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(V)8 Things we Learned in Sydney

08 Dec 2015
A new champion, a preview of 2016 and performance improvements – here's the talking points from the Coates Hire Sydney 500.
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Mark Winterbottom. Champion

Mark Winterbottom is champion. Not a champion. The champion. Singular and above all other drivers in the 2015 V8 Supercars field. For the rest of his life this will rank amongst Frosty’s greatest achievements. And not only great but rare. In the modern V8 Supercars era that started in 1993 he is only the 10th driver to have won the title. Pole position and a podium on Saturday at Sydney Olympic Park were proof of his stated desire to claim the championship the right way, rather than limping cautiously to the line. He threw a scare into his supporters when he crashed on Friday morning but from then on he and his crew beavered away, sorted the car and created history. Just as he has most of the year, Winterbottom exuded an aura all weekend of a man ready and able to wear the crown. And if you weren’t happy for him after he paid that tearful tribute to his late Mum June, you’ve got no heart.

PRA. Champions.

This was not just Frosty’s first title of course, but also number one for Prodrive Racing Australia after 13 long years. And while the teams’ championship slipped from PRA’s grasp at the last gasp, Winterbottom’s title was the one they truly wanted, becoming only the eighth team to win the drivers’ championship since 1993. He’ll hate being singled out but team manager Chris O’Toole does deserve a special mention. A foundation member of the team all the way back in 2003, ‘Tooly’ is also the car controller in pit stops. Which means he was the one who released Winterbottom back into traffic on the Gold Coast. The bloke is so intense and devoted to his team that you couldn’t help but fear for his state of mind after that. No-one would have been more relieved or happier on Saturday evening than he. As he had promised to do all the way back at the Clipsal 500, O’Toole shaved his beard off on Saturday night once the championship was won. And would have loved doing it!

Work to be done

For all the rightful celebrations that PRA soaked up over the weekend, the fact remains it ended the season without the speed advantage that helped Winterbottom build up the vital points buffer that proved so important late in the season. There was only one Falcon win after the Sandown 500 1-2, when David Reynolds scored a sprint win in New Zealand. There is no doubt the Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden Commodores have recaptured the high ground when it comes to race pace. Only T8 cars won last weekend and at Phillip Island; they scored two out of three in New Zealand and one out of two on the Gold Coast and through Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards’ won the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000. The short term upshot was RBRA’s sixth teams’ championship. What it means once the celebrations are done this week is that development work will be frantic both down south and up north over summer. What off-season?

Garth Tander has big … talent

Whatever the set-up issues are that mean Garth Tander and qualifying meld together like water and oil, we should be thankful for them. If he was still plonking his Holden Racing Team Commodore regularly on pole like the good old days we’d miss spectacular moments like Sunday when he charged between Scott Pye and Fabian Coulthard on a restart, the three cars bumping and rubbing as they blasted down Kevin Coombs Avenue towards the first chicane. Not only did Tander have the audacity and bravery to try the move he had the talent to pull it off. In Pye and Coulthard he also had two drivers sensible enough not to try and and out-bluff him, otherwise it all could have gone pear-shaped very quickly. It was one of the most memorable moments of the year, let alone the race.

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You know when you go to the movies and get to see previews of coming attractions? Well that’s what Sunday’s 250km mini-marathon was all about. The duel at the front that went on for many laps between Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup should have whetted your appetite for some incredible races to come in 2016 when they are team-mates. SvG is the most obviously talented driver in the field and Whincup is the most analytical and motivated. The result went the Kiwi’s way on Sunday because Whincup made a driving error while holding a tactical advantage. You can bet that will grind on Whincup all summer and he will use it to spur himself on. SvG, meanwhile, is already making clear his excitement at the prospect of driving a Triple Eight Commodore of equivalent spec to Whincup. It will be an entrancing battle.

Crash landing

When Craig Lowndes stuck the #888 Commodore in the turn 11 fence on Saturday morning the realisation the championship fight was effectively over landed on the Sydney Olympic Park as heavily as an Airbus pancaking on the front straight. For the vast majority of us who were keen to see the championship fight continue as long as possible it took much of the drama out of the weekend. To his credit Lowndes took full blame for the crash and paid generous tribute to Winterbottom and PRA’s championship win. Even in such disappointing circumstances his public persona was so upbeat it was impossible to divine what he was really thinking somewhere in there. Surely such a competitive beast must have been hurting? But take the higher altitude view and Lowndes’ second place in the championship – his sixth in 11 years at T8 – and sixth Bathurst win make this a brilliantly successful year for him. Next year he moves to T8’s newly-created Team Vortex spin-off. He will also turn 42 in 2016. But don’t be surprised if he is again up there challenging when the championships reaches the Sydney streets.

Nissan rising

Nissan didn’t win a race in 2015 but you could argue the Japanese brand finished the season at a more competitive level than at any time since it entered the championship in 2013. Sundays in particular have been fruitful of late; Rick Kelly farewelled Jack Daniel’s with third in Sydney, brother Todd was top Nissan at Phillip Island in fifth on Sunday (James Moffat got a fifth in the first 60km Saturday sprint as well), Michael Caruso put the Nismo-backed Altima into fifth at Pukekohe and on the Sunday of the Castrol Gold Coast 600 it was Rick Kelly and David Russell scoring a second. Clearly, the engine upgrade that started rolling out at the Wilson Security Sandown 500 is bearing fruit. While all the focus is on the expanded T8 attack (including Will Davison and Tekno), PRA, the expanded DJR Team Penske and slimmed down HRT, could Nissan take the next step next year and become a regular front-runner?

Meanwhile over at Volvo

In 2015 Scott McLaughlin went without a win for the first time in his three-year main game career. It wasn’t for want of trying by him or the GRM crew as the Volvo S60 clearly improved its competitiveness in the second half of the year. Reliability also improved, but niggling issues continued until the end, such as the bent steering arm in the season’s final race. McLaughlin is now set to be the star of 2016 driver contract speculation. His four-year deal with GRM is up at the end of next season and he will undoubtedly be entertaining big dollar offers from teams who not only recognise his talent but his ever-increasing popularity among fans. It will be fascinating to see if Garry Rogers opens up the piggy bank more for McLaughlin in an attempt to keep him than he traditionally does when it comes to driver salaries… Also whether some one will make a pre-emptive swoop, as T8 owner Roland Dane did for Shane van Gisbergen.

The ninth item…

There are question marks over the future of Sydney Olympic Park as a venue and no doubt there will be mixed feelings if it does depart from the calendar come 2017. It was the brainchild of former V8 Supercars czar Tony Cochrane, who long-dreamed of a Sydney street race. Cost, timing and the circuit’s car wrecking concrete and chicanes have always been issues, but it has also turned on some incredible racing, most obviously the 2010 championship decider. It gets mixed reviews from spectators, but there’s no doubt standing at the first chicane watching the cars negotiate the kerbs is one of the best places at any circuit to appreciate the skill of the drivers and the importance of getting suspension set-up right.

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