Thursday Talking Points: Unpacking a weird and spectacular Thursday
The 2024 Repco Bathurst 1000 is officially underway and a weird Thursday has set the scene for Boost Mobile Qualifying for tomorrow afternoon.
Matt Payne and Jamie Whincup split the two sessions at Mount Panorama, Whincup heading the co-driver session, but there were plenty of storylines to emerge from the second session in particular.
The leading championship combatants both had troubled days, with one left with a long repair overnight and the other left looking for a bit more speed before qualifying.
Supercars.com takes a look at some of the talking points from the opening day of the 2024 Repco Bathurst 1000.
A potential championship-changing crash?
The championship-leading Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaro of Will Brown and Scott Pye started off strong with third in the opening session of the day, before it all unravelled this afternoon for Pye. In the dying minutes of the co-driver session, Pye made an error heading into The Cutting and made heavy contact with the outside wall. The right rear corner was torn out of the #87, and was a sorry sight when it returned to the pits on a flatbed. Whilst the damage should be repairable, what remains to be seen is if there are any lingering effects after the crash, especially when tomorrow is all about speed in Boost Mobile Qualifying. Whilst 189 points is a sizeable buffer in the championship, any slip-up in the race would have massive ramifications, and Pye will be anxious to put this behind and put his best foot forward for the balance of the weekend.
Bathurst being Bathurst
Pye's crash bookended what was an already bizarre co-driver session, which was twice delayed by happenings that can only be seen at Bathurst. The start of the session was initially delayed after a Mazda RX-7 suffered an engine failure in the preceding Heritage Revival race. The blow-up left a large slick of oil that started before the hump in Conrod Straight and finished at the entry of The Chase. That took almost 20 minutes to clean up before a snake of all things slithered it's way on to the track at Forrest's Elbow. The snake remained on track for more than five minutes before a brave marshal was able to the snake off the track, not without a struggle. It was another weird Bathurst wildlife encounter to add to an already extensive list over the years.
A troubled day for Mostert, Holdsworth
Whilst the championship leader's day unravelled spectacularly late this afternoon, it wasn't much better for nearest championship rival Chaz Mostert. Mostert and co-driver Lee Holdsworth were tipped by many to be the favourites for this year's Bathurst 1000, however today was anything but smooth sailing for the 2021 champions. Whilst Mostert finished eighth in the opening session of the day, the Optus Mustang was buried down the order for a large portion of the session struggling to find a happy car balance. Things were only made worse when the team lost half an hour of running in what turned out to be a 40-minute session with an engine issue. Holdsworth finished 15th after his limited running, although Walkinshaw Andretti United appear to have a bit of homework to do overnight before Boost Mobile Qualifying tomorrow.
Is there a form guide?
Whilst the first session ran green throughout its 60-minute duration, there are still plenty of questions that probably won't be answered until Practice 4 tomorrow afternoon, or perhaps even Boost Mobile Qualifying later on. Matt Payne set the benchmark in the opening session of the day ahead of Cam Waters and Will Brown, whilst Triple Eight and Erebus seemed to have the upper hand in the co-driver session. However, with such an emphasis on having a strong race car over 1000km on Sunday, it's hard to tell who has been focusing more on race pace as opposed to one lap pace. Cameron Hill came out of the blocks strong for Matt Stone Racing, claiming fourth in the opening session, as did David Reynolds for Team 18 among others. This time tomorrow we should have much more of a form guide than we do now.
