Motorsport: 2019 Supercars Championship season preview
The V8s are ready to fire into life this weekend in Adelaide.
The long off-season is over and the Supercars Championship Series is about to get the green light, with a pair of races around the Adelaide street circuit this weekend. A new season brings new possibilities, with Ford returning with the Mustang, changes to the regulations creating potential for a new competitive order and some veteran drivers looking to re-establish themselves as front-runners.
Rivalry renewed
The 2018 season boiled down to a two-way fight between Kiwis Scott McLaughlin (DJR-Team Penske) and Shane van Gisbergen (Red Bull Holden Racing Team) which created obvious tension between the pair both on- and off-track.
There’s no reason to expect the new season to change any of that. The pair enter the season as favourites and are supported by the two best teams in pitlane. Indeed, the fight between the Red Bull Holdens and the Shell-backed Fords is just as fierce as the contest between the two drivers.
So expect no quarter to be given this year as the pair fight for supremacy again.
Chasing eight
Jamie Whincup won five races in 2018 and finished third in the championship standings. For most drivers that would be a good season, but when you’re a seven-time series champ it’s hard to see it as anything other than disappointing.
But only a fool would write-off Whincup. He has been the benchmark driver in the category for more than a decade and will be hungry to avenge his below-standard results from last season.
If anyone is going to break up the New Zealand duo at the front it’s likely to be Whincup as he hunts for title number eight.
Ford’s back
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you should have noticed Ford has made an official return to Supercars racing, replacing the defunct Falcon with the Mustang.
The arrival of the iconic American coupe is a major boost not only for the DJR-Team Penske and Tickford Racing outfits that will be running the new model, but the sport as a whole. Having such a famous model racing will give Supercars a shot in the arm at a time when manufacturers are reluctant to get involved in touring car racing.
Cameron Waters setting the fastest time at the pre-season test in his Tickford ‘Stang was good publicity but both teams will know there is still work to be done to fine-tune the new car into a race winner.
Tickford Racing was once Ford’s powerhouse team, but its decline in on-track form coincided with the arrival of DJR-Team Penske as a force. So the battle between the two Mustang outfits will be an interesting sub-plot.
Rule changes
A relatively small technical change, unseen to spectators, could have a big impact on the competitive order this year. Supercars have banned the use of multiple springs in the suspension set-up, a technical trick exploited best by Red Bull Holden and DJR-Team Penske.
The requirement to run a single spring has forced the teams to reinvent the way they set up the cars to ride bumps around the track.
That opens the door to some of the teams that never fully embraced the multi-spring set-up to try and steal a march on the 2018 front-runners early in the season. However, given the expertise within both Red Bull Holden and DJR-Team Penske those teams are likely to get on top of the change very quickly - even this weekend in Adelaide.
If anyone is to spoil that party the most likely candidate is Erebus Racing’s David Reynolds. He won three races in 2018 (and came agonizingly close to winning the Bathurst 1000 too) and was a title darkhorse. If he can continue that form and improve his consistency he could be a thorn in the side of the likes of McLaughlin, van Gisbergen and Whincup all season long.
Musical chairs
Every off-season brings some level of change but by far the biggest move was Mark Winterbottom’s switch to Irwin Racing. The 2015 series champion had spent his entire career in Fords and at Tickford Racing but felt a change was needed to get back to the front after a couple of lean years. With a new Holden Commodore and a technical partnership with Red Bull Holden Racing Team, Winterbottom believes he can fight for race wins again.
The departure of Winterbottom leaves Chaz Mostert as the leader at Tickford Racing and he was the team’s standout driver in 2018. He’ll be backed up by rising star Waters and veteran Lee Holdsworth who effectively swapped seats with Winterbottom.
Another former champ looking for a bounce back is James Courtney, who was out-scored by younger teammate Scott Pye last year. The 2010 title winner hasn’t won a race since 2016 but with the improving fortunes of the Walkinshaw Andretti United squad, Courtney will be hoping to end that victory drought.
Rick Kelly will also be hoping for a better season in what is expected to be his team’s last running in the Nissan Altima. Now without any factory support, Kelly Racing has taken on the responsibility of trying to keep the aging Japanese cars competitive.
Kelly’s win at Winton last year was a demonstration that the cars have winning pace but it hasn’t been seen enough to make them a consistent threat.
His teammate, Simona de Silvestro, is now in her third season with the team and in the category so the expectations on the former Indycar driver are higher than ever.
The Grid
No. | Driver | Team | Car |
2 | Scott Pye | Walkinshaw Andretti United | Holden Commodore |
3 | Garry Jacobson | Kelly Racing | Nissan Altima |
5 | Lee Holdsworth | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang |
6 | Cameron Waters | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang |
7 | Andre Heimgartner | Kelly Racing | Nissan Altima |
8 | Nick Percat | Brad Jones Racing | Holden Commodore |
9 | David Reynolds | Erebus Racing | Holden Commodore |
12 | Fabian Coulthard | DJR-Team Penske | Ford Mustang |
14 | Tim Slade | Brad Jones Racing | Holden Commodore |
15 | Rick Kelly | Kelly Racing | Nissan Altima |
17 | Scott McLaughlin | DJR-Team Penske | Ford Mustang |
18 | Mark Winterbottom | Irwin Racing | Holden Commodore |
19 | Jack Le Broq | Tekno Racing | Holden Commodore |
21 | Macauley Jones | Brad Jones Racing | Holden Commodore |
22 | James Courtney | Walkinshaw Andretti United | Holden Commodore |
23 | Will Davison | 23 Red Racing | Ford Mustang |
33 | Richie Stanaway | Garry Rogers Motorsport | Holden Commodore |
34 | James Goulding | Garry Rogers Motorsport | Holden Commodore |
35 | Todd Hazelwood | Matt Stone Racing | Holden Commodore |
55 | Chaz Mostert | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang |
78 | Simona de Silvestro | Kelly Racing | Nissan Altima |
88 | Jamie Whincup | Red Bull Holden Racing Team | Holden Commodore |
97 | Shane van Gisbergen | Red Bull Holden Racing Team | Holden Commodore |
99 | Anton de Pasquale | Erebus Racing | Holden Commodore |