Supercars Speed into Adelaide for Cut-Throat Season Finale
A week has passed since the Adelaide 500 and with the champagne dried and the circuit being dismantled, it’s time to reflect on a weekend full of action. Adelaide had two championships needing to be decided and with 25 cars on track across the weekend. It was an event not to be missed, especially for those located in the festival state.
The exciting street circuit stretches over 3.2 km around some of the famous streets in Adelaide, (see picture 1). One of the best views on track are the drivers coming out of the hairpin at the final turn. They roar up the Victoria Park pit straight, going over 250km/hr, before they go barrelling into the Senna Chicane. Looking out from the blue seats of the grandstand, onto the Supercars Hall of Fame inducted circuit, the fans can view all the teams in their full glory. The event is held over 4 days from Thursday to Sunday, it is an event full to the brim with never ending excitement and entertainment.
Picture 1: Adelaide Parklands Circuit, located in the Adelaide Parklands East, site of the Vailo Adelaide 500, from Supercars.com
At the end of Thursday’s wet and wild practice, it was Chaz Mostert in his Ford Mustang who painted the timing sheet purple. His time was a 1.28.614, over 2 hundredths of a second quicker than Andre Heimgartner. Mostert was a race winner in 2022, albeit in a Holden Commodore, not a Ford Mustang. When asked how special it would be to back up last year’s 1-2 with another this year he said,
“It’s what we are all kind of here for! Last year was pretty special, the whole event was special. It was Holden last one, this year it’s been awesome representing Ford. Some teams have finally got the tick for wins for their Ford team. Unfortunately for me and Nick, we’ve been close plenty of times, but we haven’t been able to win. We’re more hungry for the win, more to get our first win for Ford, more so than looking back at the history” – Chaz Mostert, Walkinshaw Andretti United, Thursday afternoon.
Macaulay Jones, the driver of the Brad Jones Pizza Hut Camaro, took time from his busy schedule to speak to Hub Media on both Friday and Sunday,
“It’s a funny one! The plan goes out the window when we are not sure about the weather. We are not really trusting the radar at the moment, but hopefully if it stays dry, we’re just gonna be working on quali at the moment, (heading into practice 2). Generally, we get a bit more race running in practice 1. We obviously missed that with the wet conditions yesterday, but it’s kind of hard to take that forward when we are not sure what the weather is gonna do today”.
Jones went on to describe the supercars in the wet conditions,
“It was actually a lot of fun! We haven’t had a wet condition all year, the new wet tyre is really interesting, it’s a really cool tyre. It’s a softer tyre then what we’ve had in the past, so that was a cool experience, we had a bit more grip under us in the wet. Trying to conserve this tyre to last for a whole race will be probably the challenge. I think it’s sort of gonna wear out a lot faster, but honestly, it’s really hard to pick. You’re trying to predict what the car is gonna do and on the entry when the conditions are forever changing you know you’ve got cars that are running around in front of you and they leave tire tracks, which makes it a little bit nicer. But if you are in clean air it can be a bit of a lottery as to what you’ve got into the corner, but you know I think the wet is always pretty exciting as a driver, sliding around!” Macauley Jones, SCT Logistics and Pizza Hut Racing, Friday morning
The top two from Thursday’s practice in Chaz Mostert and Andre Heimgartner also backed up this feeling, showing that it was affecting all cars and all teams,
“Yeah, it was real wet out there, in the first couple of laps, you’re trying to tighten the belts and you’re thinking wow we’ve got our hands full out here!” Chaz Mostert, Walkinshaw Andretti United, Thursday afternoon.
“(The tyre), was pretty difficult, you could get about halfway through a lap, and they would sort of deteriorate. So, a very different style of track, good to get a few laps in, they’re gripped up, but we are worried about the longevity that everyone will be working on.” Andre Heimgartner, Brad Jones Racing, Thursday Afternoon.
The man piloting the CoolDrive entry in Todd Hazlewood also added his thoughts. Being local didn’t seem to make any easier for the 28-year-old, who had this to say after being behind the wheel of the Number 3 Ford Mustang,
“Practice one was okay. We had reasonable speed at the start of the session, but obviously it was wet conditions and we’re experimenting with the tyre pressures and trying to understand what this new tyre that we haven’t run on all year does”.
Hazlewood continued to explain that it wasn’t just the weather that was causing problems, but his car had an issue as well,
“We had a little power steer issue toward the end there. We lost a little bit of running, about 10 minutes’ worth, but onwards and upwards.” Todd Hazlewood, CoolDrive Racing, Friday morning
Hazlewood wanted to go out of the season on high and said, “He’d be doing everything he can to finish the season on happier note.” Hazlewood would end up finishing 12th on Saturday, while on Sunday he would finish 11th. Sunday afternoon see him also participate in the top 10 shootout for the first time since Sandown and would label the experience as “really cool.”
A wet start on Friday morning meant it appeared that we were in for the same kind of sessions again. However as the sun began to shine, so did Thomas Randle’s Ford Mustang, with a time of 1.19.21, the fastest all weekend. 0.12s better then teammate and fellow Tickford Racing driver, Cam Waters. Will Brown in the Erebus Camaro was in third. When the question about how the team was feeling heading into the weekend was asked, Brown said:
“It would be a massive thing for team, to not only win the team championship, but also the drivers, it shows the consistency of the team, we’ve never won either so it would be massive feat to get that done”. – Will Brown, Coca-Cola Racing by Erebus Team, Thursday morning.
For the first time since 2018 the title was on the line, Brodie Kostecki had won six races across the year and is in career best form, while Shane Van Gisbergen came into the weekend just 131 points behind. Van Gisbergen is a 3-time, (2016, 2021 and 2022) supercars champion, safe to say there’s not many in the world that can operate a supercar better. Seeing them both race was reason enough to book a ticket. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be for the Kiwi, after getting tangled in a collision with Anton De Pasquale and Will Brown. Into turn 4 on lap 1 on Saturday’s race, the Shell V entry and Coca Cola car were fighting over position. Brown was hanging on around the outside, and on the exit of the corner made contact with De Pasquale after running out of room between the Mustang and the wall. The Erebus supercar then bounced off and hit the front wheel of Shane Van Gisbergen’s Red Bull car. Anton De Parsquale’s car managed to survive the incident although he would go on to finish a lowly 21st. Both Brown’s and Van Gisbergen’s Camaros wouldn’t leave the scene of the crash. Brodie Kostecki had to finish the race to achieve his first championship and he would do just that. Taking 6th position and with it, the Driver’s Championship. When Brodie Kostecki’s race engineer, George Commins was asked about the condition of car 9 after the race, he would go on to say, “the damage is bad, both clips front and rear. It’s a big job,”. For context to the extent of the damage, he informed Hub media on Sunday night that the mechanics had about 2 hours of sleep in preparation for the final race of the season.
The owner of Brad Jones racing, Brad Jones, would claim that, “the Ford is pretty strong at this particular circuit.” A prediction that would turn to be correct when Tickford’s Cam Waters took the win on Saturday. He would be followed by fellow Ford Driver in David Reynolds, his Penrite Mustang finished 2nd. Tom Randle in other Tickford entry would finish 3rd. Waters, by his own account had a lot to do on the lap 1, turn 4 incident,
“I was super close, I saw the DJ car, (De Pasquale) and Will interlocking wheels. Whenever you interlock wheels, usually there’s chaos, just tried to stay clear of that. I was pretty fortunate to stay clear of that and Shane (Van Gisbergen) couldn’t see. All the sprint car stuff I do, there’s always shunts in that. You’ve got to dodge a lot of cars rolling and flipping into fences and stuff, (I was) pretty luckily to make it through.”
The Mustang driver was then asked how he went on to win the race.
“We had a really fast race car, that’s the number one thing. It was really good across the entire stints, so the second half of the stints we were quite competitive. We got a good start and that kind of brought us a ticket to the race really. I think we were 5th when the safety car came out and just tracked on forward past a few cars, and got it done.” Cam Waters, Tickford Racing, Saturday after the race.
Frustration was the flavour of Sunday morning, after qualifying ahead of the final race of the season in the SCT Logistics and Pizza Hut Racing garage, Macaulay Jones labelled the session as “really frustrating”, he went on to say:
“We feel like we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at it to try and turn these new tires on, but at the moment it’s not really working for us. We just got really good race pace over the distance of a stint, but at one lap pace it’s really weak. Andre (Heimgartner) did a really good job to piece the lap together, but we just have to focus at the moment and we’re all a little bit confused. The balance that we’ve got is not that bad for race pace, that one lap speed so that’s what’s proving difficult trying to find the quail car versus race car, but the race car seems to be quite strong.
In terms of the race plan Macauley added,
“Very similar, (to yesterday) I mean we’ll tweak it as the tracks changed a little bit. Generally, just trying to keep it the same balance so we know what we have and we’re pretty happy with what we’ve had yesterday so just fine-tuning that little bit just to suit the conditions and then, seeing what today brings. I’m trying to keep it clean in that first lap which was a bit of chaos yesterday - Macauley Jones, SCT Logistics and Pizza Hut Racing, Sunday morning.
The team would end up finishing 12th in the standings with 2108 points. Macauley finishing 17th on Saturday and 22nd on Sunday.
His team principal, Brad Jones also chimed in with the plan from a team position over the final couple of hours of racing for 2023.
“We feel like we’ve got a fast race car. They’ve qualified a fair way back except Andre Heimgartner, who’s ninth, so obviously it’s to finish in the top 15, or as close to the podium as you can get. Certainly with Andre we’re in a position where hopefully we will get him into the top 5” – Brad Jones, Brad Jones Racing Team Principal, Sunday afternoon.
Andre would end Sunday night in 6th position, In the paddock, Hub Media were able to speak to Brad Jones on Sunday night about his thoughts following the race, he said he was “quite happy” with the result.
Elsewhere on Sunday, a rookie became a race winner when Matthew Payne’s Penrite Racing Ford Mustang crossed the line first on Sunday afternoon, after the race he said,
“I think I always set out to win. That’s what every racing driver does! I think we’ve definitely shown that throughout the last 5-6 rounds that we’ve had really good pace, to come here and start of really strong, even after yesterday with the mistake I made, we were still really fast in the race. I definitely thought for Sunday that we had a really good shot at winning. I managed to qualify really well and pull it off, it’s a huge credit to the team and it’s a really good feeling to finish off the season with a high” Matthew Payne, Penrite Racing, Sunday night.
Payne would be followed by Broc Feeney. Who was the last rookie to win his first race in Adelaide at the 2022 version of the event. Payne’s departing teammate David Reynolds would take the final podium spot for the last race of the season.
Despite Broc Feeney’s second placed finish, Kostecki finishing 8th and Will Brown finishing 14th, saw Erebus become team champions for the first time in 2023. Not helping Red Bull’s charge was Shane Van Gisbergen’s retirement on lap 52 due to a steering rack issue after a series of pitstops. The issue had plagued him all weekend and rather ruined his final supercar event for the time being.
After 35 hours of on track action, new champions were crowned. Brodie Kostecki was the Driver’s Champion and the Coca Cola by Erebus Team were Team Champions. It was a double Ford victory, with Cam Waters, crossing the line first on Saturday. This before Penrite Racing’s Matthew Payne crossed the line to win his first ever V8 supercars race in the East End of Adelaide on Sunday. 2023 threw some shocks and surprises, but one thing that’s certain is 2024 will have so much more.