MOTORSPORT: Bathurst begins with a bang… or three

The emphasis was on breaking V8 Supercars rather than shattering lap records at Bathurst on Thursday.

When the dust settled after the opening day of practice, the shards swept up and – reputedly – one car’s front hub collected from the track, one example of the new Car of the Future was in doubt for the race, another in for overnight repairs while a third had only just escaped joining them in casualty.

Tim Slade’s Heavy Haulage Australia Erebus Motorsport Mercedes-Benz E 63 AMG was looking far from prestige after he clipped the inside wall at turn three, broke the steering and rushed straight on into the outside wall at turn four. A decision on whether it could be repaired or will be withdrawn was due overnight.

It was the second time the car had crashed, with co-driver Andrew Thompson lucky to avoid significant damage in an earlier session when the brakes failed at the Caltex Chase and the car went off at 200km/h.

Jeld-Wen Falcon driver Alex Davison rattled the concrete on both left and right sides after the rear-end stepped out as he roared into Reid Park at the top of the mountain.

Jack Daniel’s Nissan Altima driver Todd Kelly was caught out by snap oversteer and also clobbered the wall at Reid Park, but escaped without sentencing his team to an over-nighter.

In total, the final session of the day was red flagged four times, three times due to accidents and once to collect Jason Bright’s BOC Commodore, which rolled to a stop on Conrod Straight with a broken tail-shaft.

Out of the carnage of the day’s final session, almost inevitably, Jamie Whincup emerged fastest in his Red Bull Racing Australia Holden Commodore VF.

The defending race winner and 2014 championship leader’s 2 min 08.324 time was more than 0.7 sec faster than Mark Winterbottom’s Pepsi-Max Falcon. The Reynolds/Dean Canto Bottle-O Falcon completed the top three, all the leading times set on green tyres.

In some consolation for the Ford crew, Winterbottom’s partner Steven Richards was fastest in the co-driver session, 0.4 sec ahead of Whincup’s partner Paul Dumbrell.

The Will Davison/Steve Owen Pepsi Max Falcon was fourth fastest, the Shane van Gisbergen/Jeroen Bleekemolen VIP Commodore fifth and Bright/Luke Youlden sixth. The leading Holden Racing Team entry was James Courtney/Greg Murphy in 13th, while folk hero Craig Lowndes and co-driver Warren Luff were only 17th.

Whincup’s time was roughly 1.5 secs off Lowndes’ 2010 record fastest practice lap for the daunting 6.213km circuit, reflecting both the struggle the teams have had adapting their new Car of the Future V8 Supercars to the track, the grip-destroying 30 degree ambient temperature and a headwind.

“The car had been a bit of a handful and struggle all day,” a shattered Davison said. “I was on my second timed lap and basically just chucked it in to the corner under the tree, the right-hander going up the hill, and as soon as I turned in I just lost the rear of the car and hit the wall on the left.

“I then had no steering and hit the wall on the right as well. It has done a lot of damage to the car unfortunately. It is not the day you ever want to have. It will be a late night getting the car fixed.”

For Davison this crash could not be more unwelcome as this decent and dedicated driver fights to retain his seat with the team for 2014.
Slade, who has just signed a deal to swap to Walkinshaw Racing and replace Russell Ingall in the Super Cheap Auto Commodore, doesn’t have any worries about his future. But he too was equally distraught.

“You just feel so awful because of all the people who put so much hard work and effort into this and they are the people who have to fix your mistake.”

The expectation had been going into the day that the new-for-2014 CotF cars – which swap from a live a rear axle to an independent rear suspension, transaxle and 18-inch tyres – would prove to be faster than the old Project Blueprint V8s.

Don’t write the Car of the Future of yet,” said Whincup. “It has been slower than the previous car, but remember that we had been here with that car for 10 or 12 years so we have been able to refine it for this track. This is a unique circuit and all the information we have on previous tracks doesn’t really apply here.

“So give us a few days to refine the car and I am sure it will be quicker later in the week.”

Friday should tell whether Whincup has cause for his optimism. Temperatures will be lower, the track will have rubbered up more and a phalanx of engineers will have consumed a frightening number of megabytes figuring out how to go faster.

The crunch will come in qualifying at 3:00pm when the top 10 will qualify for Saturday’s Armor All shoot-out.

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