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Life of Pye: The challenges of racing at SMSP

04 Nov 2021
The seventh of Scott Pye’s post-event columns for Supercars.com
3 mins by James Pavey
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This is the seventh of Scott Pye’s post-event columns for Supercars.com. The Team 18 driver scored finishes of 19th, 15th and 20th at the Bunnings Trade Sydney SuperNight. Get the lowdown on the DEWALT Racing driver’s eighth hit out of 2021.

It was so good to back in the car and back racing.

Townsville feels like such a long time ago now, but once I got in the car, everything started again.

Four weeks at Sydney Motorsport Park will be a challenge for drivers and engineers.

It’s a place where you spend so much time turning the car. A small change in set-up can either find you a lot of lap time, or it can send you backwards.

For us last weekend, we were slightly out of the window. At a place like SMSP, which is like The Bend or Bathurst, you really pay the price if you’re not on top of your car.

At other tracks, you could be two tenths off the pace. Here, you can be a second off.

At the moment, our cars are in a small operating window. For this weekend and beyond, the focus is to widen that window.

It’s no secret that every customer Triple Eight car really struggled last weekend - but we’re not making any excuses.

We have some very smart people at Team 18 who are putting their heads together to get Frosty and I at the pointy end.

Last weekend, we were more competitive in the races versus qualifying. We don’t quite have a top five race car, but we feel we made gains across the weekend.

With regards to tyres, the deg was predictable, perhaps more so than last year.

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However, we will have mixed compound racing this weekend, so it’ll change again.

There’s no doubt deg will play a role. Last weekend, you can get five to 10 laps out of the tyres before the deficit to the quick guys shows.

The key challenge of SMSP is overtaking; unless you have a huge tyre advantage, you have to work really hard to save your tyres for an attack.

Everyone talks about tyre management, but if I’m being honest, there isn’t a whole lot we drivers can do about it.

If your car’s fast, you can drive conservatively and you can save the tyre anyway.

Take Anton for example; he qualified on pole by seven tenths, had clean air and pitted when they were comfortable. You can then make the tyre last longer in both stints.

If you’re down the field, you’re having to push a lot harder to stay where you are or move forward.

If you have confidence with the car, you can take a swing at it and try an undercut, because from there, you’ll have rubber left in reserve for the end of the race.

On strategy, I like to do the opposite of what others do, if that’s going really short, or going really long. With mixed tyre compound racing, it will be a lottery.

Any chance we can get to attack, we take it; I really enjoy the challenge and racing hard.

Tyres and all, it’s simple - there’s no substitute for car speed, and a lot of guys struggled to find a window last weekend.

We’ll band together at Team 18 and I’m confident we’ll find a direction that works for us in Sydney.

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