With the 2020 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 wrapped up and the Peter Brock Trophy handed out, we take a look at how the Kiwi contingent stacked up through the 161-lap race.
Despite the mechanical dramas that seemed to plague much of the field, the Kiwi drivers’ all made it home, with Shane Van Gisbergen at last, ultimately standing on the top step of the podium with co-driver Garth Tander.
Van Gisbergen ran an almost faultless race while Triple Eight Engineering Racing teammate Jamie Whincup crashing out on lap 33, clearing any potential double stacking issues that could have plagued the team in the past.
The van Gisbergen/Tander Holden may not have had race-winning pace in the early stints of the race, they certainly found it in the later stages.
Similarly, Scott McLaughlin also had a good pace, battling Cam Waters in the early stints of the race and Andre Heimgartner looked strong all day.
Rain started to fall as the field came to a race restart leaving the majority of the field on cold slick tyres on a wet track.
While Van Gisbergen had been near the front of the pack all race, the team found form in the rain, collecting three spots and putting him in the lead within the first three laps of the rain.
Opposite to his form, McLaughlin struggled in the wet conditions, stuck with a car that didn’t perform as well as those around him.
Meanwhile, it was the make or break moment for Heimgartner and co-driver Dylan O’Keeffe came when the rain started.
With O’Keeffe in the car, the team decided to pit for wet tyres banking on the rain continuing for some time. The rain eased, and the team had to come back in to put slicks back on dropping them down the field.
The lap 97 safety car then trapped the McLaughlin/Slade entry with Slade needing to complete two more laps to meet the minimum requirement for a co-driver.
The Shell V-Power Racing team was forced to leave Slade in the car and despite his being one of the fastest co-drivers, he wasn’t quite able to match the pace of the full-time drivers.
The #17 car dropped back and though back in the car, McLaughlin was able to claw back some of the lost margin. However, it had put them slightly out of phase with the rest of the leaders while safety car periods continued to fall against the team.
Fabian Coulthard had a fairly clean and solid race, he simply wasn’t on quite the same speed as those ahead of him, finishing in fourth.
Chris Pither and co-driver Steve Owen made the most ground of any of the Kiwis, gaining seven positions to finish 16th.
The team adopted a similar strategy to Heimgartner, also stopping for tyres when the rain hit, before having to come back in to put slicks back on. This also turned out to be a set-back for them dropping them further behind the leaders.
Sean Seamer wrapped up the season in pit lane after the race, hinting to the potential start of next season.
“We’ll get back here to Bathurst in February.”
His suggesting that the season will kick off with a round at Bathurst was followed on Monday by the announcement that the Bathurst 12 Hour event would be cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The countdown to the start of 2021 season begins.
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