Supercars 23 and Gen3

[nutty]

Thought I would make a thread as this year signals to be the most important year in supercars history or at least in a long time.

Anyone else keeping up with supercars?

Ive been following it closer and closer over the past few years, its been enjoyable to throw a race on a Sunday afternoon and watch while doing house stuff.

Their has been some standout races, Adelaide this year was a prime example, but the current Gen of car's has some serious problems with following and overtaking, because of this they have been struggling with finding a race weekend structure that promotes a fun weekend without having Larko spending 30% of the broadcast explaining fuel drops.

Combine that with the management of the series itself has been a shitshow. Basically looks like T8 managed to drag Supercars to Gen 3 vs them driving it.

I know they have missed a heap of goals of the gen 3 project in terms of cost, but the only one that matters is the on track racing.. SVG's comments from earlier on a season has me worried.. but lets see how it goes

[Bauer]

I would have loved to see them go to a paddle shifter. I think they catered to the bogan element too much here. I thought it would have been a given.

That said, I’m keen to see some good racing this year, hopefully with a close championship as an end result.

I’ve been a bit off Supercars the last few years. Got a garage tour with Slade at the Melbourne GP in 2022 which piqued my interest again. Gen 3 cars were on display there too which further piqued my interest.


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[KNAPPO]

I have not followed it much in the last 2-3 years. I watched Bathurst and Adelaide in 22 and that was it.

But having said this ill be tuning in this year hoping the new car (which looks great from the surface) allows for good racing.

[nutty]

First time ive seen much criticism out of a team towards Gen3.. I have a feeling this isnt going to be a full grid come Newcastle https://www.v8sleuth.com.au/barry-ryans ... 3-progress

[Exar Kun]

Triple 8 and DJR aren't showing up to the shakedown next week which is a bit damning considering they're the homologation teams.

I really hope the car delivers on the racing front. I really enjoy Supercars but they're aren't many who can make a pass happen with the outgoing cars.

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[nutty]

Yeah doesn't really bode well, we are 6 weeks away from the start of the season and no teams have even a single car ready..
Most teams are goign to be rushing for the testing in 3 weeks, but even then that feels like a race against time..
BJR have been posting videos and it just shows you how much work is to be done.. https://www.youtube.com/@bradjonesracing

[w00dsy]

These new cars look so much meaner than the last ones. Finally the Mustang looks right.

[nutty]

For those who aren't following closely it looks like Newcastle is going to be the expected shitshow. It seems all 25 teams will be there on the first day, but it will be a miracle if there isnt some major issues throughout the weekend up and down the field.

Testing showed the cars are super rear grip limited and just burn up tyres (especially the Ford), so I do tend to worry how that will affect racing as I imagine we are going to have F1 level of tyre saving lap after lap. It seems the Ford teams took advantage of the fact they are heavy and have poorer rear grip and sandbagged the shit out of the all-in test so supercars went and did another runway test yesterday. Expect to hear parity every 5th word out of a drivers/team principles mouth next weekend.

There’s still no minimum weights, so I guess they are waiting on this result to slap the GM cars with some extra weight to at least match the Fords, so hopefully that shuts some of it up..

Combine that with a bunch of problems were picked up during testing around wheels getting stuck, wheels falling off, transaxle problems, throttle map problems in the Ford, tall drivers in the Chev basically cannot see and teams ran the test without things like dashs/interiors and all other items.

Most of these should be fixed come Newcastle, but the real question is what happens going from the likes of QR/Winton and SMP to a demanding street circuit. I really hope we have no big show stoppers as it seems teams will have little spares on hand.

I might seem pessimistic here but I am excited, I just really hope the racing is good...

[w00dsy]

I think there's going to be a lot of work over the next few months getting them evened out.

[nutty]

I think there's going to be a lot of work over the next few months getting them evened out.

Yep thats for sure, I just hope its nothing huge like suspension being unable to take the big curves or show stopping stuff

[nutty]

Ok the weekend was run and won.. tho like most things supercars not without a bit of a shitshow along the way.

The main talking point was SVG and Broc getting DQ'ed from Saturday then the follow up on SVG refusing to answer questions before the podium and at presser after cleaning up in R2.

Its clear there's frustration under the surface here, it looks like teams have been told to lay off the criticism of the sport or face consequences, twitter and other places are alive with rumours that Shanes comments about it being harder to pass than 2019 lead to such a big penalty for something that it looks like Adrian Burgess knew about before the race. See this timestamp

I really don't like it when series muzzle teams/drivers from speaking out, the end of the day everyone in the media and all us at home are quick to jump on the drivers when they fuck up, why cant the teams call out the organisers when the shoes are on the other foot? its especially worse in Supercars because they create the broadcast, so they get to control the TV narrative and the speedcafes/sluths of the world seem to tread lightly in their criticism of it all.

But back to the overall story, the cars raced and most made it to the end, In car Temp seems to be the big talking point for teams to focus on improving. Another lot of races went backwards due to problems with this whole temp problem causing issues with the interference fit going from cold rim to hot spindle, I saw some BJR problems with refuelling so I say that effected some races. I think most of those should be sorted for the AusGP.

The lack of ability to repair JC car is a bigger long term worry for me. But overall the racing seemed ok. R1 was a snoozer but R2 was a vast improvement. Overall I don't know if we can call Gen3 a success or failure yet, that track sucks for overtaking and in R2 I think we saw enough of it to think it looks like it could have improved, but lets see what happens in 3 weeks at the GP.

[nutty]

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/03/13/an ... -to-blame/ wow that’s a write up


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[Exar Kun]

The commentary crew definitely avoided any of Shane's or Davie's comments about the difficulty with following closely.

Funny how half of the Speedcafe comments crowd usually go on about how biased Skaife is towards T8 but this weekend Skaife really laid boot into team and driver.

Newcastle was always going to be a crap track to debut the cars on. Unless you're in an Aussie Racing Car it's going to be difficult to pass.

And in the end, as much as I don't want to see the same guy winning, you can't help but admire the way SVG drives these things. They've built a car that's edgy and hard on tyres which plays perfectly to him so I imagine he'll keep on winning. DJR though... Jeez.

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[pab]

Unless you're in an Aussie Racing Car it's going to be difficult to pass.

Interesting you said that. I didn't get to see much of the supercars over the weekend but I did see a bit of the ARCs, and was thinking, imagine if our premier race category was 60 of these things with the top 60 drivers in the country driving them. Overtakes all over the place, cars that move around, cars that can be driven on multiple lines, cars that cost 50k rather than 500k plus so you don't need to be a millionaire to make it in the sport. They even made a tight track like Newcastle racey.

That's my dream anyway, sad that it'd never happen.

[nutty]

See SVG post?

[pixelboy]

Yeah I read that last night..

Sounds like Gen3 is a clusterfuck...

[Exar Kun]

The grand prix should provide a good test of the revised aero. But that's all going to be for naught if the tyres are too crap to allow close racing.

There's going to be some fun discussions behind closed doors this week.

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[nutty]

Well now Will to 888 is offical, the shitshow of all shitshows has come through, supercars played themselves.

Supercars fucking Gen 3, then having Scaife being a cockhead to SVG at Newcastle on Friday night has totally fucked the series as their most popular driver leaves for NASCAR..

Sell the fucking series RACE.. you dont deserve it

[Duke]

Anyone else keeping up on the news with Brodie & Erebus, like WTF!!!

Erebus confirming Brodie will not drive the Bathurst 500 (rd 1) & Todd Hazelwood will drive the car.
Major support for Brodie from recently departed Supercar drivers, Scotty Mc & SVG...
Supercars deleting their statement on it???
Erebus loosing all 3 major sponsors in Coke, Shaw & Partners & SCTR---
Boost saying they won't sponsor the GC500 unless it's resolved (Aderton spruiking his own opinion again)$$$

I think the sport has some serious issues behind closed doors that is for sure!!!

[nutty]

Yeah its fucking wild, honestly whatever has happened its not a great look for the sport.. with SVG and Scotty overseas, Jamie retired and now Brodie at least gone for the Bathurst opener, there is now only two champions on the grid and thats Frosty from 15 and Courtney from 2010.. which imho neither are really household fan favourites anymore.

The speculation is all over the shop, I doubt in the current Supercars media we will ever really understand what is happening but whatever it is must be nuclear for 3 major brands to pull the pin in what would have to be mid contract right before the season starts.

From what I read, I like the idea of the likes of Peter Xiberras poaching him for next year at Premiair and Barry blew up/went nuclear.. with all the mental health stuff being thrown around by SVG/Scotty it all kinda lines up

[Exar Kun]

Crazy isn't it. Would like to know where Betty sits in all this. She doesn't always see eye to eye with Barry.

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[Bauer]

Interesting times

I think back to when SVG retired so he didn’t have to drive for them. I always thought he was a flog for it but when I read his support for Brodie, and he snuck in a ‘teams and media drive the narrative’ comment, I wonder what really happened and do you just need to do what need to get out of a toxic situation.

[StanDaam]

Agreed, interesting times... corporate/contract rules verses freedom of speech/honesty.
Speedcafe is so full of hate... but at least a few of them are realising that if people don't get the full story, social media just fills in the gaps with little or no evidence.
Interesting times...

[nutty]

Tonedeath shit from the CEO
https://www.supercars.com/news/an-open- ... -community
Seems to be a response from comments Roland today
https://speedcafe.com/rolands-view-the-kostecki-affair/

This is fucking insane

[Duke]

This is a shit show & will only get worse if it's not resolved or substantiated by some real facts leading up to Rd 1 this weekend.

As a fan I'd like to know a little of what's actually going on, albeit I don't need all the gory details.

Surely as someone who pays to watch the show both on TV & in the stands I'm not asking too much, am I?