Triple Eight on notice over Bathurst Safety Car risks

Red Bull Ampol Racing are keeping a watchful eye over how the new Safety Car rules for the Repco Bathurst 1000 will impact on both the team and it's drivers.

The Safety Car procedures have reverted back to 2023-style regulations, with the Safety Car speed limiter removed save for when emergency intervention is required, and speeds through double yellow flag zones closely monitored.

Whilst generally praised up and down the pit lane as a positive step, the revised Safety Car procedures will provide a strategic headache for those with two cars in close proximity.

As highlighted by championship-winning engineer Scott Sinclair in his exclusive Bathurst preview, the risk of double stacking could play a huge role in the outcome of Sunday's race. It's something that Triple Eight know all too well.

Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife were denied a Bathurst win in 2011 after stacking behind the sister entry of Jamie Whincup/Andrew Thompson engineered by Mark Dutton several times through the day.

Now the Team Manager at Triple Eight, Dutton insisted that the team haven't made any concrete plans to remove any potential double stacking issues in the race, and backed the Safety Car procedure changes.

“Nothing specific to the team as such," said Dutton at the team representatives' press conference.

"I think the rules are a good switch. They just need a bit more clarity to the teams and to the drivers about how to execute them.

“It can be easy sometimes for us outside the car to think it's just do this, just do that. But you have to put a lot of thought in and emphasis on the drivers to be able to do it accurately, and be able to have the confidence that what you're doing means that you are first and foremost being safe. They can all handle that, but it’s the performance side of it as well.

“It’s the biggest race of the year, we're going in with a few too many unknowns. Definitely a supporter of the direction, but some of the devil's in the details."

Scott Pye, who charged through the field at The Bend on route to fourth with Will Brown, has also been a staunch supporter of the changes to the simpler procedures.

However, he noted that there are still questions to be answered about how much drivers will have to slow down when passing the site of an incident.

"Yeah definitely, and credit to Supercars because it takes big balls to make decisions like this during the season as things are going on," said Pye.

"There's always going to be feedback from the fans, positive and negative, and they obviously have to be prepared for that, but I think it's great that they made a change, and especially coming into a race like this because we know how important this race is.

"So I think it is good. There is still a little bit of a grey area around how much speed we actually need to lose under the double waved yellow, and also the single waved yellow.

"We've got a drivers briefing after this, so I'm sure there will be a lot of questions asked."

Pye was caught up in a dramatic moment with teammate and Team Principal Jamie Whincup during a Safety Car procedure rehearsal at The Bend, which was one of the key triggers in reverting back to the 2023-style rules.

Whilst he maintains that the rules needed to change following The Bend, he also believes that there is opportunity for some to capitalise, and some to be caught out and lose time.

"Ultimately I think The Bend showed braking to a line; I said on my podcast if there were 10 cars and you braked to a line on top of the mountain where it's blind 10 cars back, you'll have a massive shunt.

"It had to be changed, it has been, we'll just see how we understand it when we're actually doing it, how much we actually give up without penalising yourself, because it is still a competition.

"You never want to say you're racing to pit entry, but you put race helmets on and a lot of investment behind these races, and you need to never lose more than necessary.

"But obviously safety is a huge factor, and as drivers we need to have some kind of number or expectation of what we need to give up so that we're not disadvantaging ourselves, or advantaging someone else, but we'll see.

"I'm sure this drivers briefing going to go forever."