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History was made at Sydney Motorsport Park over the weekend, with the inaugural Sydney SuperNight event being the first night race in Australia since 1997 for the Supercars championship.
A success overall, from the sheer spectacle of the event, to the epic on-track battle between the championship protagonists; here are the talking points from the first ever SuperNight.
The spectacle
When the concept for a night race was first raised in 2017, the immediate thought was over the spectacle of seeing the robust Australian V8 Supercars doing battle in the darkness.
Finally, having seen the success of the Sydney SuperNight event, would have been immensely satisfying for the Supercars championship – having provided a cracker of a race and had increased level of fan engagement.
Such was the attention to detail for this event, that the teams had even modified their liveries and added additional lights to their cars, to have them standout under the artificial lights.
From the ‘Fast and the Furious’ style under-glow lights present underneath the Walkinshaw Commodores, to the ‘glow in the dark’ Freightliner sponsorship on the Brad Jones Racing car – it was very exciting to see the teams engage with this special event in the manner that they did.
Glowing red brake rotors and the flames spitting from the exhausts upon the changes of gear, all were nuances that created for a spectacular visual display on TV and in the stills captured from those trackside.
The crowd
One of the reasons behind this radical shift in the Sydney Motorsport Park round of the Supercars championship, was in a bid to attract a bigger crowd and engage with the fans in a new way.
With the intention of matching the success of T20 cricket, having qualifying and the headline 300km race all within the primetime TV slot on a Saturday night, has done wonders in drawing almost 34,000 fans trackside.
Supercars (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)
It would have been a nice feeling for Supercars, given that they had attracted more than half of the combined total of the two rugby league games being played in Sydney on the same evening.
Neither ANZ or Allianz Stadiums reached 10,000 attendees, with the Parramatta Eels versus Gold Coast Titans game at Homebush only registering a meagre 6,158 people.
Victory for Van Gisbergen
With Scott McLaughlin having added to his tally of pole positions earlier in the evening and had made the better start than his rivals, it was difficult seeing anyone else challenge the DJR Team Penske Ford for the win.
However, a late Safety Car intervention played into the hands of Shane van Gisbergen, who had rocketed into second off the start line but then was relegated through the race by his Triple Eight stablemate in Craig Lowndes.
“It took a long time for the race to come alive, it was pretty stale and then the Safety Car came out. It was awesome,” remarked the inaugural SuperNight winner following the race.
Having had tyres that were four laps younger than the cars ahead, the Kiwi made little fuss in dispatching Lowndes in the Autobarn Commodore, before locking horns with his compatriot and championship rival in the final phase of the race.
Lap-68 saw the move that controversially put van Gisbergen in the lead of the race, spectacularly muscling his way past the Shell V-Power Falcon of McLaughlin.
Red Bull also completed a one-two finish, with a late charge from a rudderless Jamie Whincup seeing McLaughlin relegated back to third on the podium.
Fight of the Kiwis
Coming into the Sydney SuperNight, there was 131-points between the two title protagonists in McLaughlin and van Gisbergen. With the Red Bull Holden driver notching up his fifth win of the season, that gap has now been reduced to 89-points.
This 300km standalone race was always going to be a key event in the championship battle for 2018 and what was seen on track between the two Kiwi rivals, is that precursor to what may culminate as a two-way title battle.
Van Gisbergen has now won three of the last four races, edging his way closer to the lead that McLaughlin has been amassing since the Phillip Island 500 earlier in the season. Following this latest victory, the 2016-series champion is within striking distance coming into the season of endurance – where 900-points are spread across four races.
McLaughlin continues to demonstrate his proficiency in one-lap pace during qualifying, but van Gisbergen has been more aggressive in the races to hustle the results and as seen in Sydney – he will push his rival to the limit.
As epic as it was, the desire is now to see this replicated going into the next round at the new Tailem Bend circuit in South Australia, before the Sandown 500 raises the curtains on what’ll be another fascinating Enduro Cup.
Double failure for fast Walkinshaws
Leading into the event, there was air of confidence around the Walkinshaw Andretti United squad, given their success in the diabolical conditions of Albert Park earlier in the season.
Scott Pye had broken through on the Saturday evening at the Australian Grand Prix undercard, to win his first Supercars race and that was in almost complete darkness.
However, despite a strong qualifying result of sixth for Pye and eleventh for his winless teammate James Courtney, both Mobil 1 Boost Mobile racers failed to finish the race – with left-front suspension failures on both cars.
Pye was still classified, albeit in 25th and was still able to register some points, however Courtney failed to be a classified finisher, which now sees the 2010 Supercars champion drop to fourteenth in the standings.
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