LOWNDES IS CLOSE TO IRREPLACEABLE

Craig Lowndes announcing his retirement – Photo: LAT

So Craig Lowndes is retiring from full-time Supercars racing at the end of the season. No surprise there. This has been coming for some time as Lowndes’s competitiveness has declined in inverse proportion to his popularity.

COMMENT BY MARK FOGARTY

He hasn’t been a real front-runner for a few years – not consistently, anyway – but he has remained the best known and most popular Supercars driver. By a long way. No one else is close – and, worryingly, no other is standing by to fill his huge shoes as the fan favourite.

Lowndes could keep racing fulltime in Supercars for another year or more and no one would complain. Supercars without the ever-smiling CL on a regular basis will be like, well, F1 without Ferrari.

Yes, it’s that big. No driver or team is bigger than a sport, but in Supercars, Lowndes comes very close to being irreplaceable.

Scott McLaughlin has the personality, charm and talent to step up as the new superstar, but there’s a problem. A big problem. He’s a New Zealander.

Aussie fans will never embrace a Kiwi like one of our homegrown sporting heroes. Which is a shame because McLaughlin essentially grew up here. If I were him, I’d become an Australian citizen and embrace his inner Aussie.

Not that there’ll be another Craig Lowndes any time soon. He is the quintessential battler who rose from humble beginnings to become the people’s champion, following in the footsteps of his mentor and friend, the late Peter Brock.

Lowndesy genuinely loves the fans and they’re devoted to him. No driver since Brock has willingly devoted so much time to interacting with and respecting his adoring followers.

While Lowndes’s career is clearly in its twilight, the surprise of his announcement is the timing. He had another year to go on his contract with Triple Eight and my best information is that it wasn’t his decision.

If you knew Craig at all well, you’d know he’d want to continue full-time in Supercars for another few years. He just loves it and believes there are plenty more Symmons Plains Sundays left in him.

At the very least, he wanted to see out his contract until the end of next year. To quit a year early was not his preferred plan. I think it was made for him by Roland Dane, who is looking to have his cake and eat it, too.

Craig Lowndes will continue with Triple Eight as a co-driver – Photo: LAT

Dane keeps Craig as an enduro co-driver – and potential Bathurst 1000 winner for many years to come – team ambassador and possible platform for a GT program. He replaces him in the third Triple Eight entry with Simona de Silvestro, gaining her lucrative Harvey Norman backing in the process.

Win, win, win, win, win.

Here’s why the Simona scenario works. It’s her decision whether to stay with the Kellys next year. I understand that her Supercars contract stipulates she is with a factory backed team. She wants a competitive shot next year if she is to stay and an Altima without factory support isn’t appealing.

Dane wants her because he thinks Simona has been under-utilised in terms of equipment, and also promotionally by Nissan and Supercars. He tried very hard last year to swap her and Harvey Norman to TEKNO this year, offering virtually fourth Triple Eight car support. He was stymied by her iron-clad two-year contract with the Kellys.

But de Silverstro can move next year and the prospect of pseudo factory team status – Triple Eight’s third entry is a satellite of the main Red Bull Holden Racing Team – must be enticing. And, of course, Roland is attracted by Harvey Norman’s seven-figure sponsorship and big brand marketing leverage.

You do the maths.

And what about pairing Craig with Simona in the enduros? Promotional dream team! Of course, the strongest combination would be to reunite Lowndes with Jamie Whincup, reprising the partnership that dominated the Bathurst 1000 in 2006/07/08 – and were close runners-up in ’09 – before the rules banned series regulars from sharing in the enduros.

Such a move would be tough on Paul Dumbell, who has been Whincup’s enduro co-driver since 2012, when they won Bathurst. But Dumbrell’s time as a gun co-driver is probably nearing its end, and his position (and that of Steve Richards, Lowndes’s 2015 Bathurst-winning partner) will be up for serious review after the Pirtek Enduro Cup.

The phrases ‘spoiled for choice’ and ‘an embarrassment of riches’ come to mind where Dane’s choices for long distance race line-ups are concerned.

Apart from his super-partner appearances next year and beyond, Lowndes can look forward to a long – and lucrative – career as a Supercars TV commentator/analyst. He has been ordained as the new face of the broadcasts in retirement since previous Supercars chief James Warburton virtually guaranteed him a high-profile gig. And, of course, the sport wants to showcase its most familiar face.

Making room for Lowndes on the commentary and/or hosting teams could result in a high-profile casualty. Russell Ingall and Greg Murphy should be wary, while Mark Skaife will need all his political wiles to avoid being overshadowed.

Craig won’t have to do a lot. He’s so popular and recognised that any old babble will do. But I predict he will grow into the role and rival Skaife as an incisive observer and analyst.

I’ve been interviewing CL for two decades and in recent years he has become more lucid and, if not erudite, at least able to express an informed opinion. He’ll never be controversial or provocative – that’s just not his nature – but with middle-age maturity has come perspective and perception, and vocabulary.

He knows the game and he will impart his knowledge in a friendly, unthreatening manner.

At 44, Lowndes is comfortable with himself and his life – and looking forward, if slightly reluctantly, to the next phase of his career. He may not be entirely happy to be eased out a year early, but as always, he will make the very best of what the future holds.

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