MOTORSPORT: McLaughlin and Ford reign as Supercars enters new era

How appropriate last Sunday in Newcastle that the enduring people’s champions Craig Lowndes bowed out of full-time Supercars competition at the same time as his heir apparent won the category’s highest accolade.

That driver is Scott McLaughlin, a 25-year-old New Zealander with a ready smile, a genial personality, a sublime driving talent and the best-resourced team in pitlane backing him up.

McLaughlin and DJR Team Penske were the class of the field for much of 2018 and when they weren’t, they managed to almost always minimise mistakes and finish as strongly as they could.

That was the difference from 2017 when McLaughlin was so cruelly denied the driver’s championship on the last lap of a thrilling finale on the streets of Newcastle.

“So relieved,” said McLaughlin on Sunday evening. “Last year was just a massive kick in the guts and we have used that all year to come back. We have turned that negative into a positive.

“This is huge. I never dreamed of going to Formula 1 or anything like that, I dreamed of being on this [Supercars] trophy.

“There are some pretty amazing people on this trophy and people I have looked up to since I was a young kid karting and it’s just very cool to have my name on that trophy.”

In 2018, even though the Shell V-Power Ford Falcon FG X was frequently usurped as class of the field by the new Red Bull HRT Holden Commodore ZBs, McLaughlin still won the most races (nine) and scored the most poles (12).

When he wasn’t winning, he was finishing. All 31 races, 30 of them in the top 10, 21 in the top three. That’s almost impossible to beat.

Almost. Shane van Gisbergen could have done it. If not for a controversial penalty for a refuelling infraction imposed on the very last day of the season he would have started the final 250km within two points of his rival with it all to play for. Instead, the gap was a yawning 53 points and a demotivated SvG that never seriously threatened.

A reticent black hat at the best of times who prefers to let his at-times ethereally brilliant car control do the talking, van Gisbergen cried foul. His team boss Roland Dane more predictably cut up rough. And they had a point: why not penalise the team for a team error rather than the driver?

“It’s one of those things. It was going to be the most tense day in history. It was going to be amazing for the sport, amazing for everything,” said van Gisbergen.

“I was so looking forward to a straight fight. It was going to be epic. But the buzz just got taken out of the whole place.”

The championship may be lost but the pain is burning. Dane is a man who does not lose or forgive easily. The fallout will resonate for some time through the halls of motorsport power.

Yet for all their rightful indignation the Triple Eight organisation must shoulder some of the blame for van Gisbergen’s issues. Such has been the consistency of its late-season pit stop dramas it was unsurprising something would go awry.

There have been loose wheels, unsafe releases, spinning wheels and more. Pressure produces mistakes and the pressure applied by DJRTP has perhaps never been higher.

Van Gisbergen won seven races and qualified on pole six times, finished outside the top 10 only three times and on the podium 17 times.

His teammate Jamie Whincup was third in the championship a massive 511 points behind McLaughlin, emphasising how much the two New Zealanders came to dominate proceedings. The retiring Craig Lowndes was fourth in the third Triple Eight entry.

McLaughlin’s win, Lowndes’ retirement, Mark Winterbottom’s last race in a Ford before moving to a Triple Eight Holden Commodore ZB run out of Charlie Schwerkolt’s overhauled team; All of these memorable milestones gave the Newcastle finale a wonderful atmosphere … as well as the fact this is a cracker of a street circuit and a beautiful location.

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It would have been easy to walk away Sunday night, as the music roared and the crowd partied ever more raucously, and believe all was right with the Supercars world.

But this is now a two-division championship. DJRTP has the biggest budget, Triple Eight can compete. But the rest cannot find the same combination of money, driving talent and engineering skill to do much more than pick up the pieces.

Very much the best of the rest is Erebus Motorsport, the team owned by Betty Klimenko that was once an over-hyped farrago. Now it’s compact, smart and fast. Lead driver David Reynolds is an eccentric and flawed but capable of genius. The team’s technical director Alastair McVean is simply a genius.

Money, as always, focusses much attention in the Supercars pitlane. Almost every team doesn’t have enough. Everyone agrees costs have got to be cut, but there seems little unanimity on how to go about it.

There are rumblings of small reforms in the short term – banning twin springs, removing sensors – and then bigger things later – control uprights and even generic engines – but it’s all been planned or proposed before and collapsed as one team or another perceived a potential disadvantage.

Cut through it all and the core problem is this. The Supercars model was developed when Australia had a healthy car industry and two manufacturers in Ford and Holden willing to invest millions to support the show.

The industry is gone and Ford and Holden are but a shadow of what they once were. So we now have a unique and costly racing formula trying to survive in a large country with a small population and a shallow sports sponsorship pool. And, oh yeah, most races are only shown on pay TV. It’s hard to grow the financial pie in those circumstances.

The last generational technical overhaul in 2013 was afforded by teams off the back of a windfall profit from selling ownership of the sport. How are they going to afford the next one which will inevitably come along, as V8s fall out of favour and hybridisation and electrification looms?

And what if one of the many alternative formulas actually gain traction and popularity? A brand-new TCR racer costs about $200,000. Triple Eight will charge you $645,000 for a ZB Commodore. Don’t think that wasn’t being mulled along pitlane in Newcastle.

In 2019 – unless some rumoured late arrivals materialise and are allowed to enter – the grid will drop from 26 to 24 cars – one of the missing being Lowndes.

That is counterbalanced to some extent by the excitement the return of Ford and the arrival of the Mustang will generate.

Yet it must not be forgotten that Nissan’s six-year foray into Supercars ended Sunday night in Newcastle. No matter how you want to dissect that race program and who is responsible for only three wins in six years, Nissan’s loss is a negative.

Knocking Supercars is a time-honoured past-time for motorsport fans and observers. It’s never been perfect and it never will be. Right now it’s impossible for us to know to know if it’s speeding toward yet another irritating speed hump, a chicane or a rather more serious impact with a concrete wall.

It will be fascinating to see how Supercars boss Sean Seamer and his executive team navigate the obstacles on the road ahead for Australia’s only truly professional motorsport category.