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 Motorsport 
Wednesday, November 02 2022
We killed everyone': Van Gisbergen and Triple Eight seal season of domination: Winners and losers

The Surfers Paradise Street Circuit is one of the most ferocious on the Supercars calendar, with its claustrophobic barriers, high kerbs and sapping heat and humidity combining to make it one of the sport’s sternest tests.

And yet Saturday’s race went past with barely a scratch to any car — though Cameron Waters came perilously close.

The track must’ve been saving itself for Sunday, which proved crash strewn within just four laps — quite controversially too.

The massive James Golding-triggered smash threatened to dominate the weekend, but through the debris emerged, as usual, Shane van Gisbergen and Triple Eight. Both titles were secured on the Gold Coast, and no amount of track trouble was going to overshadow their record-extending feats.

It was realistically a matter of time, but it’s never won until it’s won, and team and driver’s dedication to that mantra was clear and admirable as they powered to a double victory notable for the fact that this powerhouse partnership doesn’t look close to easing up in the final races of the year.

The championship battle might be over, but Van Gisbergen is showing no signs of giving his rivals any breathing space with one round to go.

WINNERS: JAMIE WHINCUP AND SHANE VAN GISBERGEN

For the 21st time this year, Shane van Gisbergen and his Triple Eight team are Supercars winners.

And for the third time so far in their partnership, they made each other champions too, with both Van Gisbergen and T8 claiming their respective 2022 titles on a glittering weekend on the Gold Coast.

Van Gisbergen’s two victories extend his record for most wins in a single season. His 19th at Bathurst eclipsed the 18 Scott McLaughlin won in 2019; his additional two take him to a strike rate of 65.63 per cent, an almost embarrassingly significant number.

It was also his 12th win in 14 races and fifth in a row. If he stretches his active streak to seven wins in a row by sweeping the Adelaide 500, he’ll achieve a scarcely believable 70.5 per cent strike rate.

“We had to beat one car to secure it, but we killed everyone,” Van Gisbergen said after claiming the championship on Saturday night.

“What a year. It’s been a lot of fun.”

Van Gisbergen’s championship triumph is the 10th powered by Triple Eight, which draws the team level with Dick Johnson Racing.

All of the team’s driver championship triumphs have come since 2008, with Jamie Whincup winning the first.

He now helms the Banyo squad as it wins its 11th teams championship, an unprecedented record in the title’s 24-year history.

“It’s certainly pretty special, to see the guys, how much effort they’ve been putting in, how good our cars are,” Van Gisbergen said. “I’m stoked. It’s hard to put it into words yet.”

It’s fascinating to contemplate how former title rivals SVG and Whincup, who spurred each other to greater heights on track, might now solidify into teammates of a different kind. Considering how well their first season together has gone, other teams must be wary of what an even stronger bond might look like.

LOSERS: TYRE BUNDLE ENTHUSIASTS

The series was lucky to get away with only a massive list of DNFs on Sunday afternoon when James Golding triggered an enormous pileup at the first chicane just four laps into the race.

Golding lost control partway through the esses and cut the final kink, flying straight through and ripping the tyre bundle clean out of the road — and throwing it onto the track.

Thomas Randle was helpless to avoid the freelancing bundle, and the carnage caught up a gaggle of cars, briefly blocking the track as drivers attempted, some unsuccessfully, to avoid the scene.

Six cars retired on the spot. Randle was able to continue with repairs but eventually succumbed to damage.

It sparked a range of reactions from the drivers in the aftermath, with the tyre bundles coming in for particular criticism.

“It’s a shame, so many cars out,” said Nick Percat, who was one of the casualties. “I think in this day and age we’re a bit over tyre bundles.

“Obviously he has lost the car a bit, but he shouldn’t pay a price like that because we use old rubbish tyres that are ratchet strapped to the track.

“It’s disappointing that in this day and age we use a used tyre from a garbage bin and we write off six cars.”

James Courtney, who was hit from behind as the field bunched up on the brakes, was of a similar opinion.

“That’s what we as drivers lobby so hard to get rid of tyre bundles, because that’s pretty much what caused it all,” he said. “l tried to stop, the initial impact wasn’t too bad but then I got cleaned up from the rear.”

But to move past tyre bundles, the sport would need to find an alternative way to police track limits.

Theoretically the solution is already in place with the kerb sensors, but several drivers after practice in particular spoke about their lack of faith in the devices to be consistent in their adjudication of a kerb strikes, including Van Gisbergen.

“It’s very confusing as drivers,” he said. “You don’t know where the line is. You just kind of wing it and hope.

“A few times I cut and didn’t get a kerb hop, so I’m very confused. I just drive around, and if they tell me it’s got a hop, it’s got a hop.”

Stewards can also rely on video replays to verify sensor data, though that’s obviously more labour intensive over an entire weekend.

Clearly neither solution has the full faith of the drivers, but with some agitations around the bundles after a big crash that could’ve been so much worse, it’s up to those wanting them removed to mount a case that the sport can do without them.

WINNER: CHAZ MOSTERT’S PHYSIO

Chaz Mostert is back in the top three of the championship standings for the first time since leaving Melbourne after the Australian Grand Prix.

It’s a sign both of how fallow his mid-season was as well as of how much he’s come back on tap in the latter part of the year.

Some of the problems in his tricky campaign have course stemmed from the Walkinshaw Andretti United car, which lost its way, sometimes badly, after the grand prix, when the car’s been on song, Mostert has been able to coax some great drives from it, and he’s still equal second this season for wins, with four.

His pair of podium at Surfers Paradise, with third on Saturday and second on Sunday, made four rostrum appearances in the last five rounds and seven in the last 12.

But his Sunday result almost didn’t happen, and after the race Mostert revealed he was carrying an injury from a non-racing accident earlier in the day.

“After qualifying I popped my shoulder out getting changed,” he said. “So that wasn’t ideal!

“But everything in the race felt pretty good, so we’re lucky we had our physio here and I was able to tape my shoulder and get on with it.

“In the race car it feels better than what it does out of it, so heat and in that position feels pretty good.

“I should probably do it more often if it comes with these results!”

A podium with a freshly dislocated shoulder is a superb result for Mostert but probably an even better outcome for his physio given the turnaround between qualifying and the race was barely two hours.

LOSER (MOSTLY): DICK JOHNSON RACING

Triple Eight’s championship success necessarily meant defeat for Dick Johnson Racing.

The team’s title hopes really evaporated with a disappointing result at Bathurst, and it would’ve taken an against-form points swing to take the fight to the final round. Sure enough DJR was put out of its misery on Sunday night by dropping irretrievably far off the points pace.

It did so relatively underwhelmingly too, with just one podium for the entire weekend via Will Davison’s third on Sunday afternoon, following fourth the previous day.

Anton de Pasquale wasn’t on his teammate’s pace all weekend, with sixth on Saturday followed by 10th at the flag on Sunday before being disqualified for running tyres below the minimum pressure, presumably during his stop late in the race to take advantage of the safety car.

He’s subsequently fallen back to fifth in the drivers standings and 22 points behind his teammate.

But there was some good news for DJR in an otherwise disappointing weekend.

The team has bettered last year’s points tally and will end this season closer to Triple Eight in the standings short of a massive disaster in Adelaide.

The team has also as good as locked in second place — again, short of a disaster, with a 552-point lead over Tickford with 576 still available.

LOSER: TICKFORD RACING

As much as everyone’s looking forward to getting back to the Adelaide 500, Tickford CEO Tim Edwards must be wishing the season was already over.

There isn’t a team in pit lane as battered and bruised as Campbellfield. It’s borne the brunt of the year’s crashes — and has therefore paid the bulk of the damage bill.

The weekend got underway badly, with Jake Kostecki in the fence during qualifying.

Golding’s crash then cleaned up Thomas Randle, who retired with damage.

They’re just the latest in a long and extremely expensive line of crashes for the team.

It started with Kostecki crashing out of the Tasmania SuperSprint and continued in Darwin, where James Courtney was tipped into a spin across the run-off and back onto the track, where he was wiped out by the pack. That crash also caused damage to Randle’s car.

Randle then stalled on the grid at Tailem Bend in a sickening shunt that caused massive damage.

Finally, last time out at Bathurst, Courtney car was wiped out again when co-driver Zane Goddard rejoined the track unsafely and caused a high-speed pileup.

“We came into this weekend saying we seriously don’t need any more accident damage,” Edwards said before assessing Kostecki’s crash damage. “We’re nudging $600,000 in damage for this year compared to a normal year of $200,000.”

Repairs to Randle’s car will push that number higher as the team heads towards an overspend perhaps as four times greater than it expected.

But more than the money is the workload. Not only has Tickford been flat-out repairing crashed cars, but it’s also supposed to be preparing for next year’s all-new rules.

“[The workload] has been extreme, so the guys and girls have had to dig really deep.

“The biggest challenge is that we’re flat out trying to get ready for Gen3, so your manufacturing resources are stretched because you can’t not go to the next event with these current cars without spares.”

If only the season had already been done, the wreckage could’ve been cast out of the factory along with some of the worse memories of the year.

WINNER THEN LOSER: JAMES GOLDING

James Golding arrived on the Gold Coast enjoying a swell in form since his mid-season arrival back in the series, and his upward trend generally continued through the weekend — until his rather sudden stop on Sunday afternoon.

Golding was outstanding in qualifying, taking PremiAir to its first top-10 shootout on Sunday and securing ninth ahead of De Pasquale.

It was a massive result for the team in its first year in its current form and at its home race, having relocated to Queensland at the start of this year and moved from Brisbane into a purpose-built facility on the Gold Coast in July.

It of course came to a disappointing ending on Sunday in his crash with the tyre bundle.

But the 26-year-old Victorian seems to have done enough regardless to earn himself a second year with the ambitious team. With Tim Slade confirmed in the sister car as Chris Pither’s replacement, Golding was asked ahead of the weekend if he was expecting news of his future soon.

“(I’m) feeling good,” he said, per V8 Sleuth. “It’s all going good so far.

“I’m just once again focusing on my job, making sure I nail that, and I think the rest will take car of itself.”

With Matt Stone Racing reportedly having decided on the identity of Todd Hazelwood’s replacement, the silly season might finally be at an end.

Posted by: AT 03:44 am   |  Permalink   |  Email
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