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Five talking points from Perth SuperNight Supercars

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Roar Guru
5th May, 2019
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After the success of the night race at Sydney Motorsport Park, it was a no-brainer for Supercars to deliver a sequel and it came out west this time at Perth’s Barbagallo Raceway.

On-track action took over from all the noise around the latest changes applied to the ultra-successful Ford Mustang, which before this weekend had won nine of the first ten races in the championship.

From the championship leaders letting their results do the talking to further head scratching at a former title-winning outfit, here are the talking points from the first ever Perth SuperNight.

Night racing in Perth
It was a hit in Sydney, but west was indeed best on this occasion, with Perth delivering a stunning product and the on-track action to back it up.

Expanding the night racing event to two races spanning Friday and Saturday but keeping it in the prime-time broadcasting slot for east coast viewers proved to be quite the spectacle.

A resurfaced track at Barbagallo and the addition of racing in the dark saw lap records thrashed but also retained the challenge of managing tyre degradation, which is something that Perth has always been notorious for.

Teams also took the opportunity to update their liveries to stand out in the dark, which only made viewing even better.

Kelly Racing had the neon underlights on all four of their Nissan Altimas, while all the Mustang runners had the iconic pony on the front grill wired up as an additional light.

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Overall, though, the challenge of night racing is what truly made the event a stunner, with the drivers forced to adapt to completely foreign conditions.

Garry Jacobson’s RABBLEclub Racing Nissan Altima

Garry Jacobson’s RABBLEclub Racing Nissan Altima looked spectacular under the lights in Perth. (Photo by Stephen Blackberry/Action Plus via Getty Images)

As expected, it was the cause of an incident during Race 12 in which Rick Kelly and Shane van Gisbergen came together on a safety car restart.

“All you can see is a bright light in your mirror, you can’t see if there’s a car next to you or not,” said Kelly post-race, admitting his fault in the incident.

“In the daytime, that probably wouldn’t have happened because I would have looked in the mirror and seen he had the overlap.”

It seems that night racing will be a permanent fixture on the Supercars calendar, but whether it’ll stay at the same venue is the question.

Perth trumped Sydney, though it wouldn’t a bad idea to explore other tracks for a SuperNight in the future.

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DJR Team Penske do their talking on track
It would have been a great relief for the entire DJR Team Penske team to hit the track in Perth and let their results do the talking, following another contentious technical change to the Ford Mustang.

Even after the centre of gravity adjustments following the Melbourne 400, Supercars drafted through a directive post-Phillip Island for the teams running the Mustang to make changes to the aero package in three different areas of the car.

Despite all that, the Shell V-Power Racing Team claimed both pole positions in Perth as well as both victories, including a dominant one-two finish during Race 11. Both Fabian Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin tallied wins, in front of team boss Roger Penske.

McLaughlin made poor starts in both races, having stated in between that he had issues with the clutch bite-point. An early pit stop in Race 11 saw the reigning champion undercut Jamie Whincup.

With Coulthard cruising home for consecutive wins, after his Race 10 triumph at Phillip Island, McLaughlin recovered to finish behind his team-mate by only 2.2 seconds.

Race 12 saw Whincup ahead of McLaughlin at the start though it was the #17 Mustang that was back in the lead following the first pit-stop, as Triple Eight again didn’t respond immediately.

The eighth win of the season for McLaughlin ahead of Whincup and Cameron Waters stretches his lead in the championship to 142 points over team-mate Coulthard, as the Shell V-Power team extend their advantage over the rest of the field.

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Shell V-Power driver Scott McLaughlin

Scott McLaughlin notched yet another win under the lights in Perth. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

 

Triple Eight’s team orders
Even though Whincup was able to score his first podium since the Australian Grand Prix support round, it was still a weekend where the Red Bull Holden Racing Team had no answer to the pace of their Ford rivals.

However, what came under scrutiny during Race 11, was the team orders that was issued late in the piece for Whincup to allow Van Gisbergen past, for what they believed to be an attempt to take third from Chaz Mostert.

It was on Lap 46 when Whincup’s engineer David Cauchi made the call, to which Whincup argued that his team-mate wouldn’t get the Supercheap Auto Mustang in the remaining four laps.

Whincup’s call in the end was right, given that the Holden pair finished five seconds behind Mostert’s Mustang, which only further highlighted how lacking in pace the Triple Eight Commodores are at the moment.

Given the force that Triple Eight have been in Supercars for a long period of time, there is no escape from the extra scrutiny that they’re currently under. They can’t match the performances of DJR Team Penske even after all the technical changes made to the Mustang.

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Mostert’s future in the spotlight
Perth is a special place in the young career of Chaz Mostert, given that it is where he made his debut in 2013 on loan to Dick Johnson Racing and then where he won his first race for Tickford in 2014.

Though with the 27-year-old’s contract with Tickford is up at the end of this year, the speculation about his future has now commenced, with a very tough decision ahead of the 2014 Bathurst 1000 winner.

Chaz Mostert celebrates on the 2017 Gold Coast podium.

Chaz Mostert celebrates a win in style. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

“I feel like the next decision, stay or go, I really need to make sure I’m putting my best foot forward,” Mostert said at a press conference.

“I want to be like this guy next to me [Whincup] and at least get one of those trophies.”

Currently fifth in the championship after another podium finish and then unfortunately an engine drama in Race 12 that saw the Ford driver not classified as a finisher, Mostert’s next career decision will be defining as to whether he can win a title in Supercars or not.

With Coulthard off-contract at DJR Team Penske this year as well, there is cause for Mostert to return to the team where he made his debut, who are now a championship-winning squad, given that Tickford still lack the consistency required to be title threats.

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It does seem that Mostert’s desire is to remain in Supercars, despite his efforts with BMW abroad in their factory GT programs at iconic races such as the Rolex 24 at Daytona and Macau.

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Horror weekend for Walkinshaw Andretti United
Another team who’ve lacked their usual top performances in 2019 has been the Walkinshaw Andretti United group and things didn’t improve for them in Perth.

A horror weekend saw only a best result of 16th achieved for both Scott Pye and James Courtney respectively in each of the races.

Both drivers also endured an incident-laden SuperNight, with Courtney having been consigned to last in the order during Race 11, following an early puncture to his #22 Commodore.

Pye had his Race 12 ruined through an incident with Nissan driver Andre Heimgartner, with the Walkinshaw driver sustaining left-front damage when trying to pass the Altima at the final corner.

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“Heimgartner’s on his out-lap and I thought I’d have a red-hot crack and just couldn’t pull it up,” lamented Pye, who also apologised to the team’s fans for the terrible run of form.

The upside from this though is that the team management has acknowledged where the squad sits and stated that no one will rest until Walkinshaw progresses back to the front of the field.

Neither Pye nor Courtney have finished on the podium this season, with a best result of fifth having been achieved by the 2010 Supercars champion in Tasmania. Courtney currently sits down in 14th in the standings and Pye is a lowly 18th.

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