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F1 and V8 Supercars swap at Bathurst: Jenson Button and Craig Lowndes swap rides.
Yesterday a Formula One car roared around the iconic Mount Panorama race track nine times. Thousands of devoted fans flocked from around the country to witness one of the greatest publicity stunts ever undertaken in Australian sport.
The event was a variation of the promotion last year where Jenson Button and Jamie Whincup swapped their cars for a spin around Albert Park leading up the grand prix.
This allowed the very capable and enormously likable drivers to gush about the experience of being in a different beast to their normal steed with their major sponsor plastered all over the background.
The difference this year was that Whincup’s place was taken by Craig Lowndes and the track they drove around was Mount Panorama. The magnitude of the awesomeness of this decision is almost unconscionable.
For as long as I have followed the sport (mid-eighties), F1 fans have pondered what it would be like if a car went around Bathurst, only to shake their heads knowing it couldn’t be done.
Too steep, too twisty, too hard, as if everyone would cooperate!
But thanks to the enthusiasm of Lowndes, Button, McLaren, Triple 8, Vodafone and the Bathurst City Council, a dream came true for countless fans around the world and indeed the nearly ten thousand that came to the track. Fans had come from around the country to see a F1 car race around Mount Panorama.
The question everyone was asking was simple, how fast? How fast would a Formula 1 car with a world champion behind the wheel be around the track? Fortunately, we didn’t have long to wait.
After both the drivers introduced themselves to the crowd, the F1 was fired up and Button took it out for an installation lap to make sure it was all put together properly. Normally these laps seem painstaking slow but he was around and back in the pits in just over a couple of minutes!
Anticipation grew in the crowd for what was about to take place as he headed out again for a four-lap run, featuring two flying laps.
The noise was such that no matter where he was on the track you could hear his engine roar. The helicopter struggled to keep pace as the car darted across the top of the mountain and the crowd watched transfixed as he thundered past pit straight, engine screaming as the car hugged the apexes like a rollercoaster carriage.
And it was quick, 1:48 by my watch, a full 18 seconds faster then what a V8 Supercar can do in anger.
At this point, the delight in the crowd was only matched by Button who buzzed on the rush he had experienced and talked excitedly about how much faster he could go with more time.
Lowndes then had the bizarre experience of doing hot laps around Bathurst in a V8 Supercar and leaving the crowd feeling underwhelmed while being largely ignored while attention turned to the other big two issues for the day. How fast would Button go in a V8 Supercar and how would Lowndes go in the F1?
The answers to both questions were easy, Jenson was quick and Craig was magnificent.
Jenson managed a 2:16 lap in the V8 Supercar which is terribly slow when one considers pole in normally 2:07 or faster.
But a few points, firstly, it was on his third lap ever in a supercar and only his eighth lap ever around the Mountain.
Secondly, each lap he completed in the V8 was faster each lap he did, and finally, he was only five seconds slower then Lowndes best lap earlier that day. Clearly if Button decides to come and race the 1000 when his F1 career has ended he will be a very handy addition to any team.
But the revelation of the day was Craig Lowndes in a Formula One car.
After a slightly awkward getaway, he thundered into Hell Corner and spent the next four laps doing a remarkable impersonation of Michael Schumacher.
He drove the car like he had been doing it for ten years, not ten minutes, breaking and accelerating with poise and confidence and scything across the mountain with amazing authority. His final fastest lap was only a second behind Button, leaving this correspondent gasping for breath.
When a driver who is no longer at the very pointy end of the V8 Supercar grid can match an F1 ace, it is a rounding endorsement of the quality of the much maligned local motor racing product.
This was a masterful piece of promotion by all parties, capturing the attention of motor-racing fans across the country and indeed the world.
All by bringing the best racing cars to one of the world’s greatest circuit and letting two magnificent drivers put on a mighty show.
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