MOTORSPORT: Gold Coast is Ford territory

V8 Supercars have raced at the Gold Coast for 20 years, but in the past nine only three teams have won on the streets of Surfers’ Paradise.

They’re the sport’s big three – Triple Eight Race Engineering, Holden Racing Team and Ford Performance Racing, winning 21 races between them.
And, of that trio, FPR has been the dominant one on the tourist mecca’s “concrete canyon” circuit in recent years.

Last October it was David Reynolds and Dean Canto. Although their Falcon was entered by Rod Nash Racing, it was built and prepared by Ford Performance Racing – of which Nash is co-owner these days.

In 2012 it was Will Davison and Finnish ex-Formula One driver Mika Salo. The year before that it was Mark Winterbottom and another visiting international, Richard Lyons.

So now, coming off back-to-back Bathurst 1000 wins, FPR is going for four wins in a row at Surfers’ Paradise in this weekend’s Gold Coast 600, comprising two 102-lap, or 300km, races on Saturday and Sunday.

“Everyone is motivated to add some more surfboards [the Gold Coast 600 trophies] to our collection,” said FPR team principal Tim Edwards.

This is as Ford continues to mull over its future in V8 Supercars, although it seems it will continue to have some involvement as FPR and DJR Penske – the entity formed by the takeover of Dick Johnson Racing by iconic American team owner Roger Penske – are pushing on with homologation of the FG X Falcon for next season.

FPR’s young gun Chaz Mostert and his veteran co-driver Paul Morris, miraculous victors at Bathurst two weeks ago, are the top Ford combination in the Endurance Cup, of which this is the third and final round.

They trail Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup and Paul Dumbrell, the Triple Eight Holden pair at whose expense they claimed the Peter Brock Trophy at Bathurst, by 30 points – 522 to 492. Mostert is the new superstar of V8 Supercar racing, keen to atone for a crash at Surfers’ Paradise last year while driving for DJR when “on loan” from FPR.

Morris is a wily 46-year-old fox who will be right at home on the Gold Coast, where he’s based, lapping up the success that has come his way late in his career. Bathurst was his first V8 Supercar win, even podium, in 13 years.

Winterbottom and his new co-driver this enduro season, Steve Owen, are fifth in the Endurance Cup on 360 points, with HRT’s James Courtney and Greg Murphy and Triple Eight’s Craig Lowndes and Steve Richards ahead of them – on 408 and 396 respectively.

Apart from the usual competitiveness between drivers and teams, there is a special edge to that between Winterbottom and Lowndes after a history of incidents involving them, most recently the tap the latter gave the former in the closing stages of Bathurst, perhaps costing Winterbottom a second straight victory in the Great Race and earning Lowndes a drive-through penalty.

Reynolds and Canto are back in the Falcon in which they won at the Gold Coast last year after their latest one was too badly damaged at Bathurst to race again so soon, while even the fourth FPR Falcon – entered by Charlie Schwerkolt for Jack Perkins and Cameron Waters – was stunningly competitive at Mt Panorama earlier this month.

“This year [at Surfers’ Paradise] will be a bit more tricky because of the minimum 17 psi tyre pressure [imposed this month], which changes the characteristics of the car,” Reynolds said.

The cars revert to soft tyres exclusively this weekend – eight sets each – and the new psi ruling is likely to cause more degradation of the rubber. Many teams had been running the Dunlops at  pressures as low as 10 psi to prolong the life of the tyres.

Winterbottom finds himself 297 points behind Whincup in the championship, with Lowndes another 42 back, but the softer rubber generally suits the FPR man better than Whincup and he has declared his aim for the weekend is “just to go all out”.

“We don’t really have much to lose,” Winterbottom said, with only the Phillip Island and Sydney events remaining to round out the season.

Temperatures on the Gold Coast are forecast to be in the high 20s both afternoons of the weekend, but the weather bureau says there is a 30 per cent chance of a storm on Saturday.

The more constant perils at this track are the kerbs – which take a heavy toll on suspensions – and the unforgiving concrete walls. Invariably there is a lot of carnage, which will make repairs even more of an issue next year when the event after the Gold Coast will be in New Zealand.

“We’re always scraping walls – and the temperature will be an issue,” Lowndes said this week.

A factor that weighs on the teams is ensuring that co-drivers, many of whom race a lot less than the V8 Supercar regulars, recover properly on Saturday night for Sunday’s second race.

The form guide is pointing in Ford’s favour, although Whincup has had six race wins at the Gold Coast in the past six years (and Triple Eight seven in the 13 races since 2008, initially with Fords before its switch to Holdens).

Whincup, Winterbottom and New Zealander Shane Van Gisbergen, fourth in the championship in the Tekno Autosports Holden Commodore, are the only three drivers to have finished all 30 races so far this year.

But there is a new player at the Gold Coast this time – the Volvo S60 in the hands of Kiwi youngster Scott McLaughlin and Frenchman Alex Premat that set the pace for so much of Bathurst.

Volvo Polestar has made known that it won’t expand beyond two cars next season, although Swedish driver Robert Dahlgren may be replaced in the second, and that it is focused on finding even more speed than that which has taken McLaughlin to two victories already as well as greater driveability, reliability and fuel economy from its B844S engine.

The Swedes who hooked up with former Holden team Garry Rogers Motorsport have also set the consistently high performance of Triple Eight as the benchmark they want to reach – but in the immediate future the hardest task might be beating those flying FPR Falcons.