Touring Cars 2021 Repco Supercars Championship

New year (well, okay not quite). New series sponsor. I'll add the calendar to the OP when it gets announced.

Grid.

DJR: #?? Anton De Pasquale. #17 Will Davison.
Triple 8: #88 Jamie Whincup. #97 Shane Van Gisbergen.
Tickford: #5 Jack Le Brocq. #6 Cam Waters. #44 James Courtney.
Erebus: #9 Brodie Kosteccki. #99 Will Brown.
Walkinshaw Andretti United: #2 Bryce Fullwood. #25 Chaz Mostert.
Brad Jones Racing: #4 Jack Smith #8 Nick Percat. #?? Macauley Jones. #14 Todd Hazelwood.
Kelly Racing: #7 Andre Heimgartner. #26 David Reynolds.
Team 18: #18 Mark Winterbottom. #20 Scott Pye.
Matt Stone Racing. #34 Jake Kostecki. #35 Zane Goddard.
Tekno Team Sydney: #19 Fabian Coulthard, #22 Gary Jacobson.
Team Cooldrive: #3 Tim Slade.
​

Calendar.

Feb 26-28: Mount Panorama 500, Bathurst, NSW
Mar 18-21: Sandown Supersprint, VIC
April 10-11: Tasmania SuperSprint, Symmons Plains, TAS
May 8-9: OTR SuperSprint, Tailem Bend, SA
May 29-30: Winton SuperSprint, Winton, VIC
June 19-20: Darwin Triple Crown, Hidden Valley, NT
July 9-11: NTI Townsville, Reid Park, QLD
Aug 20-22: Sydney SuperNight, Sydney Motorsport Park, NSW
Sept 11-12: Perth SuperNight, Wanneroo Raceway, WA
Oct 7-10: Repco Bathurst 1000, Mount Panorama, NSW
Nov 6-7: ITM Auckland SuperSprint, NZ
Dec 3-5: Gold Coast Street Circuit, Surfers Paradise, QLD

​

 

Can we skip to 2022? Asking for a friend.

 

I'd prefer it end on the biggest race of the year again.

 

As far as the grid goes, there’s the potential of Tim Blanchard purchasing the 23 Red REC and starting a two car team, running Mustangs.

 

Interesting.

 

Haven't heard that. Would be nice to have another car on the grid. Might be a bit awkward for Brad Jones though with Macauley being the odd one out at BJR.

 

https://www.speedcafe.com/2020/10/21/tickford-building-new-cars-as-mustang-heads-back-to-munday/

Not just for BJR, it also leaves the Courtney/Boost combination without a REC.

 

The old GRM REC's are still available, aren't they? I'm sure Tickford wouldn't have announced that they had retained Courtney for '21 if they didn't have a REC for him. I'd want to hope so anyway.

 

One went to MSR, along with one of the KR REC's and I can't for the life of me remember where T18 and Team Sydney got their extras from. Possibly the other GRM and KR one's??? T8 and possibly Brighty parked one each as well didn't they, or did the T8 one go to Team Sydney? I remember MSR couldn't use Brighty's any more because of the stupid time limitation thing but I don't know where that one went either (Edit; Munday maybe???).

It's all very confusing atm but I think your right. There's got to be a couple of REC's still laying about and Tickford will have something up their sleeve.

 

Think Jack Smith's father purchased the Bright REC? Not sure where second Team Sydney one came from. Could have very well been the old T8 one. MSR are talking about expanding to a third car. Hope there's enough spare REC's to go around.

 

I was thinking last night, what if the aero changes had negatively impacted the integrity of the series? You see, I was expecting Cameron Waters to mount and attack on Shane at Bathurst, but he wasn't able to get within striking distance. Same thing happened when Shane was behind McLaughlin in 2019 - he couldn't mount an attack either. In fact, barely any positional changes were made in the dying stages. I feel like the massive advances in aero are somewhat to blame for this. The amount of dirty air coming off the back of Shane's car quite literally created a barrier to prevent Waters from getting close enough. I'd assume that pretty much everyone was effected by this in some way. Sitting in that conga line with all the dirty air would be extremely problematic. The wings don't generate as much downforce as a GT3 car but the hole they punch in the air is pretty big, especially when compared to the previous-gen cars. Just look at the ZB and Mustang wing compared to the VE and FG wing and it's easy to see why. It's gotten out of control and I'm happy to see that it's being rectified, because I think it made the racing worse. In 2014 we had 10 different winners, whilst 2019 only had 5 different winners. 2020 had 8 different winners, but three of them came from rounds with the limited tyre allocation. Only Cameron Waters beat DJR and Triple 8 on true merit at The Bend. If you have to limit the tyres that teams run to get different results, it's indicative of a larger problem. Gen 3 can't come soon enough, because I'm pretty sure it will create better racing.

 

Kayo is going to stream some events for free. My money is on them being the exact same ones being shown on free-to-air.

https://www.speedcafe.com/2020/10/22/report-kayo-set-to-show-some-supercars-events-for-free/

 

Even if they are the same as is shown on FTA, it’s still much better on Kayo. Live coverage all day and no ad breaks during races. I’m happy to pay for Kayo, and if it gets people to sign up, they get almost any sport in the world live and on demand. It’s pretty hard to beat tbh.
And @CLowndes888 , they know the aero is the problem, that’s why it’s getting reduced so much with Gen3. It was reduced before this year but it doesn’t seem like it was enough.

 

I was thinking that later. It's clever marketing to show people what, and how much, of the races they're missing with free-to-air at what is really no loss to Foxtel. Kayo won't be showing the full practice, qualifying and race coverage that we as Foxtel/Kayo subscribers get.

 

Kinda off topic but speaking of Foxtel, they're showing practice and qualifying as well as the race ...

https://autoaction.com.au/2020/10/22/how-to-watch-mclaughlins-indycar-debut

It doesn't seem like Supercars are are bringing any back for a while
https://autoaction.com.au/2020/10/23/supercars-grid-to-stay-at-24

 

Please don't have both cars on the grid. It's not like how NZV8s had the two classes of cars. Everyone should come out showing their new Sunday shoes in unison.

 

Well, that's hugely disappointing.

 

Just checking in as someone who last watched Supercars when Paul Radisich was driving a Shell AU Falcon, so quite a while ago, there seem to be one or two Austro-American teams with Penske and Andretti involved. Walkinshaw has to be a reference to the "original" HDT team set up by TWR.

How's that working out specifically, the co-operations or co-branding? I'm quite intrigued to see some American involvement considering Ford and GM's apathy to or neglect of the AUSNZDM.

 

Penske’s relationship with Dick Johnson Racing has elevated the team that was a shadow of its former self 5-6 years ago, much in the way you would expect from a hugely successful team that Penske is. They have won the last three drivers championships with Scott McLaughlin, and three of the last for teams championships. Just for reference, before Penske’s involvement DJR’s drivers at the time, David Wall and Scott Pye had finished the season in 21st and 19th, respectively.


Walkinshaw Andretti United, or just abbreviated to WAU in these parts, could be likened to the McLaren Formula One team in recent years. A few years ago they were stagnating, wasting the talents of two former series champions, and gradually falling down the pecking order since their last championship success.

Since the beginning of the new partnership they’ve been making steady progress. As of this year they have a fresh driver line up (again, similar to McLaren) in Chaz Mostert, 2014 Bathurst 1000 champion and former factory BMW GT driver and the 2019 Super 2 (Supercars’ feeder series) Bryce Fullwood.

While they’ve, surprisingly, yet to have any wins with their new partnership (I say surprisingly, due to this year’s tyre allocation rules for sprint rounds), their progress could very well see them on the top step as soon as next year.

At the same time as working their way up to the front of the grid, WAU have constantly been in talks with new manufacturers and even considered bringing in the Camaro before halting that idea.

 

Just to expand on that a little further. Walkinshaw were HRT until 2017 after Holden pulled their funding from the team and moved the HRT nameplate over to Triple 8. They rebranded as Walkinshaw Andretti United in 2018 after Michael Andretti and Zak Brown both bought a stake each.

They do have one win. Scott Pye at Albert Park in 2018.

 

WAU did get their maiden win with Scott Pye finishing P1, at a wet and dark Melbourne GP.

 

Ah, how could I forget that fantastic drive in the dark!

 

Penske have just confirmed they are leaving Supercars....

 

Wow. Scotty full time in Indycar. So, where's Fabian going?

Edit: So the team will continue on under Dick Johnson and Ryan Story.

https://www.speedcafe.com/2020/10/2...hSlF8Up2cvO-CrpFkOarVnQk2h9fDufypKSUyE1ThadwI

 

The team will remain, it’ll just be DJR instead of DJRTP. Nothing has been confirmed for Scott for next year yet. I’m assuming they will see how he goes in the IndyCar and then make a call on whether he has a seat there next year.

 

Already confirmed.

https://www.speedcafe.com/2020/10/2...En8yuEIXYz01PStuSgFT-SUluWN09lMtbIPnDfWnYLMhs

 

Damn, I didn’t even see that. Good for him though, but I wonder who will be in the #17? ADP hopefully, but I’m not sure of his contract situation.

Edit: I just read the article stating DJR have committed to next year, and it looks like Will Davison will be one of the drivers. They also confirmed Scott will be a co driver for them next year.

 

Perfect.

 

He might have a chance to win the championship!