The last time Supercars raced around The Bend

It has been two years since Supercars raced around The Bend, with the previous round sparking the championship run of Brodie Kostecki and Erebus.

tyle circuit, with its 4.9km 18-turn layout, the longest track since the AGP, offering up three 20-lap races.

After Townsville and Sydney it was the third straight round with the Dunlop soft tyre but The Bend would prove far kinder on that specific compound than the latter two rounds, as teams carried five sets of pre-marked tyres into qualifying and the races, with separate sets allocated for the two practice sessions.

Although it was the second straight two-day program, there’s always a tremendous sense of value with the SA track, with the smooth and fast Albert Park-like circuit always offering up a good show with its long sweeping corners.

Prior to Tailem Bend, the dreaded P word may have come to its suspected Gen3 conclusion as the Mustangs entered the round with new engine mapping which was tested and confirmed at the recent SMP ride day.

The new map was seen as a final bid to even the parity ledger with the dominant Camaros, to provide more stable power delivery out of the corners.

A big topic of conversation after SMP was the Gen3 steering rack, and whilst the cars went in with the same equipment – although slightly reinforced with tightened elements – post-event testing would trial some new elements which will be a welcome addition to the heavy kerbing at Sandown for the year’s first enduro.

Despite the eventual Erebus Camaro dominance, The Bend offered up an entertaining weekend where the Chevy’s were reeled in by some resurgent Mustangs, including a feel good weekend for the Tickford team and its Castrol car.

Three drivers entered this round knowing that they’d definitely be elsewhere in 2024, with several others facing a fight to keep their main-game careers alive, as the stirring of Silly Season saw an explosive beginning in the lead up to Tailem Bend.

In terms of the championship leader, he returned from his Indianapolis NASCAR debut and performed, despite all the Silly Season chaos that reared its head in the Erebus shed. His cool demeanour saw his dogged grip on a maiden title tighten ever so slightly.

SATURDAY

The opening session of the OTR SuperSprint was a bright one for Tickford, as Thomas Randle continued his love affair with The Bend by topping Practice 1.

Rookie Matt Payne also had his boots on as he and Randle were the only drivers to crack the 51-second mark.

The benchmark was a 1:50.838, with the top five cars also going to the Mustangs in a season first, with Will Davison, Cam Waters, and Anton De Pasquale showing good signs with the new engine mapping.

The Triple Eight garage was embroiled in a familiar story, as Shane van Gisbergen’s Camaro returned to the sheds with more steering rack issues and, again, it was a stumped engineering team.

The second session opened with a mishap for James Courtney, as he couldn’t get his Mustang turned in through the final corner. After going onto the pit lane grass, he drifted back into the opposite wall to make a small mess of his left rear.

The session would go to Feeney with an early lap of 1:49.990, but he’d go backwards a bit with an altered setup in the back half.

Once again, SVG cut a despondent figure as his problems continued in his replacement chassis from SMP.

Randle was quick again to go second over Mostert, whilst Payne made the top-10 again, with David Reynolds also joining him for Grove, as once again, the Mustangs outdid the Camaros with seven in the 10.

QUALIFYING

The championship leader put in a blitzing lap to take the Race 20 pole in the three part knockout with the quickest time of the day, laying down a 1:49.581.

His fifth pole of the year topped the in-form Randle, who swooped late to fall short by 0.366s, with Waters and Feeney sharing the second row.

Although Mostert’s Mustang was lively, he stuck to the kerbs to take fifth, whilst the T8 garage managed to improve the state of the #97 Camaro, changing the power steering pump, and tightening and changing all the components on his steering rack to help him into sixth.

Payne earned a deserved top-10 spot to be next to Will Brown, whilst the last row went to Andre Heimgartner and Jack Le Brocq.

The 15 minute Q1 saw both Team 18 Camaros falling short, with Scott Pye and Mark Winterbottom not having the pace, with Declan Fraser finishing last, behind Jack Smith, while Todd Hazelwood also missed the cut.

Q2 was a disaster for DJR as both Davison and De Pasquale opted to sit out the late run in provisional P1 and P3.

12 cars would jump them by the chequered flag, with both drivers leaving plenty of pace in the sheds.

Nick Percat, Courtney, James Golding, Reynolds, Cameron Hill, Tim Slade, Bryce Fullwood, and Macauley Jones all missed the cut to make Q3.

RACE 20 – WHAT JET LAG?
Fresh from his maiden NASCAR appearance in Indianapolis, poleman Kostecki overcame a lightning start from Randle and Mostert to claim his fourth win of the season and extend his championship lead to 80 points.

His teammate and series contender, Brown, didn’t fare as well after having the front section of his body work removed in a three-car crash at Turn 1 that saw the #9 retired early.

Mostert made it five podiums for the year over Randle – second of his career – as Waters made it three resurgent Mustangs in the top four over SVG, whilst he may well have made it a podium were it not for team orders to hold off.

Whilst he was happy for Randle, he also said that he “probably won’t do that again.”

Randle got a great jump in the 20 lap, 100km opener, after grabbing second gear early and taking the first corner as Mostert also snuck past Kostecki.

It was a stark contrast to Randle’s front row start at The Bend in 2022, where a stall saw a disastrous impact with Heimgartner.

Big contact saw some sorry looking Gen3s as Brown lost the front of his car after getting contact from De Pasquale and then Le Brocq, whilst Smith unavoidably battered his front end after coming in late and taking out Hill.

With the flatbeds cleared, the lap 5 restart had Randle leading Mostert, Kostecki, and SVG who got a good jump early.

Randle jumped from a tight pack through Turn 18 as the pit-stop window opened shortly after.

Feeney took the early pit option for fresh rears, whilst Kostecki took Mostert with a big lunge at Turn 6 to give chase on the Tickford leader.

Randle was looking controlled out front at the halfway mark, as Waters got on the inside of SVG to move into fourth behind Mostert.

Kostecki loomed large in second, taking Randle on the inside on lap 11, as Randle and Mostert then peeled off together in a very tight pit entry.

They came out just over Feeney as Mostert attacked the Castrol Mustang with Feeney also in the game.

Kostecki took the overall lead after Waters and SVG pitted, as Waters emerged behind Mostert, while the gap between Randle and Kostecki was 37 seconds.

Kostecki took the pivotal stop with eight remaining, and on the exit he came out in front, on cold tyres, as Mostert took a huge lunge on Randle to take second as Waters was in shot of his teammate.

The #99 built the gap to over a second and a half whilst Randle stuck fast to Mostert.

A clearly faster Waters was asked to hold by Tickford garage, which he wasn’t overly happy about, especially as Randle went wide of his own accord on the last lap.

The Erebus leader was too good in the end, as Mostert made it a Mustang double podium with Randle permitted to hang on over Waters.

SUNDAY: QUALIFYING, RACE 21 AND 22
Back-to-back 15-minute qualifying sessions opened with Randle taking his first ever Supercars pole to become the 10th different poleman of the season and 71st of all time.

The Tickford driver put in a 1:50.068, initially over Grove’s Payne before Kostecki stepped up late to replicate Saturday’s front row just 0.05s off.

Payne held on for third whilst SVG shared the second row, next to the rookie.

The Mustangs got the better of the 10 again in a good sign that the parity talk might abate, with De Pasquale, Mostert, Fullwood, Reynolds, Davison and Percat filling the first five rows.

The second session saw the #99 Coke Camaro salute for the second time of the weekend in a scintillating session, with Waters and Randle also going under the 50-second mark, whilst Percat was a surprise second row starter after Payne.

Payne opted to park up after posting a 1:50.080, and faced a nervous wait in the sheds for a maiden pole before being jumped by four cars at the death.

De Pasquale took sixth, with SVG, Davison, Courtney and Fullwood filling the 10 with the Ford’s once again taking the bulk of the ledger.

RACE 21 – MIRROR PODIUM 

The penultimate race of the weekend offered up a repeat podium from day one, as Kostecki led a persistent Randle to the chequered flag, whilst Mostert made it a mirror sweep for the three drivers as he found great pace to finish it off.

It wasn’t all clean sailing for the #99 Erebus Camaro, as he was forced to hang on through the final half of the race with difficult front steering, but his unassailable pace through the last sector got him another 105 points to lift his title lead to 111 big ones.

An even jump gave Randle the advantage at the drop of the flag, but Kostecki was clean through the outride of Turn 2 to take the lead, whilst some action in the midfield saw some cars turned in midfield with Waters, Davison and Le Brocq resigned to the rear after the MSR Camaro locked up into the pack with the race staying green.

SVG took P3 from Payne off the line, with Reynolds and Mostert in tow, whilst the #6 Mustang went into the garage with a bent steering arm, and Davison was getting around with a flapping left hand door.

Randle stayed under Kostecki’s wing through the third lap, whilst the #97 hung back to get some clean air on the tyres.

There were a few early responders when the pit window opened, with Reynolds making the most effective undercut, whilst the front runners stayed out as Kostecki held a 0.686s split to Randle who had 2.5s on the #97 Red Bull.

Payne battled SVG for third, whilst the #55 Castrol was slowly losing tenths on the leader, as he jumped to take fresh rears coming out in front of Reynolds.

Kostecki went in on lap 10 to protect him from the fresh tyres of the under-cutters, emerging with the same gap on Randle and the #26 Penrite.

After going in for rears on lap 11 SVG came out in effective fourth, with the top four packed pretty tightly in a clean battle to the chequered.

Kostecki was reporting a bit of discomfort in the front end steering, whilst Randle was making slight ground.

With Pye as the last pitter on lap 15 the race was set for a tight finish, as the #99 Camaro went to the front, maintaining his slight advantage through nailing the last sector.

With a few laps remaining, SVG pinched his tyres with a big lock-up while trying to move on Reynolds, losing his podium spot as Mostert dived through as a result.

Mostert then took Reynolds at the beginning of lap 20 to wrap up third, two seconds off Kostecki who started to ram home his advantage over Randle who couldn’t find the extra gas.

Payne finished behind SVG in sixth, with De Pasquale, Fullwood, Feeney, and Heimgartner rounding out the 10.

RACE 22 – FROM THE BRICKYARD TO THE BEND

A rampant Kostecki swept the OTR SuperSprint, throwing off a final challenge from Cam Waters.

Thomas Randle rounded out a beautiful weekend in third place, with the Tickford driver taking a composed podium sweep in the round where he also took his maiden Supercars pole.

It’s a much-needed points boost for Kostecki ahead of the 300-point enduro races, boosting his lead to 137 points, as SVG ended the weekend second in the championship despite a relatively modest weekend in which he used no less than five different steering arms, including one borrowed from the PremiAir garage.

It was a disastrous weekend for Will Brown’s title hopes as he finished in P13, falling to fourth in the championship in the same week he announced his 2024 departure from Erebus.

Kostecki started on the inside lane next to Waters when the race went green, with the Camaro taking the first series of corners, as Percat’s Mustang was an absolute rocket on the outside, taking a wide approach into Turn 1 to move into second.

Waters dropped into fourth but quickly took the spot back off Randle after everyone got through cleanly for the first time over the weekend.

Payne put the heat on Randle for fourth, as Waters took Percat to go second with Kostecki leading by 1.3s by lap 4.

Waters quickly stretched the gap to Percat and took large chunks of tarmac off Kostecki to get within 0.653s as the fastest on track.

Percat was taken by Randle, with the #55 aiming at a podium sweep, whilst a drama in the pits with a stuck wheel nut cost Payne plenty of time, ending a solid weekend for the rookie as he fell by the wayside.

Waters had seemingly used up his tyres by lap nine, with the split starting to extend, as Randle went in the pits at the halfway mark to protect his podium spot from Percat’s attempted undercut on him.

After falling two seconds behind, Waters responded by going in for fresh rears, coming out in front of Randle and Percat, with the revived WAU Mustang close on the wing of the #55.

Kostecki took his compulsory pit, with the Erebus team making quick work of it to put the #99 in the box seat for the sweep.

With five laps remaining, the difference was 1.5s, but Waters was still the fastest on track with a three second buffer on Randle, who had a 1.4s split to Percat. Waters took the margin down with two laps remaining, and was doing his all to chase down the runaway Coke Camaro, which needed to execute a clean final lap to take the sweep.

Although Waters was quicker, he ran out of time, as Kostecki completed a magnificent solo weekend.

Image: Mark Horsburgh

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