THE HARE DOESN’T ALWAYS LOSE – SYDNEY SUPERNIGHT

July 21, 2024
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Supercars
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Recap Repco Supercars Championship Races 15 and 16.

Chaz Mostert proved in Sydney that the tortoise doesn’t always win against the hare.

Two weeks ago Matt Payne used a one-stop strategy to defy the race strategy status-quo to win in Townsville. He and the Penrite Racing Team tried the same approach in Sydney and almost came up trumps once more.

SEE OUR FULL GALLERY FROM SMP SUPERNIGHT HERE

Mostert and the WAU team plotted the final stanza of the race when the Penrite strategy became known. What had appeared to be in unsurmountable lead soon crumbled as Mostert charged down the leader.

Mostert, Payne and Thomas Randle shared the podium in what represented a somewhat different group of leaders from those at the start.

Cameron Waters had started from pole position with teammate Randle alongside. The pair ran side-by-side through Turn 1 on the opening lap as Mostert moved into third ahead of the Shell V-Power Racing duo of Davison and De Pasquale.

Randle emerged from the corner as the race leader and proceeded to build a gap over Waters, who was under pressure from Mostert.

The field seemed to settle almost immediately as they filed towards Turn 2, though all was not right. Mark Winterbottom encountered a mechanical issue in the DEWALT Team 18 Camaro and speared right. Macauley Jones was on his outside and bore the brunt of the impact from Winterbottom’s car.

Both cars managed to fire up and continue around the circuit, though almost half-a-lap behind the rest of the grid. Winterbottom drove straight into the team garage for repairs and eventually returned around some 8 laps behind.

Bryce Fullwood was another to spin early, after an attempted pass on Ryan Wood.

Most of the lead group made their first pit stops before Lap 20, while Payne showed his hand by running much longer. His stop on Lap 23 was to be his only visit to the pits.

Mostert had taken the lead during the middle portion of the race, which handed the lead to Payne. The Penrite Racing Mustang held a 14 second gap by the time the second round of stops had ended.

A misjudged overtaking move by Waters on Reynolds led to an attempted redress which failed to satisfy the race stewards. Reynolds then has his own moment with a move on Feeney which saw the Tradie Camaro spin, dropping the Team 18 driver to 16th.

Waters’ hopes for a good result were scuttled by a slow flow rate in his refuelling rig.

Mostert ate into Payne’s lead by seconds at a time. Guided by his race engineer, Mostert remained calm as the rear bumper of Payne’s Mustang grew ever larger.

He moved ahead with four laps left to run and drove away for the win.

SEE OUR FULL GALLERY FROM SMP SUPERNIGHT HERE

Jack LeBrocq’s race ended rather abruptly with a mechanical failure that saw a plume of smoke trail the Erebus Motorsport Camaro into retirement, the only DNF of the race.

Davison, De Pasquale, Brown, Waters, Percat, Feeney and Kostecki completed the Top 10.

“The car was really good. Probably had a few different strengths and weaknesses than the guys around me in the first couple of stints,” said Mostert.

“Our team was the man of the match for having a super-fast car today. We had to work for it at the start and in those stints, of build gaps. But it was a lot of fun. ”

Mostert Goes Back To Back In Race 16

Having hunted down Payne for the win on Saturday evening, Mostert had a very different race on Sunday afternoon.

He started on the front row and harried pole-sitter Will Davison through the opening corners. A small slide by the Shell V-Power driver at the exit of Turn 5 was all that Mostert needed to take the lead at the following corner.

SEE OUR FULL GALLERY FROM SMP SUPERNIGHT HERE

From that point, Mostert appeared to be in control of his own destiny for the win. He drove away from his pursuers and set up a race winning margin by the first round of pitstops.

A squabble for position between Ryan Wood, Nick Percat, Matt Payne and David Reynolds for 8th place came to an unfortunate end for Reynolds and Wood. The pair collided and then ran off the circuit at the top of Corporate Hill. they managed to continue, but lost valuable track position in the process. Wood dropped to 13th and Reynolds in18th.

That was perhaps the most significant incident amongst the bump and grind of Supercar racing.

Mostert once again found himself to be the hare as Waters and Brown elected to run the same one-stop strategy that had almost worked for Payne the night before. They unfortunately only held a half dozen second advantage to the Optus Camaro driver after his second stop.

There were still ten racing laps left in the bank when Mostert hit the lead once more.

Mostert took his second win of the weekend, this time from Waters and Brown. Payne, De Pasquale, Davison, Kostecki, Golding, Percat and Randle were the top 10 finishers.

SEE OUR FULL GALLERY FROM SMP SUPERNIGHT HERE

“Just a credit to the whole Walkinshaw Andretti United crew. We obviously rolled out a pretty good car and we kept chipping away at it,” Mostert said.

“The race car was something pretty special around here. Tonight the car was better again, which is a real credit to the team. We’ve just got to keep focusing on what we do, there’s always something we can make it better.”

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