Expert Analysis: Where did Blanchard Racing Team's speed come from?
This is an exclusive post-event Supercars.com column by championship-winning Race Engineer Scott Sinclair. Sinclair will preview and debrief each round of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship from his own perspective.
With all the off-season changes, it was no surprise that the opening round at Sydney Motorsport Park had a bit of everything, including the unlikeliest of front rows to kick off the season.
BRT’s big statement
The biggest surprise of the weekend was the speed of Blanchard Racing Team’s James Golding and Aaron Cameron. Having both cars qualify in the top 10 across all three sessions, in varying conditions, was remarkable. It wasn't just qualifying pace either; they finished the weekend ranked as the number one team for race pace as well.
So where did it come from? BRT were actually ranked first for race pace improvement last year, meaning they improved their speed across the season more than any other team. Cameron also started from the front row at the last event in Adelaide. That momentum clearly carried over.
The races themselves didn't go their way, which is not unusual for a team that finds themselves unexpectedly at the front. A maiden race win was beckoning on Friday night until a strategy misstep allowed Broc Feeney to snatch the win. I'd bet, however, that their pre-SMP strategy meeting didn't have an agenda item for what to do when running first and second. A double podium nonetheless is an amazing result.
De Pasquale’s textbook win
Anton De Pasquale's first win for Team 18 did more than put a chunk of points in the bank; it quietened a lot of the noise around the team's credentials as the GM Homologation team. A few lean years in this sport and it's easy to forget what a driver has achieved. Only four years ago, De Pasquale finished fourth in the championship. His pole-to-win drive in Race 2 was a timely reminder.
Two moments stood out in that race. First, the ferocity with which he defended Brodie Kostecki on the opening lap. Had Kostecki made that pass, the race was likely gone. Second, and less visible, was how he managed laps 31 to 37: the window after completing his second pitstop but before Kostecki had taken his. In that phase of the race, the temptation is always to push hard on fresh rubber while the pit cycle plays out. But over-driving those laps compromises your ability to defend at the end. De Pasquale managed it perfectly, ultimately holding off Kostecki's seven-lap tyre advantage to win by 0.36 seconds.
Managing cool suit failures
The effects of driver cooling system failures were put on graphic display after Sunday's race, with Will Brown and David Reynolds both ending up in the medical centre. The three podium finishers were also clearly suffering throughout the race.
Drivers will rarely pull themselves out of a race under extreme heat stress: the decision to retire often falls to the engineer. In that situation, the engineer's only tools are what you can hear on the radio and what the data tells you. A rising frequency of small mistakes (running wide at a corner, missing a gear) is the telltale sign. Even then, it's hard to make a definitive call, especially late in a race. But a small mistake can very quickly become a large accident.
I experienced this first-hand engineering James Courtney at Adelaide when his cool-suit failed. We were watching the situation deteriorate and debating what to do. In the end, James made the decision easy by responding to my check-in on the radio with complete gibberish.
Toyota’s building blocks
You can’t overestimate the achievement of having all five Toyotas finish inside the top 10 in Sunday's race. More telling was their improvement across the weekend. They were on average 0.55 seconds a lap slower than the Fords in Race 1; by Race 3, that gap had been cut to 0.21 seconds.
There are only eight days until Supercars returns to Albert Park, with Broc Feeney and Matt Payne locked at the top of the championship standings. I suspect it will be these two duking it out the entire way through the Repco Sprint Cup. There are plenty of others capable of joining them, but just who that is will start to become clearer next week.
Scott Sinclair is one of the most respected voices in pit lane, famously engineering James Courtney to the 2010 championship with Dick Johnson Racing. Sinclair also spent stints at the Holden Racing Team and Kelly Racing, spent time on the Supercars Commission, and recently joined Supercars as a data analyst.
The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.
