a gentle roll in front of the spectators.

(Honda Civic) won their respective classes.

All Wheel Drive Forced Induction was easily taken out by Adrian Purcell’s WRX, whilst Road Registered Sedan Cars 16012000cc was competitive going to Harry Doling after being pushed all the way by Mark Cunningham.

The two Improved Production classes went to David Sierra and Waco Hamlin.

Brian Melbourne (Ford Escort) David Malone (Holden Torana GTR XU-1) Bradley Smith (Hyundai Excel X3) Christopher Beahan (Allman Formula Vee) and David Roberts (MG B) were the only drivers in their respective classes.

The next hillclimb event is scheduled for 27-28 July.

Thomas Miles

Toby Reimann and Craig Redding (Scorpion/Volvo) ruined their perfect record so far in the SAORRA Multi Club Series losing a wheel on day one after the bearing failed big time recording their first DNF for 2024.

Andrew and Shannyn Fitzgerald (Element Prodigy/Chev) weren’t far off the pace in the trying conditions but broke a gearbox on day two.

Luke Mudde and Todd Curgenven (Can-Am) were right on Parham’s tail in the early laps but any chance of a good result ended on Sunday with a broken wheel bearing.

Si Heaslip was fast early in the Jimco/ Chev single seater but went out on

Saturday with fuel pump failure. Class winners were Pro Buggy the Fitzgeralds, Prolite Curtis/Prior, Super 1650 the Haworths, SXS Pro Parham/Moulder, Sportslite Gardiner/ Langsford. David Batchelor

NATIONALS WRAP

DARK AND STORMY

SYDNEY MOTORSPORT Park greeted the NSW Motor Racing Championsips with a display of inclement weather.

SIENA ROPERTI was on hand (and mostly undercover) to bring us the action.

PRODUCTION TOURING CARS

MAT HOLT took two from three races in his HSV Clubsport. Madison Down (HSV GTS) took Pole and the win in the second race. Chris Sutton (Evo 10) wasted a good start in the opener by spinning, leaving Down to take second from Matthew Kiss (Evo 10). Trevor Symonds (Commdore) took the second race from Holt and Down, while Holt, Down and Kiss took the places in the final.

IMPROVED PRODUCTION

THE OVER and Under 2-litre grids were combined, spicing up some of the racing, although the results were separated. Matty Birks put his Corolla on Pole from Matt Giunitini’s Civic. Best of the bigger cars was Luke Grech-Combo’s HSV Senator. Birks led away but a couple of scary moments dropped him back, Giuntini leading from Michael King’s EVO and Grech-Cumbo over the line.

King took the second race from Joe Lenthall’s BMW M3 and Grech-Cumbo while Birks headed Giunini in the smallbore race. In the final, Giuntini was again away quickly, winning from Ben Sheedy’s Commodore, then Grech-Cumbo.

FORMULA FORD

LIAM LOIACONO drove his Mygale to two wins from three starts. Lachie Mineef (Mygale) took the opener before finding the wall in the second race. Adrian Sarkis (Mygale)  and Loiacono took second and third in the opener.

After Mineef’s crash in the second race, Sarkis had opened a lead over a fastfinishing Loiacono but fell back into the latter’s clutches and surrendered the lead on the last lap, holding on for second.

Edison Beswick was next in a Spectrum. Loiacono made no mistake in their last race, building up a six-second lead over Sarks, with Beswick third.

SUPER SPORTS PHIL HUGHES (Radical SR8) had a great meeting, breaking through for two race wins (three if you don’t count a penalty).

Hughes made a flying start from the second row in the opener, leading into the first corner and never headed thereafter. Mark Brame and Sergio Piries followed as best they could in their Radical SR3s.

In the second race, Hughes was first over the line but was penalised for a Safety Car Restart, being a bit eager, dropping him to near the back. This left Brame to take the silverware from Paul Palmer’s Stohr and Peter Paddon’s Radical.

In the final, Hughes again made a blinding start, into the lead on lap one despite starting 7th. Brame and Palmer were next.

SUPERKARTS

FOUR RACES for the pocket-rockets, and all went to Lee Vella in his Avoig 125cc Kart. Laurie Fooks (Raider) took the fight up to Vella, and actually looked to have the third race won, before the kart stopped at the last corner, rolling over the line well in arrears. Vella took the opener from Jock Dos Santos (BRM) and Tony Moit

(Woodgate), after Fooks dropped well down. In the second, it was Vella, Fooks and Dos Santos.

In the third race, Vella, Russell Jamieson (Anderson) and Dos Santos. And in the final, Vella, Fooks and Dos Santos again.

EXCEL X3

A SMALL field of Excels fronted up, but the action was thick and fast. Connor Cooper took two wins and a second for a pretty good day. The opening race started with a fierce battle between the top five or six cars, ending on lap two with Nik Hough and Caleb Hefren taking each other out. Cooper won, from Jackson Faulkner and Blake Tracey.

Hough had gone home and Hefren was working on repairs as Tracey, Cooper and Faulkner filled the top three. In the final, Hefren came from the rear to finish an excellent second behind Cooper and ahead of Faulkner.

SPORTS SEDANS

BRAD SHIELS drove Joe Said’s FIAT –Rotary to three dominant wins. Steven Lacey (Camaro) took a trio of second places, while trying to go easy on a car that’s for sale. Chris Jackson (Calibra) was third in the first and third races, with Nick Mantikos (MARC) third in the other.

FORMULA VEE

CRAIG SPARKE was dominant, winning all three races by huge margins. Sparke, driving a Jacer, led all but two laps all meeting, the only resistance coming from Luke Collett (Jacer) who took all three second places and led those two laps. Angus Mc Donald (Jacer) took third in the first race and Michael Cooke (Stinger) the other two.

A WET TIME AT THE ISLAND

AFTER BEING re-scheduled six weeks later than the originally event date, the third round of the Victorian State Championships got underway at Phillip Island on June 29 and 30, where the mixed conditions presented a challenge for the 124 entrants contesting the weekend as STEVEN DEVRIES witnessed.

FORMULA FORD

WITH THE race victories split three separate ways and six drivers in total producing a podium finish, Queensland’s Lachlan Evennett came out on top for the round in the Duratec class by four points over Jack Bussey and by six points over Bailey Collins.

Kobi Williams dominated a wet first race by 11 seconds, where Liam Loiacono pinched the second race victory from under Williams’ nose following a one-lap dash to the finish. Jack Bussey took early control of the third race, winning by almost three seconds.

The field of seven Kent class cars yet again saw Richard Davison clean sweep the class victories. He followed up a huge win in the wet with two much closer victories as Andrew Torti and Peter Fitzgerald completed the podium positions for the class.

SALOON CARS

JACOB PRESTIPINO (VT Commodore) was made for the tricky conditions as he showed his skills in all conditions. He collected pole and two of the three race wins on offer which gave him the round overall and made him the fourth different winner in the category this season.

The only race Prestipino did not win went to Kerran Pridmore (VX Commodore) following an unforced error. Prestipino recovered and lapped significantly faster but came up fractions short of stealing the win at the finish line.

A fourth-placed finish in race one followed by a pair of third places gave Adam Lowndes (VY Commodore) enough points for third overall for the weekend.

FORMULA VEE

WITH THREE laps to go in the first race, up to 10 cars were battling for the first race’s podium positions. Ash Quiddington managed to hold off a fast-finishing Nick Jones with Damien Spinello chalking up his first career podium finish.

Quiddington doubled his win tally in race two ahead of Jones and rookie driver Rocco Spinley, with only three full laps of racing completed before a finish under the Safety Car.

In another closely fought third affair, Quiddington could not complete the hattrick of wins as Jones held him off ahead of Andre Curin – the top three covered by half a second at the finish.

SPORTS SEDANS

AN AWKWARD start to race one saw the red flag fly as Dean Camm (Chev Corvette) aborted the start with a clutch issue. At the restart, Travis Condon’s Toyota Corolla caught fire which stopped the race for good and saw no points awarded. Remarkably, Condon repaired his car and cruised to a

six-second win on Sunday morning ahead of Ben McLeod (Holden Commodore) and Camm.

McLeod was desperate for his first career win, and he finally delivered on Sunday afternoon as he held off a rampaging Condon by a car length at the finish. The pair of them were half a minute ahead of third-place finisher John Ippolito – the three drivers rewarded as the top three points scorers for the round.

IMPROVED PRODUCTION

A SIGNIFICANT start-line accident involving three cars prevented Race 1 from getting any further than the first corner. As a result, the race did not restart.

A late twist of fate robbed Jarrod Tonks (VY Commodore) of his fourth consecutive win of the season when his car slowed exiting Turn 11 on the final lap, gifting a maiden win to Kaide Lehmann (VE Commodore) ahead of James Atkison (VX Commodore) and Jinwook Song (VE Commodore).

Tonks scythed his way through the field

from 17th in the final race, passing 13 cars on the first lap to seize the win over Atkinson and Lehmann and minimise the points lost along with losing the championship lead.

BMW E30s

THE EVER-CONSISTENT Ashley Rogers posted two second place finishes along with a third to give him round honours overall ahead of Martin Taylor and Zachary Dunn. Surprisingly, neither of the weekend’s race winners featured in the top three drivers for the round.

Benjamin Munro was supreme in slippery conditions with a five second opening race win, but his jubilation was short-lived as he retired in the next race after one lap. The second and third race victories went to Royce Lyne – himself bouncing back after having retired from the first race of the weekend.

HQ HOLDENS

RYAN WOODS mastered both the wet and dry conditions best, snaring pole and clean sweeping the weekend. He dominated the opening race by 25 seconds but had to be content with two much smaller but comfortable winning margins in the weekend’s remaining races.

After two second-placed finishes, Rod Raatjes did not start the final race which elevated Andrew McLeod to second outright, Steve Banks to third, and Ray Jardine to fourth for the round.

HISTORIC TOURING CARS

SEVEN CARS started the weekend but only four saw the track in anger as Adrian Moyle led a trio of Chevrolet Camaros around the circuit for all three races.

Brent Trengrove finished second and Geoff Munday finished third on all three occasions behind Moyle, with the only non-Camaro of William Trengrove (Ford Mustang) only completing one of the weekend’s three races.

NATIONALS WRAP

BORDER RAID SUCCESS! NSW HAS THE RIGHT MOVES

NOT FOR the first time have NSW crews ventured south of the Murray to enjoy Victorian rallying, and showed up the locals for speed, if not reliability.

This was the case at the Fast Track Towing Nissan Nightmoves based out of Heathcote on June 22, Round 3 of the Victorian Club Rally Series.

Four time entrant and Nightmoves unofficial marketing man, Nathan Quinn was back for his fourth crack at it, with others from his home state.

Held after dark in dry conditions over seven stages, two of which were 30km, it was left to Victorian hotshots Stratford/ Staltari and Tim and Leonie Clark to match it with the NSW crews, but from the off it

was the NSW crews dominating.

Brad Luff/James Brown (WRX), fastest on the first two stages, were then overtaken by Tim Wilkins/Ray Winwood-Smith (EVO3).

All the while Quinn (Mazda RX-2) with service crewman Brett Kerr beside him were pressing the All Wheel Drives and fastest on Stage 3 was enough to grab second overall.

Luff though, did have issues with a spin and finding gears.

Meanwhile, Tim and Leonie Clark were pressing hard as they do, with fourth or better on every stage, eventually earning third place.

The Quinn charge faltered when the Rotary’s exhaust manifold melted! Eventually diagnosed as a problem with

the leading/trailing ignition system, it was Stratford’s crew that fashioned a repair, Stratford having done damage leaving the road on Stage 3.

Quinn also had a scary lights-out moment when the headlamp wiring melted as he slipped in to top gear on Stage 6, the ignition problem not diagnosed at that point.

It was Luff/Brown who led into the last stage before slamming heavily into a bank leaving them to take second place.

Trouble too for Ray Winwood-Smith, co-driving for Tim Wilkins. Their EVO3 was dropping into ‘limp mode’ on the last three stages.

Wilkins drove up a gear and finessed it home, never out of the top three stage times

for the win. That gave Ray his third win at the Nightmoves.

Best in 2WD were Darkie Barr-Smith/ Andrew Travis (Commodore) taking a fine fifth and a class win.

Darkie this year electing to stop at the passage control and avoid penalties! Series leaders Wald/Elliott (12th)lost out in choking dust to Semmens/Parry (seventh), the gap closing to just two points with two rounds to go.

Victorian Rally Championship standings after Round 3: Wald/Elliott 72, Semmens/Parry 70, Shepherd/Shepherd 38, Linkaer /Thomas 38, Trucano/Thaw 31

Alan Baker

TURNING BACK THE CLOCK

AS THE newer spec cars chased ARC honours, fans enjoyed a step back in time in the Queensland Rally Championship at Rally Queensland.

Leading the way was Clayton Hoy and Andrew Bennett (pictured) in a 1998 Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 6 covered in the iconic colours of Tommi Makinen.

Hoy did the paint scheme proud by leading both heats and taking a commanding win over young Ryan Williams in the third round of the Queensland Rally Championship, which ran on the same stage as the Australian Rally Championship.

He was the third winner in as many QRC rounds after Glenn Brinkman landed the first blow for Mitsubishi in Manumbar and Williams’ Subaru claimed the Coffs Coast Rally.

But Hoy was on another level at the biggest round of the year and set the pace from as early as the opening stage, being sixth fastest overall.

However, Williams showed he was here to play as well by taking out the second stage.

But by the end of the opening heat, Hoy was well clear and opened up a 29s advantage on Williams thanks to five successive stage wins.

This was enough to be an impressive fifth outright after the first day, whilst he got to as high as fourth in SS7.

Despite having a strong advantage up his sleeve, Hoy did not slow down on Sunday, being in the top five overall straight away.

Stage 10 was a closer affair with Williams coming within 2s of the Evo and even

winning Stage 12 and ending his rival’s run of success, albeit by just 2s.

Fittingly on the same weekend as the Glastonbury Festival, the rally drivers also took on a stage called Glastonbury where Hoy silenced any hope of a Williams comeback by shooting another 20s clear.

Hoy finished it off in style by winning the Power Stage in sixth overall with Williams 10th and Brinkman 12th.

In addition to QRC honours, it ensured Hoy and Bennett came home an impressive

fourth overall on points ahead of many of the ARC stars.

Williams was equal seventh with Peter Rullo as Josh Wiedman held off Brinkman to complete the QRC podium driving another 20th century car, a 1999 Subaru Impreza WRX.

Leading 2WD honours were Ryan Smart and Holly Kilbride in a 1979 Datsun Stanza. Both the Junior and Clubman trophies were taken out by Subarus. Williams’ front-running pace was enough to outrun Wiedman as Ben Christensen in a 1998 Hyundai Excel joined them on the podium. Clubman went to Shane and Sylvie Garner and their 1994 Subaru WRX. Tyler Broughton and Brett Hausmann were top of the table in Novice in their 1999 Hyundai Excel.

They managed to overcome Sam Donovan and Scott Ferris, who pushed a 1976 Volkswagen Beetle to its limits. Classic honours went to Brian O’Neill/ Mac Kierans in their 1979 Ford Escort Mk II. The next Queensland Rally Championship round is Imbil on August 24. Thomas Miles

PERFECT PEDDER

SCOTT PEDDER AND CO-DRIVER GLEN MACNEALL WOUND BACK THE CLOCK IN QUEENSLAND, CLAIMING THEIR FIRST AUSTRALIAN RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP WIN IN A DECADE TO LEAD A SKODA 1-2-3 UPSET. TIMOTHY W NEAL REPORTS …

IN HOT and dusty conditions across Queensland’s Gympie and Imbil regions, the third round off the ARC saw the dominant Toyota Rally2 machinery knocked off the top step by the Pedders Suspension and Brakes 2018 Skoda Fabia-R5.

Victorian Pedder not only took his first win since Coffs Harbour in 2014, when he took out the ARC title, but led Skoda to a 1-2-3 finish.

It was the first time since Round 2 in WA last season where there hasn’t been one of the dominant Toyota Bates brothers on the top-step, with Pedder’s win also elevating him into the title fight, only 11 points behind Harry Bates.

The former International rally competitor found himself 58.9 seconds to the good after Saturday’s Heat 1 over the chasing Skoda’s, with both Harry (ARC leader) and Lewis Bates having to retire early in the day.

Heat 2 saw a ring-ding battle between Pedder and the championship leading Toyota, but his fight on the timing sheets was with the other Czech machines of which the #3 was comfortably in the green.

“It’s a lot of relief, to be honest and 10 years in the making,” Pedder said.

“We knew we had the pace – we’ve just been unlucky for the first two events, but it came together over the last two days thanks to some luck we had with other competitors bombing out ... but it feels fantastic.

“I started the year saying if I finished every heat and you’re relatively conservative you can win the Championship. With the points system the way it is, you can’t afford to drop heats, and that’s the plan moving forward. You’ve just got to finish.”

Second place went to Eddie Maguire and Zak Brakey in the 2019 Skoda which consolidated third in the championship, whilst Steve Maguire and Ben Searcy took

third in the same model R5.

Fourth outright went to a Mitsubishi EVO pairing Clayton Hoy and Andrew Bennett, who also stood on top of the Production Cup podium for the first time this season.

Jamie and Bradley Luff headed up the top five in their GR Yaris AP4, whilst Harry Bates and Coral Taylor had to settle for sixth, fighting back after crashing just 2.2km into the first stage of Heat 1.

“I’m really sorry to the team for my mistake yesterday. It’s pretty costly and obviously has put a dent in our championship aspirations – but just thankful to them that we’re able to repair it and come back fighting today,” Bates said on Sunday.

“It’s really tight now between Scott and I, so it’s exciting at the halfway point in the season, and I knew that it was going to come down to some pretty tight battles between us.”

Rounding out the top-10, Peter Rullo/ James Marquet and Ryan Williams/Brad Jones shared seventh in their respective Hyundai and Subaru machines, whilst last years Production Cup champions Bodie

Reading/Mark Young took eighth on their ARC return in the ’99 Impreza, over Heat 2 movers Alex Rullo/Steve Glenney in the i20 Rally2.

On the opening Saturday Peddar was a clean machine in taking a clean sweep of stage wins in a masterclass that wound back the clock, with the #5 Maguire Skoda taking six runner up spots.

After Bates/Taylor lost their rear in a slight left hander in Stage 1, Lewis Bates and Anthony McLoughlin may have seen their title hopes go up in dust after a Stage 4 roll-over which put a line through their QLD outing.

Meanwhile, an entertaining battle between Production Cup leader Molly Taylor and the Hoy Mitsubishi had the former champion on top in her Subaru, in fourth overall. Heat 2 was highlighted by the Pedder/ Bates battle, with Saturday’s winner showing no sign of easing up, leading that stoush until a Stage 4 puncture saw the 2023 champion take the ascendancy, taking the final three outings, and the bonus points power stage to add vital

points and some championship breathing room from Pedder.

In the Production battle, Taylor’s good work came undone on Stage 1 when they broke the front drive shaft, allowing Hoy to comfortably take the second tier win.

Rounding out the ARC Cups saw Peter Dimmock and Paul Bennett claim the 2WD Classic Cup with a Heat 2 class win, whilst in the ARC 2WD Cup, Justin Northage and Scott Muhling took out the win, And in the ARC Junior Cup stakes, it was Mitch Garrad and Taylah Murphy with two heat wins to finish on top.

With the championship at the halfway mark, tipping it into the second half of the year is the expectedly cold and crisp Victorian round, with the Gippsland Rally on August 9-11.

ARC STANDINGS AFTER 3 ROUNDS

Harry Bates 207

Scott Peddar 196

Eddie Maguire 182

Alex Rullo 149

Steve Maguire 137

SUPERCARS SUPPORTS

OWEN STARS IN BIG RACE

IT WAS a new era with new cars for the newly named Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia GR Cup and one driver shone brightly.

Bradi Owen (pictured) made a name for himself by winning all three races at the Townsville Street Circuit.

The historic first race only lasted five laps due to multiple incidents.

James Lodge got a lightening start ahead of Owen, but only led six corners before Owen dived down the inside at Turn 7.

This proved to be critical as it came moments before the Safety Car and eventual red flag was called to collect Harrison Blanchard as he was deep in the Turn 2 tyres having hit the wall side-on at the previous, fast right hander.

When racing resumed again, only half a lap was possible before another major incident, where Lachlan Gibbons was sent head first into the Turn 6 tyres.

Race 2 was a much cleaner affair, where Geoghegan took the lead with a committed move around the outside of Owen at Turn 2.

But again the #25 found a response with a smart move down towards the hairpin.

The experienced ‘guest’ driver

Jayden Ojeda found himself the victim of an aggressive battle for third being spun at the Turn 7-8 chicane.

Lodge snuck past Geoghegan to snare second in a door-to-door battle resolved moments before the Safety Car scrambled for James Wilkins who was spun by Zane Rinaldi.

In the last, Owen completed a commanding clean sweep in familiar style by overcoming some rivals.

Second-row starters Geoghegan and Matt Hillyer made fast starts to setup a thrilling opening lap.

Geoghegan and Owen ran side by side from Turns 2 to 7 where the latter hit the lead.

It arrived just before the Safety Car for Brock Stinson who was in the fence.

When racing resumed, Geoghegan dropped from second to fifth as Hillyer and James Lodge secured podium berths.

The Toyotas return in a fortnight at SMP.

Thomas Miles

GARLAND GETS IT DONE

A PERFECT Sunday saw Kody Garland catapult himself to the round victory in another competitive Aussie Racing Cars battle at Townsville.

Despite Garland’s fast finish proving overwhelming, Joel Heinrich appeared in ominous form by taking a domain pole and backed it up with Race 1 victory.

He retained pole and took a lights-toflag win, but it was closer than it seemed.

Garland shot from fifth to second off the line and later in the race had a crack at Turn 2, but ran wide, allowing Heinrich to perform the switchback and maintain his advantage with Mason Harvey joining Garland on the podium.

Heinrich prevailed in a tightly contested Race 2 where Garland led early as the #1

also dropped behind Cody Brewczynski. Drama at Turn 2 saw Garland lose track position as Anthony DiMauro came from nowhere and set up a thrilling fight for glory.

The four-car pack squabbled for track position, but the big winner to emerge from the battle was clearly Heinrich as he shot 4s clear as Garland won the mighty battle for second from Brewczynski as DiMauro dropped out of the top five with a lockup at the hairpin.

In the inverse grid Race 3, Kent Quinn started on pole and he held off a fast-starting Garland before a Safety Car arrived for a clash between Chad Chapman and Zac Schonberger, while Andrew Cornish was also stopped.

When racing resumed Garland disposed of Quinn instantly and won by 3s.

The fight for both the race and round win was anyone’s guess for the first four laps of the final race, where Heinrich and Garland wrestled hard.

But the race-changing moment arrived on lap four where Heinrich spun at Turn 1 after contact with Harvey.

This shot Garland clear and a 2.8s win over Brewczynski gave him a critical round win as Heinrich recovered to fourth, but fell one point short.

Aussie Racing Cars are back on the Supercars supports card in Tasmania on August 16-18.

Thomas Miles

JUMPING CLEAR

OSCAR TARGETT tightened his grip on the championship lead of the Porsche Sprint Challenge with another round win.

The Townsville round was a significant one for the championship, being the first ever held on a street circuit.

Fans wiping the sleep out of their eyes early on Saturday morning would have been wide awake after Conor Somers thankfully walked away from an enormous crash at Turn 10.

Somers clipped another slow-moving car on entry to the fast right hander, which launched him and sent him flying into the outside catch fencing.

He landed on his roof and was able to climb from the crash, but the car was ruled out for the rest of the weekend.

Qualifying was cut short due to barrier repairs and Hamish Fitzsimmons had pole but threw it away in strange circumstances.

He missed his grid spot due to radio issues and stopped around 20m beyond the grid which delayed the start – which meant he was forced to go racing from pit lane.

This put Clay Osborne in charge ahead of Brock Gilchrist, but it did not take long for Targett to pick both of them off and hit the lead.

From there he never looked back as the

opener ended under Safety Car due to a clash between Ayrton Hodson, Caleb Sumich, Jake Santalucia and Aron Shields.

Targett protected pole in the Endurance Race but was forced to vigorously defend the lead from Gilchrist.

The Kiwi attacked on several occasions but could not quite make the move with Osborne in third, while Fitzsimmons made up 10 spots to fourth.

The big charge gave Ftizsimmons a shot at redemption and he made the most of it in the finale.

A fresh set of tyres meant he needed just two laps to hit the lead and from there he was untouchable.

In the 20 minute sprint, he took a commanding 9s win which became a 4s triumph due to a post race penalty.

Targett still did enough to easily protect his round win with second ahead of Gilchrist.

Townsville round wins also went to Danny Stutterd (Pro-Am) and Brad Carr (Class B).

The next round is at Queensland Raceway on August 2-4.

Thomas Miles

JACK IS BACK

JACK PERKINS HAS BEEN IN AND OUT OF THE DUNLOP SERIES SINCE 2006, BUT HIS LATEST WEEKEND, AT TOWNSVILLE, COULD BE HIS HIGHLIGHT.

TO PREPARE for the enduros, Perkins returned to Super2 and, after a tough 2023 campaign, was back to his best.

The BRT Mustang, decked out in 1979 Peter Janson and Larry Perkins colours, gave the second-generation racer the chance to end a long-awaited drought, recording his first Super2 pole, race and round wins in 11 years.

It was all enough to bring Perkins to the verge of tears, but he was not the only star of the weekend, with Kai Allen tightening his grip on the championship with a dominant drive on Sunday.

Perkins announced himself in Saturday qualifying, where he showed he had lost none of his speed in a tight and eventful session where some big names battled.

Cooper Murray thought he had done enough to take pole after emerging on top from a frantic few minutes, only for Perkins to produce a 1:14.0495 and sneak ahead by 0.09s, while Allen could only manage 13th.

Whilst it was a big moment for Perkins, the best was yet to come.

When the lights went out the BRT driver got a perfect start – and he would have been thankful as chaos unfolded in his mirrors with an intense fight for second only lasting two corners.

Vaughan and Murray were leading the charge, but made contact going through the left-handed kink as they chased the same bit of road.

Vaughan appeared to be in front and tried to cover the Eggleston Commodore, but there was overlap and the Tickford Mustang was sent hard into the inside concrete.

Behind them a similar incident took place on the other side of the track with McLeod spearing into the outside fence. Zach Bates, who had team-mate

Campbell Logan tag his rear, hit McLeod, which sent the recently-rebuilt PremiAir ZB Commodore hard into the concrete. Jordyn Sinni was collateral damage with Bates also spearing into him side-on, whilst Logan ended up in the rear of Murray’s car.

The end result saw Sinni, McLeod, Vaughan, Murray and Logan all first-lap retirements.

Bates survived with significant front end damage and tried to press on in second but got shuffled down the pack straight away.

This promoted Aaron Cameron and Max Vidau up to second and third behind Perkins, who was in complete control.

His lead grew out to almost 6s before the race-ending Safety Car was called for Dean Fiore.

Fiore, subbing for the absent Jett Johnson, who is taking a break for mental health related reasons, suffered a brake failure at Turn 3, which saw the Mustang fly deep into the tyres.

The scary accident saw his weekend cut short.

Before the incident, Allen was busy making up for his disappointing qualifying and he charged from 13th to fifth in a critical drive to limit damage to his championship lead.

It proved to be a warning shot as the Eggleston Motorsport driver found top gear on Sunday.

Although he was beaten in qualifying by the fast Zach Bates, who enjoyed a maiden pole, Allen nailed the start and was never seen again.

Yet again, the tightening run from Turn 2 to Turn 3 created more first lap drama as Brad Vaughan, Rylan Gray, Cody Burcher, Cody Gillis and Cody Burcher all ended up in the run off.

It was a result of a five-car chain of nose-to-tail contact in the braking area with Vaughan, who received a three-place

grid penalty for blocking Perkins, the first pushed off.

The last bit of contact was made by Jobe Stewart, who stayed on the racing line but with front end damage also received a pit lane penalty.

Before that unfolded, Bates bogged it down, but still clung onto second as Perkins shot to third, as Image Racing rookie Jarrod Hughes did not make the most of his career best starting spot and dropped from third to 10th.

Despite the early drama, the race stayed green in what became the longest Dunlop Series race ever at Townsville with 29 laps recorded.

Across the first half of the race, little separated the top three and an exciting battle was in prospect.

However, Allen masterfully managed his tyres compared to his rivals and cruised to a 6s win as Bates and Perkins worried about themselves.

A couple of mistakes from Bates got Perkins interested, but the WAU driver was able to hold onto second.

Although he was caught up in the Turn 3 drama, Burcher won the two-car fight in Super3.

With Cameron battling in 12th, Allen was able to re-cement his authority in the Super2 standings ahead of Sandown in September.

Thomas Miles

DUNLOP SERIES POINTS AFTER ROUND 3

1 Kai Allen 801 points

2 Aaron Cameron 687

3 Zach Bates 648

4 Max Vidau 597

5 Jarrod Hughes 522

FORD FIGHTBACK SUPERCARS

OFF

THE back of a one-sided Darwin Triple Crown and with Triple Eight flying in 2024, it felt like the historical trend of Townsville would likely continue.

However, that was far from the case with Triple Eight not only well below its best, but Ford seizing upon its opportunity and flying.

A Mustang was in P1 in all-but one session throughout the weekend and, importantly, won both races.

It was just the third time in the 17-round history of the Townsville event that Ford had swept the weekend.

Cam Waters, Chaz Mostert and Matt Payne spearheaded the Mustang assault, producing some special performances.

The Saturday race was especially special, being one of the best ever seen at the North Queensland street circuit.

It had everything from strategy to the latest instalment of a storied rivalry, cat and mouse battles and even a late shower.

Whilst the victor of Sunday’s 88-lap affair enjoyed a more simpler route to glory thanks

to a strategy masterclass, there was still a dose of drama with what could become one of the biggest flashpoints of the 2024 title fight.

FLYING START

WATERS ENJOYED one of the most complete weekends of his career and the potential was evident from the outset.

The #6 Monster Mustang was unbeatable on Friday, topping both practice sessions with his teammate Thomas Randle in hot pursuit.

Although Tickford’s Rod Nash feared teams would step up when it mattered, Waters remained the benchmark come the Shootout.

Having been denied provisional pole by a sick Will Davison by a slender 0.0012s margin,

In the one-lap dash where some drivers struggled with the low grip conditions, Waters was on fire, being the only driver to record a 1m13s time.

His 1:13.7232 was three tenths clear of next best Mostert as Fords filled the first two rows with Le Brocq leading the Camaros.

OLD RIVALRY, NEW EPISODE

THE WATERS v Mostert rivalry is one of the biggest of the current era with countless clean and messy contents over the last eight years.

But their latest arm-wrestle fighting for victory in Saturday’s Race 13 is possibly their best as it captivated fans from start to finish.

The pair ran side-by-side off the line and it was not until Turn 2 that their preliminary contest was resolved with the Tickford driver prevailing on the inside.

Although Waters had decent initial speed, Mostert reeled him in as the stint progressed

before being the first to pit on Lap 24. Waters waited until lap 28 to box and rejoined just four-tenths ahead of the #25, which fired a big move at Turn 11 and made it stick to steal the effective lead, but not without contact.

By Lap 52 their battle was on again with Waters now on the attack – and it was a case of third time lucky.

This multi-lap squabble brought both Davison and Randle into the mix, but their cameos were only brief.

Once the final round of stops were complete, Mostert, with a fuel advantage, emerged in the lead, while Waters was down in fifth, also behind Le Brocq, but critically with fresher tyres.

Waters put them to good use, picking off his first three rivals to set his sights on Mostert as the box office battle recommenced with nine laps to go.

To add further drama, a sudden short but heavy downpour arrived on the track, but it only took the Tickford star two laps to launch an attack on the WAU leader with a big dive at Turn 2.

Mostert tried to fight back with looks at Turns 3 and 7 but the Tickford driver held on.

Although that was the final instalment, it was a battle that will live long in the memory.

Both drivers were buzzing afterwards, whilst Mostert lamented the arrival of the rain.

“It was such an awesome race and battling it out like normal,” Waters said.

“Chaz had a bit of pace at the start of the stint and I had better pace at the end of the stint.”

“I am disappointed to come second. I tried to fight and look after the tyres the best I could,” Mostert said.

“It was good racing but I just could not quite hang on. The sudden shower that threw a spanner in the works with 12 to go.”

COMEBACK KINGS

WHILST THE spotlight was on the Waters v Mostert battle, there were a countless amount of from a wild race.

The driver who joined them on the podium, Will Brown, did not think he would be in contention to receive a trophy.

Brown started 13th after a disappointing qualifying and was staring down the barrel of a potentially damaging race to his championship hopes, with Feeney eighth.

But the #87 was once again on fire in the race, steadily rising throughout the 88-lap journey with good tyre life, especially in the middle stint to set up a podium assault at the death.

A good battle with Randle completed Brown’s special blitz to third was complete.

Engineer Andrew Edwards could not believe the result and reckoned a lot of it was down to the driver’s care with the rubber.

“He thought his Taupo drive was the best of his life, but I reckon that one was incredible,” Edwards said.

“It was perfect. He did an amazing job, showed patience, and looked after it. Getting a podium from where we started was really impressive.

“It’s hard to get that balance right. You don’t want to under-drive it, and he’s gotta make it up to the leaders, but you don’t want to work the tyre too hard. It’s a fine balance, and he did a good job of it.”

For two thirds of the race, Davison appeared in a strong position to at least collect a trophy.

Just before the final stops the #17 sat second, but the race pace just disappeared in the final stint and the DJR veteran ended up eighth and he was at a loss to explain why.

“All in all a lot of positives from the day and I was having a really fun race until the last stint, where with about 20 laps to go I lost all competitiveness and grip on the tyres,” Davison said.

“We were in contention there for the podium and completely lost everything with 20 to go.

“So whether it’s damaged a tyre or just something’s gone amiss ... it’s a bit disheartening because we were sort of faultless and in a good, competitive spot.”

One driver who flew past Davison was Payne as the Kiwi’s #19 Mustang came alive in the final stint.

Payne charged from eighth to fourth in the final stint as he drove “flat out” and often lapped more than a second faster than his rivals. It was an ominous sign of things to come.

Few drivers had a more dramatic afternoon than Cameron Hill.

The #4 MSR Camaro started 19th and was spun on the opening lap by Macauley Jones. But by running long in both stints, Hill enjoyed a tyre advantage for the run home and soared to 10th in “one of my best drives so far in my career.”

Two drivers who were unable to make any comebacks were Anton De Pasquale and Brodie Kostecki, who were victims of first lap shenanigans.

De Pasquale was the meat in a Camaro sandwich with Nick Percat on the outside and Kostecki on the inside in the evertightening run up to Turn 3. With the Ford being squashed, the #11 was left with significant enough damage in the steering

arm and damper sections.

Kostecki carried on, but just a few 100m later he spun Jaxon Evans and ended up crossing the line 19th.

TRIPLE EIGHT’S TYRE TROUBLE MUCH TO everyone’s shock in the paddock, the one-lap struggles for Brown and Triple Eight carried on into Sunday.

SUPERCARS

Brown battled even more in the second attempt at qualifying, only managing 17th, half a second off the pace.

Triple Eight Team Principal Jamie Whincup offered an initial explanation stating the team struggled to get the most out of a changed batch of tyres. “The competition is strong of course, but we have not been able to light the tyre up, so to speak,” he said.

“We have done the usual things but don’t seem to have the overall grip.

“There is a change in batch this weekend. It is still the same compound and Dunlop tyre, but a batch change.

“Our cars don’t seem to have suited the batch change but it is the same for everyone and we just got to do a better job at adjusting from the old one to the new one.”

FROM BAD TO WORSE

IF BROWN thought qualifying was bad, worse things were coming in Race 14 as he suffered the first setback of his impressive Triple Eight career so far.

The championship leader’s perfect run of top 10 finishes and 12 podiums out of 13 was over just two corners into Race 14.

Brown was in a Team 18 sandwich with Mark Winterbottom on his inside, but was not aware of David Reynolds on his outside.

As a result the #87 went to cut across to the outside as the field negotiated the kink and made contact with Reynolds.

The #20 was helpless as the contact sent Brown head-first into the concrete. Although Brown was able to carry on, he crawled to last and was three laps down.

As a result his 141-point lead was almost halved by the seventh placed Feeney with the deficit now only 78.

Brown put his hand up straight away.

“The whole day was pretty terrible to be honest,” he said.

“I had an incident on the first lap which was my own fault.

“I didn’t realise (David) Reynolds was there because I was focussing on (Mark) Winterbottom and making sure I kept a distance from him.

“I didn’t realise we were three-wide and just moved across a little bit too far which was completely my fault.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

JACK LE Brocq put Erebus Motorsport back on top with a smashing Shootout lap on his birthday.

Le Brocq, with a 1:14.2467s, just eclipsed the rapid Waters by 0.0016s to claim Erebus a first pole as reigning champions.

It was a strange session with James Courtney being the first out, but setting the

third-fastest time despite a whack with the outside wall on the exit of Turn 3.

With the sun coming out and drivers reporting a vastly changed and more slippery track surface to qualifying, many struggled to nail their one lap.

But Le Brocq did record a special second career pole and first with Erebus – and it all arrived on his 32nd birthday.

“A bit of birthday luck,” Le Brocq jokes.

“It is unreal. Super stoked for the guys and girls at Erebus.

“It has been coming and we found some good gains at Darwin and continued it here this weekend.”

Unfortunately Le Brocq could not make the most of his second career pole and bogged it down off the line.

As the Tickford drivers flew ahead, the #9 also dropped behind Davison in the early stages.

Le Brocq then used the undercut to be nose-to-tail with Waters before the final stop, which threw the Erebus driver back into podium contention, splitting the Monster Mustang and Mostert.

Although it only took six laps for the #25 to catch Le Brocq and knock him off the podium, the Erebus driver kept Randle at arm’s length to secure fourth as overwhelmingly the leading Camaro.

It was a nice boost for Le Brocq – his best result in Erebus colours – while Kostecki slumped from ninth to 18th having reported steering issues all weekend.

The other Shootout star Courtney did not have much of a race and the ‘veteran’ drifted to 16th.

PERFECT PAYNE

A GROVE Racing win appeared to be a matter of time earlier in the year, but things did not fall its way.

Supercars RACE REPORT Round

Some might have wondered if the team’s chance had passed having been off the pace in recent rounds.

However, Payne and Grove Racing stamped their authority by taking a crushing victory in style.

The #19 Mustang had the perfect mix of car pace, tyre life, smart strategy and driving to

be dominant in Sunday’s 88-lap affair. Payne perfectly executed a data-driven three-stop strategy to win by 6s and leave the likes of Waters and Mostert to fight for a distant second.

To make the feat even more impressive, the 21-year-old Kiwi achieved it all from down in 10th on the grid.

But the rapid speed of the Penrite rocket was evident instantly as it flew through the field in the opening stint.

It took just nine laps for Payne to hit the top four, while he knocked Randle out of third before being the first to pit on Lap 19.

Having committed to a three-stop, Payne put the foot down and built a huge 15s advantage over his nearest fellow threestopping rival, Mostert.

Despite having a longer fuel stop, the #19 rejoined 8s clear of Mostert and, critically, cleared lapped traffic early in the stint. With each passing lap at this point, it was clear Payne was pulling the race his way and

he even caught the rear of Waters before his final stop on Lap 63.

With Waters on the two-stop and boxing two laps earlier, the battle of the brains would be determined when the Grove Racing youngster was released.

The three-stop strategy proved to be the answer as Payne resumed racing with a handy 5s buffer and was never challenged from there.

Just like Adelaide, Payne showed maturity and pace beyond his years and admitted it was a timely success after a disappointing trip to Darwin.

“I am just happy to be back where we belong,” Payne said.

“We have had a tough couple of rounds and knew we had a good race car on Saturday so we tried to put it all together with a different strategy. We pushed the whole way and it was tough work but very rewarding.

“We had our heads high after Adelaide last year and had good confidence coming into this year but it has been a bit more frustrating than what we would have liked so to get a win here is a massive morale boost we needed.”

Others to make good use of the threestop strategy were Mostert, Ryan Wood and James Golding.

Mostert didn’t quite have the same pace as Payne, but utilised it to stay on the podium, while the WAU youngster rose from 12th to sixth and Golding charged from 18th to 10th.

With Ford back on the front foot, suddenly a fascinating battle awaits when Supercars race under the Sydney stars on July 19-21.

INTERNATIONAL

FINN ON THE LIMITS

DESPITE HAVING LITTLE TO NO

PREPARATION FOR THE 80TH RALLY POLAND, KALLE ROVANPERA DELIVERED A TIMELY REMINDER TO THE RALLY1 FIELD OF THE RARE ABILITIES THAT NETTED HIM BACK-TO-BACK CHAMPIONSHIPS. TIMOTHY W NEAL REPORTS …

THE SEVENTH round of the FIA World Rally Championship made the championship’s first visit to Poland since 2017 and delivered two-fold in pure speed and driver skill, as Kalle Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Haltunnen won for the second time this season in front of large crowds.

Rovanpera wasn’t initially due to compete in Poland, but a pre-race crash in reconnaissance involving Toyota’s other world champion, part-timer Sebastien Ogier, led to his withdrawal, alongside co-driver Vincent Landais.

Driving a road-going GR Yaris at legal speeds on public roads, Ogier collided with a civilian vehicle and incurred minor head injuries, whilst tragically, the 69-year-old local driver passed away unexpectedly several days later.

The limited prep did little to deter a determined Rovanpera who, prior to Rally Poland, admitted his standards had slipped in his part-time role after ceding rally leads at both Sweden and Portugal.

His 13th WRC win saw him parry off Hyundai’s Norwegian part-timers Andreas Mikkelsen by the Saturday, whilst he then held off and gapped team-mate and championship contender Elfyn Evans on the Sunday by 28.3 seconds, with Ford M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux taking third.

“It has been an amazing week and quite a tough week: we have been working hard and I feel quite tired now!” Rovanpera said.

“With the limited preparation we had, it was not so easy on this kind of fast rally where you need to keep pushing. I think we did everything we could, working all the time with the tight schedule that we had and keeping to our plan on the stages, and it all paid off in the end.”

It was an important second place for Evans who leapfrogged Hyundai’s Ott Tanak in the

championship standings after the Estonian’s rally was ruined by a wild deer on the Friday, whilst fellow i20N driver Thierry Neuville still leads the title race by 15 points despite a fourth place finish.

Poland’s return to the world scene however, will unfortunately come under the microscope again after crowd control issues marred the Friday, with two stages cancelled due to spectators standing in dangerous areas. It was a feature of the last WRC Poland event in 2017, and will need to be re-addressed if the popular roads are to return in 2025.

The other glaring point was the WRC’s new points system which awards separate Saturday and Sunday points. Although it sees drivers pushing where they otherwise wouldn’t have, there needs to be a rethink, with the hobbled Tanak still walking away from Poland only six points worse off than Evans despite finishing in 39th.

The two-way opening stage in front of large crowds at Mikolajki’s main square in the country’s north saw Sardinia winner Tanak take the stage over Neuville after the Estonian also set the pace in

Thursday’s shakedown.

That led into an action Friday which had a planned 110km in hot and humid conditions, with stages three and seven cancelled owing to the spectator issues.

It was on Stage 2 in Stanczyki when Tanak collided with a deer, which caused significant damage to the front of the newengined Hyundai, forcing his hand early.

That saw Mikkelsen take control by winning that stage as well as the fourth, leading the day by a slender 1.8s over a stalking Rovanpera.

And whilst Evans would never leave the top three to be third overnight, it was Martin Sesks, a 24-year-old Latvian rookie in a non-hybrid Ford Puma Rally1 that turned heads. Although he’d finish

fifth by the eighth stanza, he hovered in second position for much of the day, whilst teammate Fourmaux held fourth.

Seven stages and 124.1 km punctuated Saturday, as well as hot and quick conditions, and the two time champ. Rovanpera was dominant in the GR Yaris, despite fighting severe degradation of his elected mix of four Pirelli softs and one hard. Mikkelsen, on the hard rubber, could only hold the Finn off for one leading stage as well as winning the SS11, but six stage victories saw Rovanpera lead by 9.4sec over him and Evans.

With Rovanpera not needing personal championship points, he could afford to be defensive in the final 63km (four stages) whilst Tanak went about scoring bonus points in the opening two stanzas. Mikkelsen blew a tyre early which ripped apart his rear wheel arch, forcing him to cruise over the final stages and lose his podium, which promoted Evans into P2 and Fourmaux into third. That’s how it stood in the end, with Neuville, Sesks, Mikkelsen, Gregoire Munster, and Takamoto Katsuta rounding out the Rally1s.

Completing the top 10 was Rally2 winner Sami Pajari for Toyota, with Oliver Solberg (Skoda) in second, whilst the WRC2 podium was completed by another Fabia RS driver Robert Firves in P11.

With six rounds remaining in 2024, next up is the WRC debut of Rally Latvia on July 18-21 with the top three contenders split by just 16 points.

WRC STANDINGS AFTER 7 ROUNDS Neuville 136 Evans 121

Tanak 115

Ogier 92

Fourmaux 91

MARTIN GIFTS BAGNAIA ... AGAIN

JORGE MARTIN looked certain to claim an important win, but threw both the German Grand Prix and championship lead away to Francesco Bagnaia on the penultimate lap.

Martin led from pole and had Bagnaia covered as he started the 29th of 30 laps, but lost control of his PRAMAC Ducati under braking at Turn 1.

The mistake was extremely costly as the #83 was set to enjoy a 20-point championship lead, but that is now a 10-point deficit to Bagnaia, who was gifted a fourth straight Grand Prix win.

Joining the reigning champion on the podium were both the Marquez brothers with Marc producing a very special ride from 13th and Alex being consistently up front to get his first podium of 2024.

It is the first time siblings have shared trophies in the same GP since Nobuatsu and Takuya Aoki did it in Imola 1997.

From the start of the weekend the underpressure Martin looked to be delivering, denying the Trackhouse teammates Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez pole by 0.048s, while Marc Marquez had a scary and painful crash.

In the Sprint, Martin emerged on top in a thrilling three-way battle with Oliveira and Bagnaia. Oliveira pushed hard to give Trackhouse a maiden win but fell sixtenths short.

It was an exciting start as Bagnaia charged from fifth to first in the first two corners, but Martin was able to barge his way past his championship rival at Turn 8 in what proved to be a race-winning move.

In the Grand Prix Martin led from pole as Bagnaia overcame a spirited Oliveira to snatch second, while Morbedelli also rose to third.

Bagnaia then repeated his move on Oliveria to snatch the lead from Martin at the final corner, but his PRAMAC rival responded four laps later.

By now the Marquez brothers were on the charge and Marc put a scary close shave with Morbidelli behind him, while Alex snatched third.

Despite Martin looking strong, he could never quite shake off Bagnaia and the pressure eventually became too much.

As the PRAMAC rider started the penultimate lap, he lost the front under braking and slid into the gravel.

Not for the first time Martin was furious with himself as an avoidable mistake gave Bagnaia a massive free kick in the championship fight.

Suddenly the Marquez brothers were now fighting for second with Marc disposing of Enea Bastinani and clawing

PERFECT PECCO

THE ASSAULT of three-straight MotoGP crowns for Franseco Bagnaia hit top gear after a perfect Dutch TT performance.

Bagnaia (right) was unbeatable around the iconic ‘cathedral’ that is Assen, with the #1 Ducati in P1 in all five sessions in front of the biggest crowd in 29 years.

The Italian’s dominance was clear in qualifying when he was four tenths clear of the field with a 1:30.540 that smashed the lap record. Maverick Vinales and Alex Marquez distantly completed the front row, while championship leader Jorge Martin was down in fifth.

Bagnaia got the holeshot at the start of the Sprint as Martin shot to second but a mistake at Turn 8 meant he could not challenge for the lead.

Marc Marquez only completed one lap before he clipped the inside kerb at Turn 3 and crashed out.

This wasn’t the only moment of drama as his brother Alex Marquez dropped from seventh to eighth due to a 3s penalty for exceeding track limits.

But there was heartbreak for Aleix Espargaro on the last lap as he suffered a high-speed crash at Turn 15 when fighting for fifth.

Bagnaia completed a comfortable 2.3s win over Martin with Vinales third and Aussie Jack Miller 13th.

Again, Bagnaia enjoyed a perfect start leaving Martin and Vinales to fight for best of the rest honours in the GP.

At the back of the pack, Alex Rins had a horrific high-side at the first turn and suffered a fractured right wrist and ankle.

He was not the only early victim with both Repsol Hondas crashing out and Marco Bezzecchi falling at Turn 5.

With Bagnaia already looking ominous, Martin knew he had to attack Vinales and did just that.

The PRAMAC Ducati rider caught his Aprilia rival unaware and snatched second, but the #1 Ducati proved to be an untouchable combination.

The fight for third was a thriller however. Fabio Di Giannantonio had outstanding pace and blazed past both Vinales and Marquez, but the move on the latter was strange with the #93 appearing to let the VR46 rider past at De Bult.

A mistake by Di Giannantonio then unsettled the pack and he fell to fifth, allowing Vinales to reclaim third before Enea Bastianini came onto the scene.

Bastianini had pace to burn on his Ducati and flew past them all to snare third as Marquez ended up fourth, only to drop to 10th due to a tyre pressure infringement. Pedro Acosta was seventh but crashed out all together on the final lap.

It was a special win for Bagnaia, who became the first to

towards Alex.

Although Marc passed Alex with relative ease, the pair could not contain their excitement as they made family history, while the #93 triumphed by simply finishing after an arduous weekend.

But everyone will be talking about Martin’s mistake that will take all four weeks of the upcoming Summer break to get over.

MotoGP returns with the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on August 2-4.

Thomas Miles

MOTOGP CHAMPIONSHIP FTER ROUND 9

1: Francesco Bagnaia 222 points

2: Jorge Martin 212

3: Marc Marquez 166

4: Enea Bastianini 155

5: Maverick Vinales 125

BOWMAN CONQUERS DARK CHICAGO STREETS

HENDRICKS RACER Alex Bowman

threw a Hail Mary at the post-season on the dark and wet streets of Chicago, snapping an 80-race winless streak to take an eighth NASCAR Cup Series win.

The second, shortened, Chicago Street Course edition threw up plenty of drama, with the race delayed by one hour and 43 minutes in Stage 2 owing to the ‘Windy City’ getting a big dump of rain.

The big pre-race talking point was whether former Supercars star Shane Van Gisbergen could repeat his 2023 heroics, with the NZ racer taking the first Stage win and looking on the money, before he was clipped into the concrete at Turn 6 under a late caution to end his race.

For the eventual winner, after the long weather delay and with the light fading fast in the final stanza, it was Bowman’s decision not to pit and stay on the wet weather Goodyear tyres which proved the inspirational move.

With the race becoming time certain,

the Chevrolet ZL1 driver jumped guest Sports Car veteran Joey Hand for the lead before the final caution, where he then put distance on the slick rubbered Tyler Reddick to win by 2.863 with Ty Gibbs securing third ahead of Hand.

“Anytime you go to the race track with Hendrick Motorsports, you’ve got a shot,” Bowman said.

“We’re going to drink so much damn bourbon tonight, it’s going to be a bad deal. I’m probably going to wake up naked on the bathroom floor again ... That’s just part of this deal sometimes.”

For Bowman, the trip to victory lane carried a serve of redemption after breaking his back in a Sprintcar race in Burlington, Iowa, in 2023.

“Man, I broke my back, had a brain injury, and we’ve kind of sucked ever since. You start to second-guess if you’re ever going to get a chance to win a race again.”

His win also means that all four Hendricks drivers have qualified for the field of 16 that will contest the first round of Playoffs.

The first stage of action saw SVG on the money after qualifying in fifth, taking out his first NASCAR stage win of the year in his fourth attempt of 2024.

After coming out on top after a hardy battle with Christopher Bell, SVG was clipped by Chase Briscoe to end his day.

Following the long weather break in Stage 2, Hand had the advantage over Bowman after staying out on track with most of the lead cars pitting, keeping the lead for the win, whilst Bubba Wallace was a notable out when the eventual winner spun him into the barrier at Turn 2.

After more rain delays, the race became time certain to the tune of 16 minutes on lap 49, with Bowman duelling with Hand as they separated from the field before the final caution saw a five minute resumption which saw Bowman cement the win.

Next up is a trip to the ‘Tricky Triangle’ at the Pocono Raceway in the mountains of Pennsylvania for a 161 lap battle.

TW Neal

LOGANO FINDS NASHVILLE PULSE

PENSKE’S JOEY Logano breathed some life into his NASCAR season by claiming his first win of the year at the Nashville SuperSpeedway last week, with the two-time champ withstanding a record five overtime restarts and a touchand-go fuel meter.

With only seven regular season Cup Series races left, it was better late than never to punch his post season pass, in a wild race that saw contender after contender fall by the way-side across the extra 31 laps.

The #22 Mustang driver got it done over Californian rookie Zane Smith, topping the Spire Motorsports Camaro by just 0.068 seconds, with 23XI’s Tyler Reddick in third.

Running 110 laps on his final gulp of fuel, Logano said it was a mental gamble to get to the chequered flag.

“Into Turn 3 my fuel light came on, and it stumbled across the line. That was definitely all of it, Logano said.

“It’s been a stressful few weeks trying to get into the Playoffs, and being able to win here is huge for our season. Felt great to get that –I’m out of breath.

“We had it won off of Turn 4, and then the caution came out, and I was like, ‘oh, my God, but you can’t pit. You’ve kind of got to go for it.’ Boy, it was close.”

With 15 cautions for the day, the race was also delayed by a one hour and 20 minute red flag for rain and lighting 136 laps in.

Prior to the overtime ending, the race was highlighted by an epic 30-lap stoush between pole man Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain, with Hamlin topping him with seven laps to go in regulation time.

The first overtime came via an Austin Cindric spin, with Chastain’s race ended when he was collected from behind by Kyle Larson, whilst Hamlin’s tilt ended with an unavoidable fuel stop.

That put Logano in the lead with Chase Briscoe by the fourth overtime, with Smith making his move to second before the final caution, with Logano getting the jump that would seal the deal on the final lap.

Next up for the field was the second-ever installation of the Chicago Street race – left TW Neal

SPEEDING THROUGH SPIELBERG

DISPELLING HIS ‘tough run’ in 2024, Oliver Bearman claimed a dominant first victory of the Formula 2 season in the Spielberg Sprint Race. Taking the lead into Turn 1, the PREMA Racing driver controlled the intense 28-lap dash from start to finish, holding off Campos Racing’s Josep María Martí and Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Paul Aron to secure the top step. Adding another name to the list of F2 race winners, Gabriel Bortoleto wowed in the Feature Race to seal a commanding maiden victory ahead of MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto and Campos Racing’s Isack Hadjar. The victory came after early drama unfolded on the formation lap, with pole-sitter Dennis Hauger, Kush Maini and Jak Crawford stalling on the grid, forcing the trio into a pitlane start.

AUSSIE MANSELL MAKES

MARK IN STYRIAN F3

AS FOR Formula 3’s weekend in the Styrian Hills, Australian racer Christian Mansell started strongly, making himself an instant podium contender after qualifying on the front row for the Sprint Race. Stealing the lead off the line, the ART Grand Prix driver remained fierce in the face of the first Safety Car restart, however, his team-mate soon became his demise as he fell back to P2.

A slow corner exit out of Turn 4 left the door open for Martinius Stenshorne, leaving a disappointed Mansell to settle for third place. Championship leader Luke Browning broke into the triple digits with his second Feature Race win on the Sunday, holding off persistent pressure from PREMA Racing teammates Gabriele Minì and Dino Beganovic who completed the podium places in Austria.

WET AND WILD

BRITISH GRAND PRIX

UNFAZED BY torrential rain, Safety Cars and a VSC, Kimi Antonelli was untouchable at Silverstone in F2, securing a maiden flag-to-flag victory

over Zane Maloney and a dicey battle between the Invicta teammates. Tussling until the final lap, Gabriel Bortoleto made a last-ditch attempt for third at Turn 16, passing his teammate off-track and receiving a 5-second penalty. The penalty promoted Kush Maini into P3.

Antonelli’s smile faded on Lap 1 of the F2 Feature Race, however, spinning out of the 29-lap thriller. Isack Hadjar’s aggressive drive in the race secured the Frenchman P1 on track and P1 in the championship standings after the British

GP. Jak Crawford and Zane Maloney completed the podium, with both drivers putting on a display worthy of the top step.

SMITH’S BREAKTHROUGH IN RAINY F3 THRILLER

DELAYED UNTIL the evening due to the morning downpour, the Silverstone F3 Sprint Race was headlined by home racer Arvid Lindblad who stole the lead in a three-way battle with Noel León and Matías Zagazeta at the first turn before charging off into the distance. Holding strong in the face of a midrace SC restart and VSC, León and Zagazeta maintained their positions to the chequered flag.

Nothing could top the crazy wet weather chaos of the Formula 3 Feature, a race Tommy Smith will remember for a very long time after his risk on slick tyres rewarded him with an exciting first-ever points haul in F3. The Australian finished in a career-high fourth place, stunning the field as he disposed of the wet tyre runners to secure 12 points. Claiming the podium positions ahead of Smith were Lindblad and Minì, with Callum Voisin receiving a 10-second penalty that demoted him from P1 to P3.

The F2 and F3 grid will have a weekend off before heading to Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix running across July 19-21.

Reese Mautone

RUSSELL’S UNEXPECTED WIN!

STORY: LUIS VASCONCELAS

IMAGES: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

GEORGE RUSSELL was the surprise winner of the Austrian Grand Prix, after a clash between runaway leaders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, with just seven laps to go, took both out of contention.

And while the Dutchman, who got a 10 second penalty for “being predominantly at fault”, still scored 10 valuable points by finished fifth, the McLaren driver retired with a seriously damaged car in the pits, at the end of lap 64.

Since the Chinese Grand Prix the battle at the front has been predominantly between Verstappen and Norris, the intensity of their wheel-to-wheel

battles has increased and, 24 hours before, had reached a new level at the start of the Sprint race in the Red Bull Ring. Being inside DRS range from the start, Norris caught Verstappen napping going into Turn 3 and grabbed the lead, but then made the mistake of leaving the door open for the following corner and, of course, the World Champion grabbed the offer with both hands. With the two embroiled in a battle, Piastri managed to get ahead of his team mate and finished Saturday’s race in P2 – so Norris learned the hard way thathe had to play hard and stop gifting opportunities to the Red Bull driver.

of DRS range in the first lap and pulled a lead that reached 8.2s by lap 36, just after half distance.

Three laps later Verstappen was complaining his first set of Hard tyres were “really bad” but for the next 15 laps the best Norris could do was to bring the gap down to 6.9s.

THE VERSTAPPEN OF OLD IS BACK…

THEN, A rare pit stop blunder from Red Bull cut the Dutchman’s lead by 2.6s, but, crucially, was followed by an unusually poor out-lap by Verstappen, who nearly went off at Turn 4.

Suddenly, there was just 1,.s between the two, the RB20’s right front tyre had been slightly flat spotted and the battle was on.

Getting into DRS range, Norris made three late braking moves into Turn 3 and, on all occasions, found his rival covering him by defending quite late. That forced the McLaren driver into a couple of lock ups, going off the track, the final one, on lap 61, leading to a 5s penalty that would have settled the race, if it had been issued before the start of lap 64. But it wasn’t, Norris tried a different move by going on the outside, but Verstappen moved late, again – this time the two cars touched, twice, went into the run off area and both collected damage that forced them into the pits.

The Dutchman was lucky enough to be able to resume and actually extend his lead over Norris by 10 points, when he had looked set to lose seven points to the McLaren driver. Inevitably, the two had very different views

Theb Red Bull Ring (above) is one of the most picturesque race tracks. Right: The podium –beneficiaries of some spirited racing at the front ... Below: It was a great weekend for

both cars well in the top 10.

on the incidents. Norris was extremely upset with the Dutchman, admitting that, “I expect a tough battle against Max. I expect aggression and pushing the limits but all three times he did stuff that can easily cause an incident, and in the way it’s just a bit reckless.”

The McLaren driver added that, “it seemed like a little bit desperate from his side, but doesn’t need to be – he’s got plenty of wins, but a bit desperate to do what he could to not let me past.”

Again, he repeated that, “I knew he’s going to be aggressive, so, I’m in a way not surprised …. I just expected a tough, fair, respectful, on the edge bit of racing, and I don’t feel like that’s what I got.”

Verstappen, for his part, was adamant he hadn’t done anything wrong in any of the four occasions. The Dutchman made it clear that, “I was not moving under braking, because every time I moved, I was not braking yet.

“Of course, from the outside, it always looks like that. But I think I know fairly well what to do in these scenarios.

“Also, a few of those, were really late divebombs, so it was a bit of a sending it up the inside and just hope the other guy steers out of it, which is not always how you race.”

In fact, Verstappen won the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix with an identical dive bomb and

contact with Leclerc on that same corner with two laps to go, so this time he was on the receiving end and didn’t give enough space to Norris, causing the contact that gifted Russell an unexpected win.

MERCEDES GETS A BREAK

THE PROGRESS made by Mercedes since the new front wing was introduced in Monaco has been clear, the W15 becoming the third quickest car in the field and moving the German team ahead of Ferrari in terms of outright pace.

But Verstappen and the two McLarens generally remained out of reach, so Russell admitted that, “these last three races, as a team, we’ve really turned it up. I feel that Montreal was probably a victory that we missed out on, and we ended up finishing P3.

“Today was a deserving P3, and we got the victory. So, it’s funny how this sport turns around, and just credit to all the team for the hard work they’ve done such huge progress since the start of the year.”

If the pace advantage over Sainz was never more than 0.1s per lap, Russell felt the team had done a great job in terms of strategy:

“I think we really executed everything really well. I think every session we maximised, qualified as high as we think was truly possible. Race starts have been good. P4 in the race yesterday was the maximum. P3, realistically, was the maximum and the deserving result today. The team did a great job, so it’s nice when you get a reward for all that hard work.”

In contrast, Lewis Hamilton was never in the battle, and finished a lonely fourth. The English driver moved ahead of Sainz at the first corner but did so by going off the track,

was advised to give the position back and, after that, had poorer tyre degradation than his team-mate, and incurred a 5s penalty for crossing the white line on pit entry. No wonder he felt “it was a pretty disastrous day”, adding that, “I’ve just been pretty shit all weekend. It’s not been for a lack of trying, but just generally slow. Just not acceptable …”

SAINZ SAVES FERRARI’S DAY

NOW WITH just the fourth quickest car, Ferrari salvaged a podium with Carlos Sainz, in a weekend where Charles Leclerc’s frustration cost the Monegasque dearly. A couple of mistakes in qualifying lost him what should have be P2 on the grid, after a lack of concentration in the Shootout Q3 caused the engine to die in the pits, so he started that mini-race from 10th.

On Sunday, though, it was a bad move from Pérez into Turn 1 that took him out of contention, as with Piastri on the inside and the Mexican pushing wide on the inside, he had nowhere to go.

Sainz was fifth in the sprint, survived a tight first corner battle with Hamilton in the main race and didn’t put a wheel wrong the whole day. Russell was always withing sight but, as the Spaniard admitted:

“It just looked like they had this half a tenth to a tenth of pace advantage. That it’s –these three, four or five seconds that he was in front the whole race. I thought that was a battle for a podium, which he was going to win. And in the end, it became a battle for a win eventually …”

HAAS’ GREAT COUP

TOGETHER WITH Mercedes, Haas was the biggest winner in Austria, as the American team scored 12 valuable points and is now 11 points ahead of Alpine in the championship.

The whole weekend the VF-24 was quick and extremely good on tyre management, so much that its drivers could battle Sérgio Pérez the whole race, the Mexican driving a car that had been slightly damaged by hitting Leclerc in Turn 1, and Piastri, in Turn 4, on the opening lap.

As usual, Hulkenberg was the more efficient of the two drivers, but also benefitted from an early team order that stopped Magnussen from fighting for position when the Dane had gained the place by undercutting his team mate.

Nevertheless, Hulkenberg drove a superb race and deserved his P6, with Magnussen in eighth place, ahead of Ricciardo and Gasly, who collected the final points.

The Australian reacted in the best possible way to Helmut Marko’s pre-weekend rant about his lack of pace and the possibility of Liam Lawson replacing him, admitting that, “from the start of FP1 in Spain until the end of this race, the team has done an amazing job and we’re now starting to fully understand this new package.”

DUBIOUS LAP DELETION COST PIASTRI THE WIN

OSCAR PIASTRI drove a sensational race to climb from seventh on the grid to second place at the end, passing Hamilton and Sainz with a couple of great moves, but also benefitting from the Verstappen-Norris accident and Leclerc’s early damage. Already upset that his best lap in Q3 had been deleted, robbing him of P3 on the grid, Piastri had good reason to believe that dubious decision had cost him the chance to win his first Grand Prix.

Having already slammed the decision as ”ridiculous” as soon as qualifying ended, claiming that, “that was my best Turn 6 of the whole weekend and I didn’t touch the gravel”, the McLaren driver was even more upset 24 hours later, having seen all the footage.

Piastri admitted that, “I was pretty upset yesterday that there are so many corners, we’ve made changes on the track here to get rid of the track limits issue. But on this one corner, for some reason, we moved the white line, but not enough. After seeing the evidence on what I got my lap deleted for, coming from a chopper cam that was only on me, in pretty questionable resolution, that stung quite a lot.”

That sense of injustice, though, did spur him on Sunday, as he was ready to admit “I had a bit of fire in me going into the race. I think some of my overtakes probably came from a bit further back than maybe they would have, otherwise.”

Having survived light contact with Leclerc into Turn 1, Piastri explained that, “I overheated my tyres a bit” but that didn’t change the strategy, as he was the last of the front runners to pit, on lap 25. That put him 5s behind Hamilton, but from then on the youngster’s pace picked up and his race became alive. On lap 48 he finally moved ahead of the seven-times World Champion and then set his sights on Sainz, eventually passing the Ferrari driver, for what had become a battle for second place, with just six laps to go. Even if he was still aggrieved with what had happened in Q3, Piastri accepted that, “this is only my fourth podium in Formula 1, so I have to be happy with it.” And proving he had mastered that fateful Turn 6, his best moves came around the outside of his rivals in that corner, as he explained: “Turn 6 was a happy hunting ground this weekend. I think I did three moves there around the outside. It was always very close on the way into Turn 4 and then I just had a bit more grip around the outside of Turn 6 and managed to get it done. Pretty happy with that!”

INTERNATIONAL

It had to be ... Hamilton, Silverstone ... on this occasion you could forgive the patriotic British commentary and media their excesses! ...

Below: Verstappen did a great job in a Red Bull that, for once, wasn’t the fastest car.

Opposite: Piastri had closed right onto leader Norris’ tail in the early running, before a shocker McLaren strategy call took him out of contention. Pole man Russell’s early pace was negated by a technical failure.

Opposite (bottom): Hulkenberg put in another A1 effort in the aero-upgraded Haas. A huge, patriotic crowd watches as three Brits head the grid at the start.

LET THE FLOODGATES OPEN!

STORY: LUIS VASCONCELAS

IMAGES: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

IN THE weekend where Brad Pitt’s Formula 1’s trailer was shown to the Grand Prix community and the fans, no one could have writen a more perfect script than the one the British Grand Prix gave us.

Nearly 950 days since his last Grand Prix victory, after two a half years that were, by far, the hardest of his long career, after endless disappointments and false dawns, Lewis Hamilton returned to the winner’s circle in front of his adoring fans.

Unlike George Russell, in Austria one week before, Hamilton didn’t benefit from anyone’s misfortunes to secure the 105th win of his amazing Grand Prix career, as Mercedes had a winning car at Silverstone; the veteran out-raced his younger team-mate when conditions became very tricky, in what turned out to be the first crucial moment of this very exciting race.

The call to go onto Intermediate tyres may have come one lap too late, as Verstappen and Sainz benefited from stopping earlier, but kept Hamilton in the hunt, three seconds behind Norris, who had by far the faster car in mixed conditions.

Then came the tricky part, where driver and team had to get it spot on – the return to slicks when the race line became good

enough for them – and there Hamilton and Mercedes nailed it, while Norris and McLaren didn’t.

By stopping for Softs on lap 38, Hamilton inherited the lead when Norris stopped one lap later and, on top of that, missed his mark too, costing himself a couple of seconds.

With both British drivers on Soft tyres, it was soon clear that Verstappen, third and with a set of very solid Hard compound tyres on his RB20, was the fastest of the trio, setting up a thrilling finale.

But while the Dutchman did get the better of Norris on lap 48, he ran out of laps to trouble Hamilton, the Mercedes man showing more emotion at the end of his home race than in any other public occasion, while the British crowd went wild. The floodgates for their emotions opened as soon as Hamilton crossed the line and the seven-times World Champion joined them too, tears coming immediately and refusing to stop for a long, long time.

As Hamilton admitted when he was finally

able to speak, “I can’t stop crying,” explaining that “since 2021, I’m just getting up every day, trying to fight, to train, to put my mind to the task and work as hard as I can with this amazing team. This is my last race with this team here, so I wanted to win this so much for them, because I love them; I appreciate them so much, all the hard work they’ve been putting in over the years.

“I’m forever grateful to everyone in this team, everyone at Mercedes. And I just want to say thank you to all of you for being here with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, to all our incredible fans. I could see you lap-by-lap as I was coming around, and there’s just no greater feeling as to finish at the front here.” Having made it clear that the cruel way the 2021 season ended for him changed him, Hamilton then added that, “someone just told me it’s been 946 days since the last win. And those days have been really challenging. I had a difficult time in 2021 and then coming back in with a car that we’ve not been able to fight with for the last couple of years … I think just it’s been incredibly mentally challenging.”

THE DECISIVE MOMENTS

TRAILING RUSSELL in qualifying and in the early laps, Hamilton kept his tyres in better shape than his team-mate and reaped the rewards on lap 18, as, with light rain falling, he

overtook his Russell going into Stowe. Half a lap later, they both went wide in a very wet Turn 1, keeping their positions and resisting the temptation of pitting for slicks. Even as Norris and Piastri came flying past the Mercedes duo, their cars being more geared for a wet set-up than their rivals, that move put Hamilton as the priority when it was finally time to accept Intermediate tyres were necessary (lap 27), Russell being forced to wait behind his team-mate and dropping behind Verstappen, as a consequence.

With Norris still in the lead, Hamilton, again, had better tyre life and cut the gap from 3.3s to 1.9s in eight laps and then swapped for slicks on lap 37, the moment he believes was the most determinant one for his win:

“I think if Lando had stopped before us, it would have been very, very, very difficult to have got by. The moment in which I came in and he stayed out … I knew that this was the moment that I was going to have the chance to undercut him.”

After that, with 2.7s between them and a drying track, Norris’ chances of winning were seriously damaged – but then Verstappen came into contention, as the Mercedes man explained:

“Lando … I could see him in my mirrors coming through a particular corner and I

could just see him right there. Every now and then he put in a really quick lap and I couldn’t match their pace when they did do that lap.

“And then, at the end, when Max started to close in, I was just giving it absolutely everything, right on the edge, full attack, to try and keep the gap at three seconds. The tyres started to just drop off a little bit towards the end, but I think it was the perfect distance of a stint.”

A MORE MATURE VERSTAPPEN

ONE WEEK after throwing away a safe 18 points in the attempt to stay ahead of Norris, in Austria, Verstappen admitted he was thinking more of the championship than of British Grand Prix glory, until his race came alive in the last stint:

“The beginning was not very good. I tried to keep up but I just ran out of tyres. and I just struggled for grip.

“Lando got by, Oscar got by and then it started to rain. I had no grip as well there. I didn’t want to take too much risk as well, because it didn’t feel good, it didn’t feel comfortable. I was ‘I’ll just sit here and try to survive.’ And that’s what I did.

“At one point, even Carlos rocked up at the party. Then I thought, ‘geez, this is a really bad afternoon …’

Once the Ferrari driver stopped his attack after nearly going off at Luffield, Verstappen regrouped and was the only front runner to go for Hards for the final stints. That’s why he believed “we made the right calls from the slick to the Inter, and then from the Inter back to the slick tyre, which just basically kept me in contention. By making the right calls today, we were there at the right time.

“And to the end, with the Hard tyre, that was the right call for us, definitely. We could push

on the tyre, because the Medium already wasn’t good enough for us. To go flat out on the Hard was the best we could do and we finished second. At one point it was looking like P5 or P6 even, so, in a poor afternoon I would say in terms of performance, to be second, I’ll take that.”

A very deflated Norris couldn’t take it when he was asked if he felt this was a win that got away, admitting that “I’ve heard that a lot lately, so I hate saying it again. So many things were going well and we threw it away in the final stop.

“But I think even if I boxed on the perfect lap, our decision to go on to the Softs was the wrong one. I think Lewis still would have won no matter what. So, two calls from our side cost us everything today. And, especially here … pretty disappointing.

Behind the two McLarens, Carlos Sainz drove a very solid race to a lonely fifth place –so lonely he could pit for Softs right at the end and grab the point for the fastest lap – while Leclerc paid the price for a poor qualifying and, even more, a catastrophic decision to go for Intermediate tyres during a light drizzle on lap 19 – eight laps too early – and was never again in contention for the points.

Like in Austria, one week before, Nico Hulkenberg was the fastest of the midfield, qualifying and finishing in sixth position, Haas making a huge step forward with the introduction of a new aerodynamic package at the Red Bull Ring.

By pitting one lap before Alonso early on, Lance Stroll secured P7 ahead of his teammate, in the best performance Aston Martin has had since Miami, while Alex Albon got the better of Yuki Tsunoda after a very long battle, the two being the final point scorers of this amazing race.

LATE STOP COST PIASTRI THE WIN

MCLAREN DIDN’T just thrown away the possibility of winning the British Grand Prix with Lando Norris – it also blew Oscar Piastri’s chances of a first Grand Prix success even earlier!

The Australian kept his P5 in the early laps but, as soon as it started to drizzle, sliced past Verstappen (lap 17), Russell and Hamilton (both on lap 20), starting to close the gap to his team-mate, leading.

But while Mercedes, right behind the leaders, opted to double stack its cars when the rain started to come down harder, on lap 27, McLaren called only Norris in and left the Australian out for one long, tough lap, before pitting him for Intermediates.

The pace difference on the wet track was so big that when Piastri dived into the pit lane a lap later, Norris was already just a handful of seconds behind, gaining almost 20s in just one lap. It was a disaster. No wonder the youngster was quite disappointed at the end of the race, clearly feeling this was an opportunity that, again, just got away:

“That decision early in the race is probably the hardest call you’re ever going to have in motor racing. You’ve got two cars, one-two, separated by half a second with rain coming down – I don’t think it gets any harder than that but, clearly, there are some things we need to review.

“Double stacking would have been the better call … but hindsight’s a wonderful thing. We just need to see if we had any information that told us that was going to be a better choice, but it was obviously a little bit painful given the time I lost.”

Trying to defend his team’s decision, Piastri insisted that “it was only really half of the track that was really difficult until the lap that I stayed out, and then the whole track became difficult. It was just very, very difficult for everybody involved to make the right call,” before conceding, again that, “in hindsight, double-stacking would have given us a very good chance of winning …”

The silver lining for his day came in the final stint, as Oscar was the only front runner on the Medium tyres that proved to be the better for the conditions.

Having started the last stint 16.8s behind Hamilton, the Aussie saw the flag 12.4s behind the leader, gaining 4.4s in just 13 laps.

That’s why the youngster was adamant that “every other decision, we absolutely nailed in that race. I think me and Lando put ourselves in a great position getting to the lead. I think the decision on my side to put a Medium on was the right call –we were the quickest at the end,” before lamenting, again that, “it’s just a shame that we weren’t in a better position in the middle of the race.”

What could, and should, have been …

2004 - AMBROSE’S BIG CHAMPIONSHIP SCARE; BROCK IS BACK

THE BIG NEWS FROM THE V8 SUPERCARS ROUND AT QUEENSLAND WAS THE (TEMPORARY) REMOVAL OF POINTS SCORED BY EVENTUAL 2004 CHAMPION MARCOS AMBROSE ...

AMBROSE WON the round, but was stripped of the 192 points he collected after post-race scrutineering found an abnormality in the Electronic Control Unit wiring loom in his car.

An extra 50mm piece of wire was found and an unused plug connected to the TEGA-mandated control ECU loom, which was reportedly in breach of the technical rules.

Both Ambrose and SBR vowed to clear their names and appealed the decision, with the team making a statement explaining it was an error and that the wire attached to the loom simply does not do anything.

Ambrose slipped from first to fourth in the championship and was “dumbfounded” when he heard the penalty.

In the end SBR’s appeal was successful with Ambrose’s points from QR being reinstated.

“I guess just a great sense of relief,” Ambrose said. “SBR are a dedicated,

1974

THE POPULAR VW Sports Sedan of Bryan Thomson defied the conditions to take victory at a soggy Sandown. Also in victory lane on the same weekend was Peter Brock, who pushed hard in the Holden Dealer Team production Torana SLR 5000 and pipped John McCormack. However, many walked away shocked by Rob Elliot sliding head-on into the Shell fence.

But there was big news brewing from the HDT workshop with an upgrade from the new SLR 5000 Torana being worked on exclusively for racing.

Being readied for Bathurst as issue #89 went to print was an option version known as the L34.

It was big news considering there were no factory Fords running at that year’s Great Race.

honest and hard-working team that did not deserve to be in this situation.”

Ross Stone described it as a “cock-up” but his Holden rivals were far from happy, with Larry Perkins believing the original penalty was “too lenient” and Mark Skaife publicly expressing his displeasure.

PETER BROCK was set to have one last crack at the Bathurst 1000km race that helped make him an icon.

The nine-times race champion would return to the Holden Racing Team for a final shot at victory in The Great Race, as predicted by AA at the time.

Brock was to team up with British Touring Car star Jason Plato in the second HRT Commodore – suitably renumbered #05.

The deal was forged between new HRT owner Mark Skaife and Brock

“With my connections with Holden everyone said ‘Yeah, Pete, this is going to be good,” Brock said.

“I must say I’m looking forward to the weekend, it could be a big weekend.”

Having not driven in the 1000km event since 2002, Brock admitted that the prospect at another crack in a competitive car was too much to resist.

The word that came to mind was ... irresistible!

Despite approaching 60 years of age,

1984

A BLITZING drive pushed Peter Glover to championship glory in the Australian Formula 2 title in the Amaroo Park finale.

It was a thrilling finale with Glover forced to win the final race to be crowned champion – he did just that, snatching it from Keith McClelland.

Peter Fitzgerald was victorious in Group E with a crushing performance in his Mitsubishi Stallion at Amaroo.

Toyota announced it would field a Group A Sprinter at the upcoming Bathurst 1000.

The car was to be driven by Formula Mondial driver and Toyota dealer John Smith, but also feature Japanese driver Tachi.

Brock was still fit and keeping race sharp by competing in the Nations Cup series in a Holden Monaro.

“I have, for probably the last three years, been very intent on not just my health ...

1994

AN AUSTRALIAN-based Formula 1 team was the dream of international sports car manufacturer Spice.

In addition to the Grand Prix heading to Melbourne, Spice said the team was to be located in the Victorian city having made a proposal to the state government, having previously circled Sydney.

“Its a genuine project, its got legs,” said Spice’s Australian representative Bill O’Gorman.

“These people are not looking for any handouts and want to build an industry.”

The story reported an aim of injecting $1 billion into the Victorian economy by the turn of the century and creating 4000 jobs by the year 2020. Obviously this never happened!.

but also decided to start working on my fitness,” he said.

“I can usually do a lot of things these other guys do – maybe even some things they can’t do.”

2014

SUPERCARS CEO James Warburton was taking the first steps towards ushering in the next generation of race cars, post-2016.

Warburton promised there were “no sacred cows” when it came to the next phase of Supercars with the need to “stay relevant.”

This came just before the Townsville 500 where Garth Tander brought HRT back into victory lane.

But the big focus was on Triple Eight with Jamie Whincup accelerating his title charge with two wins as Craig Lowndes had a shocker, highlighted by going head first into the Turn 5 barriers.