VASC(Virgin Aus. SuperCars) 2017 Discussion

WTCC, BTCC, DTM and Aussie V8s
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theracer120
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#751

Post by theracer120 »

Bottom post of the previous page:

I think I posted that a while back, anyway it's not a new announcement.

Speaking of which:
https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/12/01/ni ... placement/

Heimgartner will be replacing Todd Kelly, and...

https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/12/01/da ... ars-drive/

Davison has been officially confirmed at the 23RED team. This leaves only the Tekno car and the remaining Prodrive entry to have their drivers confirmed.
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#752

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

theracer120 wrote: 6 years ago I think I posted that a while back, anyway it's not a new announcement.
Whoops, must have slipped under my radar. :blush:

Speaking of which:
https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/12/01/ni ... placement/

Heimgartner will be replacing Todd Kelly, and...

https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/12/01/da ... ars-drive/

Davison has been officially confirmed at the 23RED team. This leaves only the Tekno car and the remaining Prodrive entry to have their drivers confirmed.
And we believe those final two spots are heading towards Jack Le Brocq (Tekno) and Richie Stannaway (Prodrive).

Thus we have the following lineup for 2018.

Team Manufacturer Driver
DJR Team Penske Ford Fabian Coulthard
DJR Team Penske Ford Scott McLaughlin
Autobarn Lowndes Racing Holden Craig Lowndes
Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Shane van Gisbergen
Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Jamie Whincup
Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden Scott Pye
Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden James Courtney
Prodrive Racing Australia Ford Richie Stanaway (Not yet confirmed)
Prodrive Racing Australia Ford Mark Winterbottom
Prodrive Racing Australia Ford Cam Waters
Prodrive Racing Australia Ford Chaz Mostert
Nissan Motorsport Nissan Andre Heimgartner
Nissan Motorsport Nissan Rick Kelly
Nissan Motorsport Nissan Michael Caruso
Nissan Motorsport Nissan Simona de Silvestro
Brad Jones Racing Holden Nick Percat
Brad Jones Racing Holden Tim Slade
Tim Blanchard Racing Holden Tim Blanchard
Erebus Motorsport Holden David Reynolds
Erebus Motorsport Holden Anton de Pasquale
Garry Rogers Motorsport Holden Garth Tander
Garry Rogers Motorsport Holden James Golding
Charlie Schwerkolt Racing Holden Lee Holdsworth
Tekno Autosports Holden Jack Le Brocq (Not yet confirmed)
23Red Racing Ford Will Davison
Matt Stone Racing Ford Todd Hazelwood

8 Fords, 4 Nissans and 14 Holdens

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#753

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Looks like we are headed for a bit of controversy over the speed in pitlane in pitlane decision against Scott McLaughlan, which cost him a drive through.
Although the results have been made official so no changes can be made to any race or title, DJRTP have requested clarification over the official methods and accuracy of the speed detected.... they have shown on their telemetery that Scott was well under the limit on entry to pit lane. They also have evidence that Scott had released the brakes well before the pit lane entry line. The following images are from the DJRTP website.

Image
“Although the results of the Championship and the final race of the 2017 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship are official, DJR Team Penske is still working to understand why a penalty was issued to Scott McLaughlin at the Newcastle 500 for exceeding the pit lane speed limit during his first pit stop in Race 26, on Sunday November 26,” read a statement issued by DJR Team Penske.

“According to the team’s analysis of multiple different data/video feeds, Scott didn’t exceed the 40 km/h speed limit at any point in pit lane.
“Members of Supercars technical staff have agreed to attend a meeting at the DJR Team Penske workshop on Monday, 11 December to review the incident with the team’s technical staff.

“Data retrieved from the car aligned to television footage of the car entering pit lane and the footage from the MoTeC VCS Judicial Camera (note: Judicial Camera footage cannot be publicly released without Supercars permission) has been analysed.

“Each analysis demonstrates McLaughlin’s car never exceeded the speed limit. In fact, when McLaughlin released the brake pedal prior to the pit entry line, the car was travelling at 33.5 km/h. Following entry, the car’s pit speed limiter brought the vehicle speed up to a steady 38.2 km/h without ever exceeding the prescribed 40 km/h limit.

“The data reviewed includes both front and rear wheel speed (as supplied by Supercars), throttle position, brake pressure, GPS speed and longitudinal G-force (note: see above illustrations).

“DJR Team Penske accepts that the outcome of the Championship cannot be altered, but the team feels it has a responsibility to seek clarity and to ensure the methods used to enforce pit lane speed limits going forward are as accurate as possible for all competitors.”
I have seen discussion elsewhere criticising the accuracy of the loop feed system used by most motor racing championships (and also fixed speed cameras on our roads) Apparently locally the system was proved wrong in speeding offences because the loop distances were fractionally too short thus measuring over the wrong distance. In that case the movement of traffic over the loop wires had actually shifted one of the wires enough to give false readings.

Prior to this announcement Craig Bair, steward at the meeting, issued the following statement regarding the method. indicating it is guaranteed 100% accurate. DJRTP clearly have documentation that they stand by suggesting not guilty.
Baird’s view on McLaughlin’s pit-lane speeding penalty
“The Sunday started with a pit lane speeding infringement, and we still, sadly, have the public perception that we have some volunteer on a radar gun, that may or may not have liked Scott McLaughlin, or Dale Wood or Fabian Coulthard or whoever on the day gets penalised.
“It’s 2017, we don’t use a radar gun (to measure speed on entry), because everything has a plus/minus tolerance.
“We use a thousand percent accurate timing loop system, the same as Formula 1 or anyone else; every car has a timing transponder, parked in exactly the same position on the car; that transponder’s got to travel over two timing loops, five metres apart.
“It can’t get from one timing loop to the other timing loop without speeding; it’s the law of physics, there’s no magic.
“So even if it looks like the car behind closes, yes it does, because one car’s decelerating and trying to come down to 40km/h, one car’s still decelerating from 80km/h to get to 40km/h, so the gap of van Gisbergen closing looked like, ‘Ooh, how did he close the gap?’
“It’s very simple, you come up to a ‘give way’ sign, we start to slow down, the car closes, one accelerates out of the ‘give way’ sign, opens the gap back up.
“So the timing loop system’s very accurate. There is a tolerance, and I will tell you Scott was over 10 percent outside of the tolerance.”
It will be interesting to see the outcome as to who is proved right. Proving the official speed penalty to have been in error would prove enormously embarrassing to VASC as ultimately the time of the PLP deducted would have returned Scott back to 11th place and unofficialy the 2017 champion. Of course the result cannot be reversed and DJRTP accept this.... the purpose of their action is to gain clarity for the future.

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#754

Post by theracer120 »

https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/12/06/st ... 2018-line/

On a brighter note, Stanaway has finally been confirmed at Prodrive.
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#755

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Good news if not a surprise re Stanaway. Wishing him good luck with the main game. So that leaves just Tekno to confirm who will drive their car. (Again no secret that Le Brocq will 99% sure get that gig. )

Regarding the pit lane speeding controversy, It comes as no surprise that CAMS have refuted the DJRTP claims re the speeding penalty as per my previous post, and although they are meeting with DJRTP on Monday to clarify the matter they have defended their system as foolproof and the penalties issued as correct..
Supercars says the system it uses to determine the speed of cars entering pit lane is ‘foolproof’ following DJR Team Penske’s move to seek clarity over a pit lane speeding penalty issued to Scott McLaughlin in Newcastle.
The Queensland squad says it has evidence to prove that McLaughlin did not breach the 40km/h pit lane speed limit early in the Race 26 title decider, which was one of three penalties the Kiwi received, that ultimately cost him a shot at the championship.
While accepting the championship outcome, DJR Team Penske released a statement confirming a meeting with Supercars technical staff on Monday to discuss and understand why the penalty was handed down.
Supercars has issued its own statement today claiming there was no error in regards to McLaughlin’s penalty, reiterating the 100 percent accuracy of the five metre timing loop system used to judge the speed of vehicles entering pit lane.
“The Dorian timing system is a foolproof, point to point system with an accuracy to 1/10,000 of a second,” read the statement.
“As a fixed system with a time to distance calculation the data is 100 percent accurate.
“For the complete avoidance of any doubt there was no error.”
As with any electronic 'foolproof' system the manual content (the laying out of the length of the timing strip is an area of contention. As is any data the input.
Both parties claim they are right, both with supposed proof to back their claims. Only one can be right though, so the outcome will be interesting. Whose foolproof data is less foolproof?

One thing that does strike me is that given the gain of the pit lane infringement (in the case of the DJRTP incident less than 2/100ths of a second,) a drive through penalty costing c 25 seconds on average is a hell of a penalty given penalties of as little as 5 seconds - 15 secs being given for drivers being naughty on track ruining another drivers race.

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#756

Post by Ian-S »

CAMS are wrong, like any benevolent authority they will not acknowledge they are wrong, nor will they acknowledge any shortcomings in their foolproof system, it is lost on them that denying there was a problem with the system that a 5 year old could see, makes them look as equally incompetent as what it would if they admitted there was a problem, caused by the cars pulling up the timing wires in pitlane, this making the loop appear shorter.

We have the same kind of thing here, called MPs.
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#757

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

VASC confirms 2018 Australian GP Championship Race Schedule.

The VASC will as previously confirmed be having their AGP support programme upgraded from a non championship support category to a full championship event. They have today released details of their schedule for the weekend. There was always problems over the race duration being less than that required to be a championship race. F1 management were unwilling to allow the usual 3 sprint race distances due to the time per event. They have now allowed the V8's to run 2 very short sprint races (13 lappers) with 2 slightly longer 25 lappers. I race on the Friday, 2 races Saturday and one on the Sunday, with practice on Thursday. There will also be separate qualifying sessions of 10 minutes for each race grid positions. 2 qualifying sessions on both Thursday and Friday.

The two longer races will both feature refuelling and tyre stops, and the total of 4 races will be 400kms (2 x 69 and 2 x 132 kms.)


Coates Hire Supercars Melbourne 400 provisional schedule
Thursday
Practice 1: 30 minutes
Practice 2: 30 minutes
Qualifying session 1: 10 minutes (results for grid of Race 1)
Qualifying session 2: 10 minutes (results for grid of Race 2)
Friday
Qualifying session 3: 10 minutes (results for grid of Race 3)
Qualifying session 4: 10 minutes (results for grid of Race 4)
Race 1: 60 minutes (25 laps – 132 km) – compulsory pit stop/tyre change and fuel top
up
Saturday
Race 2: 30 minutes (13 laps – 69 km)
Race 3: 60 minutes (25 laps – 132 km) – compulsory pit stop/tyre change and fuel top
up
Sunday
Race 4: 30 minutes (13 laps – 69 km) – last race before Grand Prix

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#758

Post by theracer120 »

Image

Davison's car for 2018.
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#759

Post by theracer120 »

https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/12/12/ea ... co-driver/

Earl Bamber will be partnering Shane van Gisbergen in the enduros next year, since Matt Campbell will have clashing commitments (although he may drive the V6TT wildcard entry at Bathurst).
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#760

Post by theracer120 »

https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/12/19/pr ... me-change/

PRA has been renamed Tickford Racing.
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#761

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

New qualifying format for short tracks.

After a few qualifying near crashes on the short tracks last season, where at Symmons Plain and Barbagallo traffic issues with all cars on track saw cars on flying laps getting involved with cars on outlaps making space for their own flyer as cars on their flyer arrive on the scene..

Video of SVG at Barbagello really shows the problem.

http://www.supercars.com/videos/champio ... collision/


So a new qualy format for the two short tracks has been passed. It is a bit like Moto GP with a Q1 and Q2, based on practice times, the slower cars in practice will have to go into Q1 to qualify for Q2 whereas fastest cars in practice move straight to Q2..

How it works

For Saturday, the top 10 in the combined Friday practice times go straight to Q2.

For Sunday, a 20-minute practice session will take place on Sunday morning. The Top 10 in that session go straight to Q2.

The following applies to both Saturday and Sunday qualifying sessions:
- Q1 is a 10-minute session with the bottom 16 cars from practice. The top six in Q1 advance to Q2. 

- Q2 is a 10-minute session with the top 10 from practice and the top six in Q1 (total 16 cars). The top 10 in Q2 go to Q3. 

- Q3 is a 10-minute session that decides the first five rows for the race. 

- A five-minute break will take place between sessions, creating a total qualifying session time of 40 minutes.

Image

An extra set of tyres will be added to the initial Tasmanian and Western Australian tyre allocations.

The set allocated for handback will be returned on Saturday prior to qualifying.

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


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#762

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Not really motor racing news but it involves a high profile ex driver so I thought it worthwhile posting here. Russel Ingall, ex V8SC Champion and now a high profile VASC presenter, got a phone call from one of his daughters when they were violently attacked getting off a tram in broad daylight going Xmas shopping in Brisbane. Video of the attack and an interview showing Ingalls understandable anger over the unprovoked attack have been released. Its bloody diabolical when two young teenage girls cant safely travel on public transport in our therd largest city, in broad daylight, without suffering these heinous acts of senseless unprovoked vilence.

Video on this link: https://www.speedcafe.com/2017/12/21/in ... -incident/

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#763

Post by theracer120 »

Well it was on the Gold Coast (which is about 80 kilometres down the road from Brisbane), but I get your point :tongue:
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#764

Post by MonteCristo »

Par for the course on the GC :(.
Oscar Piastri in F1! Catch the fever! Vettel Hate Club. Life membership.

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#765

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

theracer120 wrote: 6 years ago Image

Davison's car for 2018.
For some time (since the launch of the team) I have been wondering what the relevance of 23Red is in the Team name.... I looked up 23Red online to find it is some UK charity thing with no interest in motor racing, and certainly no link of any sort to Australia. The mystery (to me anyway) continued.

But today I read that the answer is far more straightforward and simple, with no commercial connections beyond the fact that Phil Munday, who has become majority (60%) team owner over the off season has his birthday on the 23rd of a month, and red is his favourite colour. So the mystery of the naming is solved! :roll:

It was a quiz question on the V8supercars website:
Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport becomes 23Red Racing in 2018, as Phil Munday buys into the squad. Where does the name come from?
1.Munday is a big fan of Shane Warne
2.Munday’s birthday is on the 23rd of a month and his favourite colour is red
3.The flagship range of major sponsor Milwaukee Tools is called 23Red
4.The team is backed by a group of 23 investors

The correct answer is option 2

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#766

Post by theracer120 »

https://www.speedcafe.com/2018/01/11/ti ... t-enduros/

James Moffat has been signed for the enduros by Tickford Racing (the artists formerly known as PRA). Owen and Canto will also be there however Bright has left the team.


Image

The livery for Preston Hire Racing next year.
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