Brendan Lines April 16, 2020

Away from the virtual world of last night’s Supercars eSeries round-two action, Triple Eight Race Engineering put the final touches on its ventilator project to help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Triple Eight Team Principal Roland Dane with the prototype ventilator – Image: Red Bull Holden Racing Team.

Triple Eight part-stakeholder and Red Bull Holden Racing Team driver Jamie Whincup said the units are now ready for local production.

“Triple Eight are building the ventilator to tender with the Australian government, so all the engineers were all hands on deck last night building the ventilators,

“We can manufacture thousands of the units once we’re given the green-light, it’s good for the country to know if we need ventilators, we have an option,” He said.

On April 8th the Australian Government increased the availability of invasive ventilators to Intensive Care Units (ICU) around the country, establishing a COVID-19 Ventilator Taskforce in the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

A Department spokesperson said the increasing availability ensures a supply of suitable ventilators.

“The taskforce is actively working to increase Australia’s ventilator supplies with a four-pronged approach buying more ventilators (from local and international sources), manufacturing ventilators locally, repurposing existing machines, and assuring the supply of associated intensive care consumables.”

Triple Eight turned its attention to committing its resources to making a prototype shortly after the postponement of the 2020 Supercars season, following the cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix.

“Triple Eight as an engineering business, has just jumped on board we’ve got some of the best engineers in the country if not the world, at the Grand Prix we said we’re not going to be racing possibly for six months,” Whincup said.

“We put our thinking caps on and thought how can we help out what can we do to improve the crisis, one of those areas was building a ventilator.”

The effort of the Triple Eight crew has been joined by their IT partner Hewlett Packard (HP), who has helped play a part in the design and manufacture process.

Along with IT support, HP’s contribution has been to provide 3D printing of plastic components for the ventilator.

As Triple Eight pivots away from it’s efforts on track for the time being, it has allowed the team to think differently about business and motorsport.

“When racing is at full tilt you need to use all your resource on trying to make the car go as fast as possible,” Whincup said.

“But this has opened up our minds, that we do have some of the best engineers in the world and we do some incredibly good stuff, if you apply that to other areas, like helping save lives, then we can certainly do that

Queensland’s Minister for State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning, Cameron Dick, approached Triple Eight to come up with an ‘Apollo 13’ fix given the immediacy of the pandemic.

“It’s so impressive that, within just a few weeks, this company has transitioned their capability, intellect and resources to a product that could ultimately save lives,” Mr. Dick said.

The Minister’s office is expected to make an announcement on the ventilator’s local production in the coming weeks.

Brendan Lines    March 18, 2020

Supercars CEO Sean Seamer has this morning updated the 2020 Supercars season to a 14-round calendar delaying any further racing until June in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the next rounds in Tasmania, Auckland and Perth have all been postponed until later in the year.

Image- Supercars.com

The statement released this morning reads:

“Today, on behalf of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, I want to provide an update on our plan for managing the 2020 Championship during the months ahead.

We have been working diligently to assess all available options to ensure continuity of the Series.

Obviously, the situation is evolving, but we acknowledge the need to act decisively with the information we have at hand.

Our sport is a visceral experience and rather than run without crowds, we have decided, along with our key broadcast and government partners, to delay any further racing until June.

Tasmania, Auckland and Perth events will all be postponed until later in the year, not cancelled.

Fortunately, our calendar this year enables us to do this,” it said.

The Bathurst 1000 is set to proceed on it’s scheduled date, Supercars will communicate its plan with all stakeholders as to how they intend to lock in the event in due time.

Also this morning, Supercars series sponsor Virgin Airlines announced it has grounded international flights along with halving its domestic capacity.

So far the Winton Super400 is the next round on the current calendar that is unaffected set for June 5-7.

While some drivers had supported the idea of racing behind closed doors to a TV crowd, it seems fans will get an opportunity to see their Supercars favourites race an eSports Championship to be held between now and June.

For the teams it is a case of trying to keep business as normal as possible during the postponement.

Kelly Racing have taken to social media putting their full support behind Supercars decision to protect the health and safety of all involved.

Teams such as the Red Bull Holden Racing Team are remaining committed to their 2020 program, using their new-found time back at the factory to catch-up on development for the Bathurst-12 hour GT event.

Brendan Lines 17 March, 2020

While Supercars’ decision around the COVID-19 pandemic effect on the 2020 season is pending, Seven-time series Champion Jamie Whincup says the Red Bull Holden Racing Team is pretty used to handling ‘curve-balls,’ Local Goals caught up with the champ, who is ‘social distancing’ back home in Brisbane, to give us an insight to the reaction and current state-of-play in the Red Bull Holden garage.

Jamie Whincup – Image: Red Bull Content Pool

“Quite weird circumstances, we’re pretty used to that in sport, we’re used to just dodging curve-balls and expect the unexpected, we’ve pretty much thought we’d seen it all, but there’s always curve-ball around the corner,” Whincup says.

“It never fails to amaze us of what next could come up, motorsport is so exposed to all that stuff which makes the sport what it is.”

Despite what’s been described as ‘surreal’ scenes, in other reports last Friday, around the cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix as a result of a McLaren Racing team member testing positive for COVID-19.

The subsequent cancellation of the Melbourne 400 round of Supercars, was met with quite the opposite scenes as Whincup describes it.

“We were waiting patiently for them [Supercars] to make the call.” Whincup says.

“When it did, we completely understand the situation and the governing bodies all getting together to go ‘hey we got to control this situation’ the best thing to do that is for everyone to just stop,

“We respect the government’s decision to ‘Hey let’s try to get it under control’ and that means stop sporting events for a short time,” Whincup says.

Whincup weighed in saying he’s fine with going racing behind closed doors to ensure the 2020 season can move forward.

“One hundred per-cent if we can race with or without fans, I think that’s the best way to do it, to be honest that’s probably the best strategy — at least for the next one — is to try make the event happen without fans, rather than the whole thing stop.”

“Behind closed doors that’s fine, our fanbase want to see car racing, if anything, if they’re at home and don’t really want to go out, what better way to be able to sit in front of the TV and turn the Foxtel on watch us guys do our thing,” Whincup says.

After a strong start to the 2020 season winning Race 1 from pole at the Adelaide 500 and showing pace out of the box in Melbourne. Whincup took one of two poles on offer with team-mate Shane van Gisbergen, before the eventual kibosh of the weekend.

van Gisbergen and Whincup taking dual pole positions at Melbourne 400 – Image Red Bull Holden Racing Team.

Whincup says Triple Eight remains committed to its 2020 program and is using its time wisely now back at the factory.

“Because we’re committed to the Bathurst 12-hour, we’re a little bit back-logged to be honest with work involved or development, we’re using this time to really catch up on the areas that we’ve liked to have been a bit further forward in at this stage of the year,” Whincup says.

While there is a certain shroud of bleakness around the world of motorsport for the moment, as more events are postponed and cancelled with news overnight the 2020 Isle of Man has been cancelled.

Motorsport is no stranger to ‘weird circumstances’ as Whincup says, taking ‘curve-balls’ of the likes we are seeing in his stride, creates a much needed voice of calm to deal with what’s ahead. In what is very ‘fluid’ times for his team and for that matter, all the teams in the Supercars paddock.

The Red Bull’s of Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup topped Quaifying 1 and 2 of the Melbourne 400 respectively, earning Whincup a prime opportunity for a potential win in his 500^th race weekend.

Eyes on the prize for Jamie Whincup -Image Red Bull

The Holden master lit up the middle sector of the Albert Park track in Qualifying 2 going point-one of a second clear of the Tickford Racing Mustang of Cam Waters, with a 01:55.2809s.

Whincup took some damage on Turn 1 resulting in a bent rim, but with a new tyre set he took to the track and set his top time.

Red Bull now hold both Pole Positions on offer so far this week, a valuable advantage given the limited passing opportunities around Albert Park.

But the X-factor of the weekend that may counter the advantage of pole is tyres says van Gisbergen.

“ It [Tyre difference] is quite big really, to see the lap times like two seconds two and a half seconds, Jamie’s run went off about two seconds in the session this morning, in the afternoon the hot session it might equal out, really you’ll only be able to do two or three laps on the hard and sit out the rest,

“It’s the tyres making racing better this year, hopefully the degradation happens, the weather is pretty hot, hopefully it stays hot, makes the racing good, last year was so spread out because of the cars, hopefully this year it’s closer, hopefully it makes it a bit closer with the strategy differences,” he said.

Will Davison for Milwaukee Racing has been ‘Mr. Consistency’ for season 2020, he now continues his run at the ‘pointy end’ qualifying third in both tomorrow’s races.

The big shock of the session was Penrite Racing’s David Reynolds who after an impressive second fastest in Practice 2.

Reynolds had a wide moment at Turn 12 earning him a curb-strike to his name deleting his time, he now slumps to 17^th for the start of Race 1 tomorrow

2^nd Practice of the Melbourne 400 has been Red-flagged in the closing minutes, but Penrite Racing’s Anton De Pasquale and David Reynold’s were able to keep piling on fastest laps to post a one-two finish for the team.

Macauley Jones’ Big lock-up – Image: Supercars

The follow up session to this afternoon’s 1^st practice saw the teams still juggling tyres for qualifying which is just over an hour away.

Third fastest for the session Rick Kelly posted a late 1:56.9433s, but it may not be a true comparison of outright pace.

“The time sheets look for us look very good we’re in third and it looks fantastic,” Kelly said.

“But we really wanted the session to run out there, so we could see where we sat compared to everyone that was on a lap or just about to start a lap.”

Over at the Penrite Racing garage David Reynolds said it wasn’t smooth sailing with their own woes finding the right tyre selection.

“Right now we’re battling a bit of balance, obviously we’ve got to run the hard and soft tyres, we tried the hard tyre in practice one, and the car felt horrendously bad, then we tried the sort tyre which gives you the grip and the confidence, we’re kind of making in-roads now,” he said.

With Just minutes to go for the session, Macauley Jones’ BJR Commodore suffered A brake failure that saw him in the gravel at Turn 1, Red-flagging the session.

But De Pasquale had the job of going fastest already done, leaving the question of could there have been more pace.

“We always expect to roll out pretty good, just to expect having a bit of pace, you know everyone puts a lot of effort in, but so far it’s alright, obviously the red flag kind of ruins the last runs,” he said.

Qualifying session #1 for Race #1 of the Melbourne 400 kicks-off 4.25pm local time.

Red Bull Holden have showed their card late in the Melbourne 400 1^st Practice topping the time sheets ahead of Tickford Racing’s Lee Holdsworth as teams juggle the unknowns adapting their cars to the Albert Park track.

The soft tyres were a popular choice among the field as Holdsworth set his 1:54.6244 on just his second lap of the session.

“You’ve got to be on it from that first lap because the tyres degrade so quickly, put together a reasonable time and still a bit left on the table,” Holdsworth said.

“The tyres are going off crazy, so there a lot of mistakes going on, I think we’ll see a lot of mistakes out there, in we’ve got a lot less aero this year and the cars are a lot harder to drive.”

Van Gisbergen had his own moment going off early in the session with a brake lock-up but went on to post the second- best time of the session with a 1:56.6080.

Coming in hot for his 500^th race appearance for his career, Jaimie Whincup set a late fastest time in his Red Bull Holden with a 1:56.4196.

The session was Red-flagged early as Scott Pye’s ZB Commodore suffered a battery issue coming to a halt on Turn 8.

Interestingly, DJR Penske pitted the Mustangs of Scott McLaughlin and Fabian Coulthard in response to the Red-flag, but did change their respective hard tyres when the session went back to green.

The current championship leader McLaughlin says there maybe a bit of method on the madness at the DJR garage.

“I prefer a soft around here but I think a hard will really stir the racing up, but I’m picking everyone will want to get on that soft as quick as they can,” he said.

Brendan Lines

February 23, 2020

Mustang driver Scott McLaughlin broke the hearts of Holden fans in the manufacturer’s farewell from the Adelaide 500 snatching an all too close victory from Red Bull’s Shane van Gisbergen.

Scott McLaughlin takes the chequered flag to win the Adelaide 500 – Image Adelaide 500

The win sees McLaughlin now taking back-to-back Adelaide 500 victories.

Undercut by van Gisbergen in the pits after an early safety car, McLaughlin said “we got away with one there absolutely.”

In a race where errors in the pit lane for both teams were the deciding factor, a spirited drive by van Gisbergen in his under-fueled ZB Commodore almost paid-off.

McLaughlin’s DJR Penske Mustang got away to a clean start on the dirty side of the starting grid getting the jump on van Gisbergen who started from pole position.

A Red-flag in the opening laps triggered by Scott Pither’s Commodore going into the wall at the Victoria Park racecourse section, caused both Red Bull and DJR teams to pit under the safety-car.

McLaughlin fueled and took tyres, the traffic in the pit lane caused DJR cars to pit both cars at the same time.

McLaughlin’s pit crew were caught unaware by the Red Bull garage and van Gisbergen was able to pit behind the Mustangs and slip away to take the lead.

It appeared DJR’s own fuel strategy had back-fired letting Red Bull out-fox them in the pitlane.

But Red Bull had another thing coming as van Gisbergen’s pit crew had mistakenly under-fueled his ZB Commodore to only lap 76 of the 78-lap race during their second pit stop.

But van Gisbergen did not simply hand the victory over to McLaughlin, during the middle stint of the race, both drivers matched each other’s time across the first two sectors of the Adelaide street circuit.

With van Gisbergen lighter on fuel, he was able to pull away from McLaughlin in the final sector to build a four-second lead on lap 38.

McLaughlin’s work was cut out to remain in striking distance of the Red Bull which was proving a faster car on track.

“Full credit to Shane and the team they had a fast car today, I think if we were in clear air like we were in the first stint we might have had his measure but he was really fast once he got the clear air,” McLaughlin said.

“Obviously he had a quick car, but yeah it was an awesome battle, because you had that gap if one person made a mistake, if they dropped a little and the other guy did you get it back, it was sort of like tit-for-tat.”

Red Bull played their last card by refueling van Gisbergen and putting him back into the race in fourth on lap 68 with fresh tyres, joining the battle between Holden’s Chaz Mostert and Mustang’s Cam Waters for the remaining podium positions.

Adding insult to injury, van Gisbergen’s Red Bull suffered a right-hand front suspension failure on lap 77, that saw him run wide turning onto the Brock Straight.

van Gisbergen’s Commodore crawled to a halt on the exit of Turn 8, and so did the dreams of Holden fans everywhere for a dream double victory send off in the brand’s final race in Adelaide.

Red Bull Holden Team Principle Mark Dutton put his team’s fuel issues were an ‘honest mistake.’

“Just a bit of a mistake about two seconds too short, Shane drove tremendously to get back to being able to fight and possibly get back on the podium, then we had a front suspension failure,” he said.

But it was not all bad news for Holden fans as Chaz Mostert was the surprise of the day, qualifying fifth and shrugging off illness, the Holden driver stepped onto the podium in his debut race for Walkinshaw-Andretti United, signing off Holden’s racing legacy at Adelaide with a second place.

“To see the emotion in there for the podium it’s pretty amazing,” he said.

It has been a historic week for all Holden fans in Adelaide hoping for the dream send off, they will have to wait to have the last laugh over the Mustangs across the Supercars season.

Supercars head to the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park for the Melbourne 400 March 12-15th