VASC(Virgin Aus. SuperCars) 2017 Discussion

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Another round of the V8 Supercars is coming up this weekend, this time it's the round at Phillip Island which will be comprised of two 250km races just like at Adelaide and Newcastle.

P1 has just been on for the VASC's and the big news was Craig Lowndes had a major off at high speed into the tyre walls when his front right tyre blew on entry to the Flat out left hand Hayshed. The car seemed to skip over the wet gravel trap before hitting and spinning along the tyre wall. Craig was unhurt but the car is going to need an awful lot of work to be ready for P2 later on.

Weather is damp but will be getting wetter over the weekend according to forecasts.

Dave Reynolds was fastest in P1 in his Erebus Commodore, ahead of SVG, Todd Kelly (Nissan) and a back in action (following his major crash and hospitalisation in Tassie) in his Tekno Holden.

[theracer120]

Video of that here. Earth embankments hurt. Didn't you go into that wall or another similar one at PI in a Cortina once?

http://www.supercars.com/videos/champio ... at=default

[Everso Biggyballies]

Video of that here. Earth embankments hurt. Didn't you go into that wall or another similar one at PI in a Cortina once?

http://www.supercars.com/videos/champio ... at=default

Good memory.... yeah I went into the wall outside of the last turn coming onto the main straight. A steering arm broke. I ended up opposite the start of the pits, having gone in to the sleeper wall backwards, with me ending up almost in the back seat, having broken the back of the drivers seat. We were not allowed racing seats in Historic racing then. Murphy went off much earlier in the turn in the late 90's after a puncture, but he went straight into the earth embankment before the straight.

Back to today, Lowndes did not make P2, which was headed by Mostert from SVG and DJR Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was third fastest, all well under the old VASC race record of 1:32.045, those three today lapping in the high 29's. Pretty much all the top 10 were under the old qualifying/practice record. These new Dunlops must be good. That's within a couple of seconds of MotoGP, and faster than Superbikes..

[Everso Biggyballies]

Full times for P2

Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit – Practice Two:

1 Supercheap Auto Racing Chaz Mostert Ford Falcon FG/X 1:29.5747R
2 Red Bull Holden Racing Aust Shane Van Gisbergen Holden Commodore VF 1:29.8173r 0:00.2426
3 Shell V-Power Racing Team Scott McLaughlin Ford Falcon FG/X 1:29.9165r 0:00.3418
4 Nissan Motorsport Michael Caruso Nissan Altima 1:30.1669r 0:00.5922
5 Monster Energy Racing Cameron Waters Ford Falcon FG/X 1:30.1680r 0:00.5933
6 The Bottle-O Racing Team Mark Winterbottom Ford Falcon FG/X 1:30.1712r 0:00.5965
7 Shell V-Power Racing Team F.Coulthard/T.D’Alberto Ford Falcon FG/X 1:30.3006r 0:00.7259
8 Preston Hire Racing Lee Holdsworth Holden Commodore VF 1:30.3052r 0:00.7305
9 Red Bull Holden Racing Aust Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore VF 1:30.3383r 0:00.7636
10 Erebus Penrite Racing David Reynolds Holden Commodore VF 1:30.3989 0:00.8242
11 MEGA Racing Jason Bright Ford Falcon FG/X 1:30.5421 0:00.9674
12 Mobil 1 HSV Racing James Courtney Holden Commodore VF 1:30.5778 0:01.0031
13 TEKNO Woodstock Racing Will Davison Holden Commodore VF 1:30.6123 0:01.0376
14 Sengled Racing Rick Kelly Nissan Altima 1:30.6407 0:01.0660
15 Freightliner Racing Tim Slade Holden Commodore VF 1:30.6529 0:01.0782
16 Mobil 1 HSV Racing Scott Pye Holden Commodore VF 1:30.8108 0:01.2361
17 Carsales Racing Todd Kelly Nissan Altima 1:30.8375 0:01.2628
18 BIANTE 1:1 Nick Percat Holden Commodore VF 1:30.9286 0:01.3539
19 Wilson Security Racing GRM James Moffat Holden Commodore VF 1:30.9344 0:01.3597
20 Wilson Security Racing GRM Garth Tander Holden Commodore VF 1:30.9792 0:01.4045
21 Erebus GB Galvanizing Racing Dale Wood Holden Commodore VF 1:31.1394 0:01.5647
22 Team Harvey Norman Simona De Silvestro Nissan Altima 1:31.8139 0:02.2392
23 Team CoolDrive Tim Blanchard Holden Commodore VF 1:31.9628 0:02.3881
24 Repair Management Aust Racing Taz Douglas Holden Commodore VF 1:32.0605 0:02.4858
25 Repair Management Aust Racing Alex Rullo Holden Commodore VF 1:32.4258 0:02.8511

[theracer120]

So guys, don't watch race 1 unless you want to see like 15 tire blowouts in the space of twenty laps. Luckily there was no serious incident.

[Everso Biggyballies]

What a load of bollocks that was.... interesting race but totally ruined by a 'who happened to be caught on camera' penalty system. They may well have minimised driver infringement penalties on track, but they have replaced it with a totally unfairly judged pit entry penalty..... the drivers have for years at PI cut the pit lane entry, crossing the white line by a few centimetres. Also relevant is that the first 6 garages on entry are unused in VASC races, so there is no danger in doing what they have in the past done.

This year the authorities decided to penalise those infringements they saw... but they failed to mention it in the drivers briefing. Worse still the 8 drivers they penalised were just the unlucky ones who got caught on the TV coverage. It seems every car did the same, but it was only those actually caught on TV that got penalised. The time gain would be so minimal to be impossible to calculate, but the powers that be decided those caught on TV should be given 15 second penalties.

Thus we lost Scott McLaughlan who was comfortably leading, Chas Mostert who was up there until he had a tyre failure that put him down the field, Craig Lowndes, who won the race on the road but by the time his 15 seconds were added he was well out of the top 10. To compound matters, as Craig was trying to maximise the gap to the field as the race drew to an end he got caught foul by a Safety Car deployment 3 laps from the end thus compressing the field and maximising the impact of the penalty.

There were a couple who did abuse the pit box entry limits by going into the 'working lane' a bit too early, despite pit lane being empty at the time. Wrong yes, but 15 seconds wrong?

[/Rant over]

Other than that we had an enormous number of tyre failures.... 15 in total, the tyres disintegrating on some cars, some right hand rears, other right hand fronts. Im sure the problem was greatly compounded by some cars running excessive negative camber front and rear and dodgy tyre pressures. Some cars actually adjusted cambers during pit stops the problem became so bad.

Other than that the race was not bad. I wont spoil the results.

[theracer120]

You could always use spoiler tags.

Coulthard won.

[Everso Biggyballies]

You could always use spoiler tags.

Coulthard won.

I was being lazy and expecting friends so it was a quick rant!

[theracer120]

http://www.supercars.com/news/champions ... e-trouble/

In short, they've mandated a larger minimum tire pressure and reccomended people use less camber. There's no more sets of tires.

They're also going to put a cone on the pit entry, as a bunch of penalties were handed out for people slightly cutting the entry.

[theracer120]

Well that was a 10+ car pileup in the Toyota 86s, just a massive nose-to-tail incident at the turn 4 hairpin.

[Everso Biggyballies]

The VASC race was again dominated by tyres, although not quite to the extent of yesterday for most. The one exception to the rule was the T888 cars (Red Bull and Vortex) who yesterday avoided any of the tyre dramas suffered by most, Roland Dane, boss of T888 and self proclaimed know all, ironically blaming yesterday's failures as not a tyre problem but as self inflicted, a car setup problem, greedy engineers etc, and subsequently voting against the VASC suggestion to upgrade the minimum requirements for camber and pressures prior to today's race.

So today, with the modified pressure and camber rulings made, despite RD/T888 opposition to the changes pre race, the 3 main T888 cars all suffered tyre failures during the race!

Remind us where the fault lies please Roland.... (Yesterday he was even more of a media pig than normal in relation to the tyres, but today post race he was pretty well invisible )

The man runs a brilliant team, but my God he is a prick. Despite being a T888 supporter (amongst other teams/drivers) I do quite like to see him immersed in his own (self inflicted)'merde'.

The one witches hat bollard placed on pit lane entry in relation to yesterdays mindless multiple penalties did its job today, with no silly penalties, just one pit lane exit red light SC train approaching penalty being served.... sadly it was to be a race deciding penalty but it was a fair cop.

Kudos to Simona de Silvestro, who on her first visit to PI equalled her career best result of 13th position, following on from a similar result yesterday, (achieved yesterday despite being one to cop a silly 15 second pitlane penalty.... without that yesterday would have been a top 5 result). She has been a revelation to me compared to the other female drivers we have seen in the category, and she is brilliant with the media.

Results and current championship standings in spoiler ( )

Result: Virgin Australia Supercars Championship WD-40 Phillip Island 500 Race 6
1 Supercheap Auto Racing Chaz Mostert Ford Falcon FG/X 57 01:38:54.3876
2 The Bottle-O Racing Team Mark Winterbottom Ford Falcon FG/X 57 01:38:57.2916
3 Erebus Penrite Racing David Reynolds Holden Commodore VF 57 01:38:57.9352
4 Wilson Security Racing GRM James Moffat Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:04.3217
5 Preston Hire Racing Lee Holdsworth Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:05.0029
6 Monster Energy Racing Cameron Waters Ford Falcon FG/X 57 01:39:10.7750
7 Wilson Security Racing GRM Garth Tander Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:12.1445
8 Erebus GB Galvanizing Racing Dale Wood Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:15.6050
9 Sengled Racing Rick Kelly Nissan Altima 57 01:39:16.7325
10 Nissan Motorsport Michael Caruso Nissan Altima 57 01:39:16.9221
11 carsales Racing Todd Kelly Nissan Altima 57 01:39:18.7875
12 Mobil 1 HSV Racing Scott Pye Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:22.1286
13 Team Harvey Norman Simona De Silvestro Nissan Altima 57 01:39:25.3462
14 Shell V-Power Racing Team Scott McLaughlin Ford Falcon FG/X 57 01:39:25.7361
15 Team CoolDrive Tim Blanchard Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:30.4028
16 Red Bull Holden Racing Aust Shane Van Gisbergen Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:34.8414
17 Shell V-Power Racing Team Fabian Coulthard Ford Falcon FG/X 57 01:39:34.9805
18 Red Bull Holden Racing Aust Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:35.4591
19 Freightliner Racing Tim Slade Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:35.6338
20 Mobil 1 HSV Racing James Courtney Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:35.9597
21 BIANTE 1:1 Nick Percat Holden Commodore VF 57 01:39:58.4428
22 Repair Management Aust Racing Alex Rullo Holden Commodore VF 57 01:40:12.2605
23 TeamVortex Craig Lowndes Holden Commodore VF 56 01:39:03.6726
24 Repair Management Aust Racing Taz Douglas Holden Commodore VF 55 01:38:59.8445
25 MEGA Racing Jason Bright Ford Falcon FG/X 50 01:40:00.4240
DNF TEKNO Woodstock Racing Will Davison Holden Commodore VF


Championship Standings
1 Fabian Coulthard 568
2 Shane Van Gisbergen 561
3 Chaz Mostert 531
4 Jamie Whincup 522
5 Scott McLaughlin 471
6 Garth Tander 444
7 Cameron Waters 427
8 Mark Winterbottom 417
9 Craig Lowndes 378
10 James Moffat 366
11 David Reynolds 360
12 Michael Caruso 357
13 Tim Slade 348
14 James Courtney 336
15 Lee Holdsworth 321
16 Todd Kelly 313
17 Rick Kelly 306
18 Scott Pye 297
19 Simona De Silvestro 273
20 Jason Bright 228
21 Nick Percat 210
22 Tim Blanchard 210
23 Dale Wood 173
24 Will Davison 150
25 Taz Douglas 144
26 Alex Rullo 105

[Everso Biggyballies]

I have just read a report that ensures the VASC /CAMS authorities have seemingly blotted their (for today anyway) clean sheet for being dickheads.

The 'race winner' (name spoilered) was fined $3000 for "disobeying the End of Race Procedure by performing a static burnout,” read the stewards report. 'He' did a series of donuts, (allowed) but dared stop and perform part of his burnout procedure whilst static. Totally off track and in a run off area, and out of harms way. How wreckless. Bunch of bureaucratic fun / entertainment hating wankers.

[MonteCristo]

Revoke his license. Can't have that on a race track.

[kals]

Next thing is that winners will be fined for punching the air when seeing the chequered flag, because taking a hand off the wheel means you don't have full control of the car while on the race track.

[Ian-S]

Don't give them any more dumb ideas...

[Everso Biggyballies]

Barbagello this weekend for the VASC brigade.

Last year we had a cracking race 1 won by Lowndes on a quirky strategy call..... I think it was his record 100th race win.

A strategic gamble turned into a stunning win for veteran V8 Supercars star Craig Lowndes at Barbagallo Raceway.

The two-stop strategy proved crucial for the Triple Eight driver, who started at the front, dropped to the back by making an extra stop, charged back into the lead – and then still had to survive a final lap rain storm on slick tyres to win the 120-kilometre race.

After running in the top five in the damp early stages of the race, Lowndes pitted on Lap 12 to take on slicks. While that was in line with the rest of the field, it was his next move that turned heads.

Sitting fourth, and easily as quick as Shane van Gisbergen, Chaz Mostert, and Cam Waters in front of him, Lowndes dived back into the pits on Lap 28 to take on another fresh set of tyres.

It put him way back in the field, at the back end of the top 20, and seemingly left him with too much to do.

But as the abrasive Barbagallo surface started to take its toll on those who only pitted once – the majority of the field – Lowndes cut his way through.

In the end he comfortably made it to the front, passing team-mates Jamie Whincup and van Gisbergen for second and the first on Lap 47, and then streaking away to a 5.8s win – despite a last-lap downpour.

““I questioned [the strategy],” admitted Lowndes.

“But it really came to us. The car is really good. It looked after its tyres. It was a great strategy by the boys, it could have gone either way.”