Hi to all you Supercars fans around the world!
On the weekend of April 30th to May 1st was the Bunnings Trade Perth Supernight.
This year is the 43rd time that the Australian Touring Car / Supercars Championship have visited Barbagallo Raceway in Perth Wanneroo, Western Australia.
The first round was held back in 1973 but since 1978 this track has hosted a round every year except for 2020. The Saturday of the Perth Supernight will be the 90th championship race at this circuit, tying it with Symmons Plains Raceway.
Barbagallo now holds the record as the circuit to have hosted the most races in the history of Australian Touring Car Championship / Supercars Championship.
The second race of the weekend marked the 200th Supercars race for Cameron Waters. Waters is yet to record a win in the west. His best finish was 3rd in 2019 and a pole position in 2016.
Defending champion, Shane Van Gisbergen started on pole position in 2018 but has also never won a race at Barbagallo.
Barry Ryan from Boost Mobile Racing Erebus Motorsport used this weekend to announce that Greg Murphy and Richie Stanaway will return for the Bathurst 1000 as a wild card entry.
Perth Supernight started on the Saturday with the pre-race sessions. The results were:
- Cameron Waters was fastest in Practice 1
- Will Davison was fastest in Practice 2
- Anton de Pasquale was fastest in Qualifying and started on pole for the first race.
In race 10 Anton de Pasquale started on pole position, alongside him was Cameron Waters.
Shane Van Gisbergen started 3rd, Chaz Mostert started 23rd and Nick Percat started 25th. As some of the fastest drivers this year their poor grid spots were due to getting held up by cars in front of them during Qualifying.
At the start of the race Anton de Pasquale got the jump and led into turn 1 for the first of 46 laps. Cameron Waters was right behind him.
Mark Winterbottom got a great start, but he had nowhere to go.
Shane Van Gisbergen also had nowhere to go and had to stay in 3rd position.
Further back in the pack the cars were 3 wide heading into turn 1. Thomas Randle got up the inside of Will Brown for positions 9th and 10th. Behind them were Todd Hazelwood and Will Davison battling for positions 11th and 12th. Lee Holdsworth had gained 3 positions to move to 21st.
Meanwhile with a little help from Bryce Fulwood, Chris Pither spun at turn 1 and went to the back of the pack. Later, Bryce Fulwood was issued 15 second penalty for his actions.
Before the first lap was over Shane Van Gisbergen found the space to pass Cameron Waters to move into 2nd place behind the race leader, Anton de Pasquale.
As the race moved on, the cars further back in the pack started to pit for clear track.
Jack Le Brocq was the first to pit on lap 8.
Will Brown had a miscommunication with car controller, Barry Ryan. He was told to come in but then to ‘push on’. He misheard and headed for the pits. The crew were not ready at all. Barry Ryan was not happy.
Cameron Waters pitted on lap 18 for rears tyres only.
One lap later Anton de Pasquale came in for 2 tyres.
On lap 21 Bryce Fullwood got another penalty. This time a bad sportsmanship flag for exceeding track limits.
Amazingly Shane Van Gisbergen pitted on lap 32. It’s a long way to go on one set of tyres. There was only 1 car yet to pit, Lee Holdsworth.
Shane Van Gisbergen came back out into position 4. He had Lee Holdsworth, Anton de Pasquale and Cameron Waters in front.
Lee Holdsworth finally pitted on lap 34. It put Anton de Pasquale back in the lead followed by Cameron Waters and Shane Van Gisbergen. The gap across the top 3 cars was about 2 ½ seconds.
Bryce Fulwood was in the garage due to a transaxle failure and problems with 4th gear.
On lap 39 Scott Pye got a bad sportsmanship warning flag for exceeding track limits at turn 7. Will Brown got the same.
Shane Van Gisbergen got up the inside of Cameron Waters. He was only 2.4 seconds behind the race leader Anton de Pasquale.
Then the gap went down to 1.254 seconds.
Nick Percat in car 2 was the next to be given a bad sportsmanship flag for exceeding track limits.
The gap was 1 second between 1st and 2nd. With 5 and half laps to go Shane Van Gisbergen closed the gap to 0.493.
With 5 laps to go, Shane Van Gisbergen was right on the back of Anton de Pasquale.
With 4 laps to go Shane Van Gisbergen took the race lead. Anton de Pasquale had no opportunity to re-pass him.
Shane Van Gisbergen kept increasing his lead. With 2 laps remaining he had built it to 1.563 seconds.
By the time he crossed the finish line he was 2.161 ahead of Anton de Pasquale. An incredible feat.
Shane Van Gisbergen had finally broken his winless streak at Barbagallo Raceway. It also chalked up Holden’s 600th race win.
Nick Percat had moved up 5 places from 25th to 20th. His teammate, Chaz Mostert moved up 1 place and finished in
22nd.
Results for Race 10:
1st Shane Van Gisbergen – Red Bull Ampol Racing.
2nd Anton De Pasquale – Shell V-Power Racing Team.
3rd Cameron Waters – Tickford Racing.
In Race 11 Will Davison started on pole position with Cameron Waters alongside him.
Mark Winterbottom started 22nd on the grid after being issued a 5-spot penalty for impeding Shane Van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney during Qualifying. Defending champion, Shane Van Gisbergen started in 11th position.
At the start of the race Will Davison got the jump and led into turn 1.
The cars further back in the pack were battling for positions. Thomas Randle made contact with Lee Holdsworth, putting him into the wall between turns 2 and 3 then coming to a stop on the grass. His front left corner was damaged big time but he managed to limp the car back to the pits. Surprisingly he later managed to re-join the race but was a few laps down.
As the pack came down to the final turn Cameron Waters had a 3/4 second lead over Will Davison.
As they came onto the main straight to begin lap 2 there was contact between Scott Pye and Jack le Broc. Scott Pye hit the barrier walls so hard they actually came apart. He managed to get out of the car unassisted, but the car was a complete wreck and wouldn’t compete for the rest of the weekend.
The safety car was deployed to remove the wreck. Then James Taylor who is the race director, came on the radio and told all of the teams that the race was being suspended due to where Scott Pye’s car was positioned. When the red flag was called there was 43 laps to go. While they repaired the barrier walls the race was delayed for 40 minutes.
Team 18 owner, Charlie Schwerkolt said that Jack le Broc could have backed off to avoid the contact. He must have been annoyed that his car was a wreck.
When the race got restarted Cameron Waters was in the lead followed by Will Davison and Brodie Kostecki.
The cars further back in the pack pitted early because they were getting held up by other drivers in front of them.
Cameron Waters and Will Davison stayed out longer because they had track position.
Anton de Pasquale soon took Brodie Kostecki’s 3rd place.
I was amazed at how long Cameron Waters held onto the race lead for.
Around the middle of the race Will Davison had got down the inside of Cameron Waters to take the lead. They were virtually neck and neck. At turn 7 Cameron Waters went very wide out of track limits and dive-bombed Will Davison to regain the lead. Davison was furious at his risky move. He came on the radio to his engineer Richard Harris and said, ‘He can’t do this!’.
Later, after the officials had time to review the incident Cameron Waters got a 5 second penalty for an unsafe re-entry onto the track.
Cameron Waters may have been upset by this, but he held his focus and lead to the end of the race. Although he crossed the line first the penalty was applied after the finish. It knocked him off the podium into 4th place.
In the end Will Davison got his first race win for Dick Johnson Racing since 2008. He was followed by Anton de Pasquale and Andre Heimgartner.
The result was an unexpected bonus for Shell V-Power Racing Team, earning them a 1st and 2nd.
Results for Race 11:
1st Will Davison – Shell V-Power Racing Team.
2nd Anton de Pasquale – Shell V-Power Racing Team.
3rd Andre Heimgartner – Brad Jones Racing.
4th Cameron Waters – Tickford Racing.
In race 12 Shane Van Gisbergen started on pole position with Will Davison next to him.
At the start of the race Will Davison got the jump from 2nd position on the grid and led into turn 1.
Also, David Reynolds was in 2nd place by turn 1, dropping the pole sitter Shane Van Gisbergen back to 3rd. I was amazed that Shane Van Gisbergen dropped from 1st to 3rd and David Reynolds went up from 4th to 2nd.
The cars further back in the pack settled down into their race pace.
Thomas Randle was spun around on the run down to turn 6 and car 34 of Jack le Brocq from Matt Stone Racing had a big slide.
Jake Kostecki got up the inside of Andre Heimgartner at turn 6. David Reynolds locked up on the run into turn 6 which allowed Shane Van Gisbergen to pass him at turn 7 and move up to 2nd place. The gap between Will Davison and Shane Van Gisbergen was 1.4 seconds.
Shane Van Gisbergen was so focused on driving he needed a reminder from his race engineer, Andrew Edwards to turn on his helmet fan.
Shane Van Gisbergen had Anton de Pasquale behind him, followed by Will Brown and James Courtney, running 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
Garry Jacobson and Chris Pither were side by side in an all-out battle to move into the top 10.
There was a lot of biff and barge going on all the way through the pack.
At this stage the gap between 1st and 2nd was 1.5 seconds.
The cars further in the pack pitted early while the race leaders stayed out longer.
When the pitstops started the lead was changing left, right and centre.
Soon Anton de Pasquale had dropped 3 places into 6th.
In the middle of the race James Courtney was the race leader because he had not pitted at this stage. Shane Van Gisbergen was unaware that Courtney had not pitted and was leading the race. Gisbergen was on the lookout for Will Davison as the assumed leader.
With only a few laps to go Shane Van Gisbergen was on the attack and took the lead from James Courtney. Courtney just couldn’t keep up and fell back to take second place as Gisbergen raced to the finish line.
Results for Race 12:
1st Shane Van Gisbergen – Red Bull Ampol Racing.
2nd James Courtney – Tickford Racing.
3rd Will Davison – Shell V-Power Racing Team.
The next Supercars event is the Winton Supersprint on the 21st and 22nd of May but, before that there will be the Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 hour, a GT race.