Bathurst 1000: In the driver's seat

Ever wondered what it’s like to be in the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000? Really in it – as in driving in it…

Well, here’s your chance to find out, as motoring.com.au’s resident Supercars star Luke Youlden takes you behind the scenes at Mount Panorama for the most important week in Australia’s domestic motor racing calendar.

Luke joined regular team-mate Fabian Coulthard driving the DJR Team Penske #12 Ford Falcon FG X in the Great Race and they turned out to be one of the stars of the show.

Here’s Luke’s account of a week that culminated in an epic Sunday afternoon battle.

Tuesday-Wednesday, October 4-5
Tuesday is travel day basically. I flew in from the Gold Coast with Scotty Pye, the main driver of the #17 DJR Team Penske Falcon, and Fabs (Fabian Coulthard) and then we drove across the mountains to Bathurst.

Fabs and I have a ritual where we stop at a mega lolly shop called the Lolly Bug each year. But we were disappointed this time because they didn’t have these exploding little bombs we normally get… Anyway!

The traffic was a bit of nightmare so we didn’t actually get to the track until 5pm. It was also pretty stressful because Fabs was driving!

We did sneak out for a lap of the track when we got to Bathurst. And when I say sneak that’s what I mean because the track marshall at the far end of the straight wasn’t going to let us through even though we were driving in the race.

But we backtracked to the gate at the other end of the straight and snuck through. Of course we couldn’t resist heading up and give old mate a wave before heading off on our lap!

Then there was a team dinner and then settling into the house to complete the day. DJR puts the drivers up in their own house, which is pretty sensible because we run on a different schedule to the mechanics. They are generally up earlier than us and very, very late coming in.

The drivers house is not rowdy because we are in bed 9pm to 9.30pm. We are all getting pretty old!

On Wednesday we headed over to Orange for a Pirtek [one of the team sponsors] store visit. We do one of these pretty much every round. There is a barbeque, we sign posters and have a Q&A. Then it was back to Bathurst for the drivers’ parade.

The whole parade thing is pretty cool except the car goes agonisingly slow, so you are waving to the same person for about 10 seconds. It’s a little bit awkward because you are right next to them and you’re like ‘hey mate, hey mate’… Still the same mate.

Then there was a bit of a break for lunch so we went to some bakery and smashed down a pie – after training all year, at last something nice and healthy!

After that it was into a 45-minute autograph session, which was pretty stress-free. At this stage though, we still haven’t got to the track proper, let alone walked it.

To be honest the track walk doesn’t achieve that much for me as a driver because it’s so different walking a track compared to driving it.

The most important thing it does is just take you away from everything else. You just concentrate on that, you talk to the engineers and the other boys and it just gives you that break for 90 minutes. There are no media commitments and no sponsor obligations. You just focus on the track and the racing to come.

There’s another team dinner on Wednesday night... DJR Team Penske seems pretty big on the team dinners. We went to the Church, which is a well-known restaurant in Bathurst.

Scotty’s co-driver Tony D’Alberto ordered a pizza called a ‘Piper’ and everyone got stitched up because it was so hot. He had one tiny bite and that was it for him. Then everyone piled in and there were tears running down every face.

I love hot food but I couldn’t only get halfway through one slice. That was pretty funny.

Thursday, October 6
We were out to the track early to do pit stop practice before the first session got underway.

We definitely lucked out as the two cars alternate each day and the session on Friday and Sunday are so early Scotty and Tony will have to be at the track around 6am. I don’t think they’re too happy about that.

Then it was a run through of the endless briefing sessions we do. We have prebriefs before each session and debriefs after each session.

The morning pre-brief is clearly important because we go through the session plan and the general changes we anticipate making on the #12 Shell DJR Falcon.

The first few laps are an adjustment period for sure, but you need to be up to the pace quickly – you can’t spend a whole session working up to it.

We always start with an old tyre and full load of fuel, which seems the wrong way around to me. If we started on greens it would give us a boost in confidence straight up.

As a co-driver I concentrated on slightly longer runs on Thursday and the team gave Fabs the occasional run on a light fuel load just so we could be confident the car would be somewhere near the pace.

In previous years at Brad Jones Racing (BJR) the cars Fabian, Phil (Keed – engineer) and myself have had here have been quick in practice and then probably don’t quite go on with it in the race. That’s something we are determined to fix this year, so we can be confident we are going to be somewhere there on raceday.

The #12 Falcon felt reasonable by the end of the day – Fabs was second fastest on new tyres – so we were happy about that, although not happy with the feeling the car was giving us. There was too much front locking in some areas and too much [rear] nervousness in other areas. We knew it would be difficult to race the car like that.

At the end of the first day on track, however, we’re competitive. But we’re not fooling ourselves thinking we are better than we are. We’re going to be thinking overnight about what we need to do to improve the car.

Friday, October 7
We didn’t change the car a huge amount this morning, but we did find some issues in my session with the corner weights being slightly out. So that explained the locking issue we encountered yesterday.

There were a few other little bits and pieces we addressed too. Call them a tidy up.

The Friday morning co-driver session is a big deal for me. It’s the one time I get a crack on a tyre with some grip and a light fuel load. The conditions are also pretty cool which helps record a fast time. Each year I pride myself on finishing around the top of this session.

But I wasn’t sure I was going to get a crack this year because Phil sent me on a long run with the instruction to run at race pace. To plan I did 12 laps in a row all in the mid sevens [2:07] and that was what we wanted. The guys were really pleased I could do that.

Then I got the radio call to come in and Phil told me I was going to get one lap right at the end of the session.

The tyres were the same one Fabian did his fast time on Thursday, so they were five laps old and still pretty reasonable.

Anyway, I thought I had ruined the lap because I went too deep at the Cutting and it was really fluffy coming out. I then ran in too deep at the Elbow trying to make up time and as a result I think I was the slowest car down Conrod.

But I got into the 2:05s and I was second fastest in the session. I missed out on fastest by 0.02sec frustrating because I’ve been pretty close to the top of this session in previous years. [Ed: a bit of data analysis showed Luke’s two tiny errors had cost around 0.3sec – he would have been clearly fastest]

Saturday, October 8
My only on-track role today was to participate in the Saturday morning one-hour practice with Fabs. This is an important session to work through race set-up and get a feel for what the car would be like over a full stint.

We weren’t particularly happy to be honest. The times were still okay but not as good as what we were doing on Friday. So that left us with something to think about.

Late Saturday afternoon was the Top 10 Shootout and Fabs was sixth car out. He really ragged it to move us forward to fourth and the second row of the grid. He achieved that despite a car that still wasn’t optimised, so it was a good effort.

But through all that you have to bear in mind that one-lap pace is not what wins you this 1000km race.

Between the morning practice and the Shootout there’s a lot of time to fill and the team makes sure we do plenty of corporate visits and there is also a mandatory autograph session.

But those two hours leading in to the shootout are the quietest of the week. It’s weird to have nothing happening then.

Team owner and motor racing legend Roger Penske arrived at the track on Saturday and he really impressed me. He is a really personable, likable and knowledgeable guy who talks to anyone. He is happy to give autographs and have photographs taken with the race fans. He also asks questions and provides a bit of input.

Roger is always interested in what’s going on and doesn’t just disappear into the transporter in between sessions. He is in the garage the whole time, which is cool. You might think that adds pressure for the team and drivers, but really he can’t put any more pressure on us than we put on ourselves.

Sunday, October 9
Raceday and we were at the track at 6.30am for breakfast, then had a prebrief at 7am before the warm-up at 8.05am. It’s the last chance for a feel of the car before the action and it went pretty well, the car felt quite good on old tyres.

We had made a change, reverting back to the set-up we had run on Thursday and Friday which was slightly softer in the front to help the car turn. We thought it was an improvement but we weren’t reading a great amount into it because the track changes so much during the course of the race.

We’ve had fast ‘one lap’ cars the last few years at BJR but we really wanted a car that fast during the race and that’s why the focus all week was on longer runs.

There was a lot of discussion about who would start and that went pretty much right up until the racetime. We were concerned that if a couple of the faster co-drivers in front of Fabian on the grid started then they might be too quick for him to pass without taking a big risk. But following around behind them would mean losing his outstanding ‘first driver’ pace.

So we only made our decision to put Fabs in the car first-up when it became apparent on the grid around us that the regular drivers were going to start.

There was a little bit of engineer network working among the teams that indicated that was the way it was going to go, but I still had to prepare to perform a start by running through the start procedure, so throttle percentage and all that sort of deal.

The decision to put Fabs in even got the sign-off right from the top (Roger Penske). He didn’t have input into it but he was paying attention to how it was all going and was happy to know the co-drivers wouldn’t have to be mixed up in the intensity at the start.

Through all this there was the usual Sunday morning hoopla going on. It’s probably not ideal, especially if you are preparing to start the race, but its part and parcel of the atmosphere and you just suspend your race preparation for that period of time and then think about it later.

You leave it to the last second to get there and you get out of there the first possible second.

Fabs made a good start when the race got underway, slotting into a comfortable fourth spot.

At that point in the race no-one is too aggressive or trying too hard, it’s all about staying in contention for later on when the race is up for grabs. These days it helps that everybody out there is a decent driver and you know you can race them safely and be confident in how they will behave.

That’s why I wasn’t too surprised there were no safety cars for so long in the race. The cars are well prepared, the drivers are good and everyone knows you can’t win the race by lap 90 – but you sure can lose it by then by doing something silly!

My job, basically, is to account for that one-third race distance of about 54 laps and hand the car back to Fabs in good conditions, so he can challenge up-front at the business end of the race.

So with a tank of fuel equating to about 22 laps I got in at the first fuel stop to do a double stint followed by a shorter stint later on that finished when the first safety car came out around lap 90.

I was happy with my stints, the car was reasonably pacey and I got into a rhythm. I was able to pump out consistent low 2:08 sec laps, which is what the guys wanted me to do.

It was pretty hard to pass though, because the other cars around me were trying to do much the same time and everyone was also conscious of saving fuel. It would have been just too desperate to pass and there is nothing much to be gained from it at that point.

My only real issue was locking the rears into Turn One on one lap and I lost a couple of seconds. But that was it.

To be frank, the hardest bit was standing in the pits for the last 60 laps watching an incredible race unfold and having our car in the lead for some of that time!

There was nothing I could do. I had done my job and it was down to Fabs to bring it home.

From moment to moment I thought we were in with a shot to win and then I would change my mind. And then when some new incident unfolded, I thought we were a chance again!

The big issue for us tuned out to be economy; we didn’t quite have the fuel to go the 27 laps to the finish after the lap 134 safety car when all the leaders stopped together.

While we were confident that everyone else would have to stop too, we were more marginal on fuel, in part because Fabs is a left foot braker and that tends to be a thirstier driving style.

We knew if more safety cars came out that would be enough to save the other cars from stopping. But it was still not enough to save us from stopping, so we needed it to be green for the rest of the race, gain a gap, get in and get out and be confident they would have to stop for a splash as well, or be so slow trying to avoid a stop we would have run them down.

If it had played out that way, we probably would have won. You never know 100 per cent how it’s all going to play out but that’s what the team was thinking.

Of course two more safety cars came out and that was the end of it for us. We pitted from the lead just before the giant Whincup-McLaughlin-Tander biffo at the Chase, came back out eighth and ended up sixth, behind our sister car.

It was all a little bit tense in the garage after the race because during one safety car period we had got pit priority despite them having the better position on the track. Still, they ended up beating us so they obviously had the better strategy -- in the end!

But fifth or sixth is not a win. While we can look back at a race where we gave everything and could have won, it was still Will Davison and Jonathon Webb up on top of the podium and not us. That leaves a bit of a hollow feeling.

You might think we’d head out and party the night away but we were all so tired it was back to the house, a couple of beers, a few pizzas and watch the Peter Brock telemovie and that was Bathurst done for another year.

But I’ll be back again in 2017, if the team will have me.

DJR Team Penske will only get stronger. And I’ve been to the Great Race 18 times without a win so it would be nice to fix that!