The Debrief: Sydney’s surprises

It was the moment fans had been waiting for: A return to the physical race track.

WATCH: FIRST SUPERCARS RACE LAP SINCE THE BREAK

It did not fail to deliver, with the new way of going racing serving up three enthralling sprint races at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Supercars.com takes the opportunity to look through five key takeaways from the BP Ultimate Sydney SuperSprint – before the category unexpectedly returns to SMP in a fortnight’s time.

No seat time, no worries

There were some queries heading in about whether drivers could get a little overzealous after 10 weeks of being able to reach for the reset button during the All Stars Eseries.

Any such concerns were quickly laid to rest, with minimal errors of note from the very first session as drivers got behind the wheel for the first time in more than three months.

In race trim it was even more impressive, with hard but clean wheel-to-wheel racing a regular feature.

That not once a car was spun or similar made for a straightforward weekend for Driving Standards Advisor Craig Baird.

New format a winner

Changes to the usual way of going about things were a given coming out of the COVID-19 shutdown but seven-time champion and Commission member Jamie Whincup declared a mission to use the chance to make changes to create an event better product.

Judging by the first weekend back, he was right.

Sprint races in the past have been criticised for a lack of strategy and becoming processional… but neither of those could be said about the weekend’s action.

Reduced tyre allocations made for fascinating strategy decisions and opened up far more unpredictability: Nick Percat won for Brad Jones Racing, Lee Holdsworth charged home in the finale while Todd Hazelwood threatened to steal a maiden podium.

The quickfire nature of a two-day event layout was a win for fans too, with no shortage of action.

McLaughlin still the driver to beat

Despite new challenges and a potential softening of the pecking order, the powerhouse teams and drivers were still very hard to topple.

In fact, the two top drivers in the championship following Adelaide – Scott McLaughlin and Whincup – were on the podium in every race.

McLaughlin was on the top step on two of those occasions, helping him to widen his title advantage to 49 points as he shoots for a third straight crown.

With already a 142-point gap to Chaz Mostert in third, beating McLaughlin remains a very tough task.

It wasn’t such happy travelling on the other side of the Shell V-Power Racing garage as Fabian Coulthard struggled for race pace and suffered a mechanical DNF in the finale.

Old guard rejuvenated

We’d to a degree begun getting used to Shane van Gisbergen holding a slight upper hand over Whincup at Triple Eight over the course of a season, on the grounds of consistency as much as anything.

Whincup though was flawless at Sydney Motorsport Park, driving with speed and smarts; he’d said pre-event that the unscheduled break could extend the careers of veterans in the sport.

Mark Winterbottom similarly has been in the game for a long time now and came out firing at SMP, racing forward to ninth, eighth and fifth in the three races.

Holdsworth taking his first solo podium since winning aboard an Erebus Mercedes in 2014 was another celebrated result, while his new Tickford teammate James Courtney showed strong race pace in his Mustang debut.

Delight for Percat, BJR

It would be remiss of us not to give the Race 8 upset result from Sunday a special mention.

After a horror first season at Brad Jones Racing, Percat has led the team strongly in the past couple of years and is going from strength to strength.

Tyre tactics played a part but the #8 Commodore clearly had excellent pace, which the 31-year-old used to full effect.

In his 200th championship race, Percat took his third win and his first since Adelaide 2016 for Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport.

It had been nearly as long a wait for BJR as a whole, having last tasted victory at Winton that same year courtesy of Tim Slade.

Next up on the 2020 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship calendar is the Truck Assist Sydney SuperSprint on July 18-19.