Inside Motor Sport - Supercars SNP Review

0:00This week on Inside Motorsport, we look back at the first round of the Supercars Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park. I hope you'll stay with us. A new season of Supercars saw a new manufacturer take to the track with Toyotas much anticipated commencement in Supercars in Australia. Well, they had an interesting debuue. In the third race of three, they had all five of their Toyotas in the top ten. But over the weekend, it was Brock Feeney and Matt Payne who led the way taking joint

1:03leadership Feeney at the top of the tree after winning two of the three races across the weekend. Brock Feeney spoke on Sunday about an amazing race where drivers were overheating and a young guy named Kay Allen put it to the charger from Triple 8, making an outside pass in wet conditions. It was an interesting race that Feeney picks up the story. Yeah, I don't really know if there's a better racing category in the world right now, like terms of door to door, hard racing. Obviously, you see a lot of F1 drivers complaining about they can't pass in that and then you got us a couple of young kids going side by side in the wet on slicks at turn one. That was a bullsie move from him and he pulled it off and we had a lot of fun. We were banging doors for a while there. I'd make a mistake, he got me and then he made a mistake and I got him back and then he was all over me in that before he had the issue. It was a fun race.

2:03I mean, I think the race in this weekend has been pretty awesome. Looking forward to it for the rest of the season. Matt Payne eventually after his teammate had mechanical troubles, finished second place, picking up a second podium and, as I mentioned, equal points with Brock Feeney over the weekend. Yeah, really good stuff for us, nice consistent results over the weekend. Yeah, pretty bittersweet for our team today. I did a really good job as Brock touched on. They raced really well and I was sort of after all those safety car chaos. I could just sort of sit there and watch them. They were both really fast so they ended up pulling away from me, but yeah, bit of a shame he obviously had that mechanical which would have been really cool to have another double podium with him and would have been great points for the team, but unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Luckily, we could put another pin right car up there. On Saturday evening, it was Anton Debisquali who took the victory for the team he's driving

3:04for. Team 18 has become the homologation team for the Chevrolet product and he is certainly confident that the team will be making a lot more visits to the podium throughout 2026. Good to be back. It's a really good race. Obviously, I'm a lot going on, hectic first lap, Brody coming at me at the end. So we had to work for it, but I'm car was really good. You guys had awesome stops and we executed a really good race, which is what we've been working towards. We've sort of had bits and pieces of different things good at different times. So to put it all together one day on a day off pole position is amazing. An interesting conversation was had by Brody Castecchi, Debisquali and Matt Payne about the three different cars on the grid and how they were shaping up in race conditions against each other, although they were still playing possum with their answers.

4:05You've now been in race conditions behind the other makes in the series and around them anyway. What have you noticed any strengths and weaknesses of your competition that you're putting in the memory bank for when you have to battle them next time? Yeah, you always make in notes. I think there's definitely some differences, but you look at the cars, they're always going to be different. They've got different motors. They look different. So they're always going to be different. I think there's some strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately I think the car in front is always going to be the better car. That's just sort of the way motorsport is. Clean airs mean so much. So yeah, I think if you can get in front, the guy in front always looks like he's got the best tyre life, you know what I mean? So if I can drill down on that, what's been the difference between racing with the forward and the Toyota so far for you and where's those differences being? It's a very detailed question, I don't know.

5:07I haven't racing Toyota yet for one and haven't really done too much racing with the Mustang either. Yeah, the cars look like they handle a little bit different in different areas. What that means, don't know. It's only one sample size, I guess, if we were here 12 months ago, would've said the exact same thing because that's what it looked like and then you go to somewhere else, it looks different. So I think we can make that call after we go, a few different style of different tracks and yeah, we'll have a look at it, but yeah, you know, I'll leave that for ATV. All right, Brody, what have you drawn from the other cars you've raced around and particularly the different models? I've spent all the time pretty much that go and ton to matters like, I don't know, biggest differences. Two motors are overhead cam and one's pushrod, so it's two against one now. And there's no straight line handling difference that you've seen?

6:08I'll reserve that for later. Well I can get nothing from you too, Matt, can I? Hang on a minute. Yeah, race two, four, just today, they're about the same, and race no one today, so yeah, we raced the shallot. Yeah, we were the same, though, because we're both in the same car. Yeah, ours has got shell oil, so it shoots all over yours. Yeah, but ours is Australian owned, it's better for the economy, and still far. I'll try going in a different direction here, two or three of you. What have you learnt from the finals last year that you take into these early races about the points and about the championship now, having had one year of experience on how it all works? Yeah, a difficult question, like I felt last year, we did quite a good job as a team. I just had a bad day when I shouldn't have, and I didn't have the points to advance, so

7:12I don't really think we need to change our approach for this year, I think we still did what we needed to do last year, and we're sitting second in the points now, so I think we just keep doing what we're doing, and just trying to win races, that's what we're here to do, so that's what's going to give us the most points. I probably just avoid going head on to Walnut Gold Coast, it'd be a good start, and so that's what happens from there, do you got us? Yeah, I'll avoid putting someone else head on into a Walnut Gold Coast, yeah, I think you just, I think you really want to get to Bathurst and be in the finals with a bit of margins, so you can attack that race, it gives you that freedom, and then from there you just need to go through to the finals, however you get there, yeah, I don't think there's any, you can't do anything, we all, and we go out to be the fastest in every session, so there's no weird things you can do to, you can't develop anything, you can't do much, so you just have to go fast and put your bestful forward.

8:13So the Supercast Championship now moves to the Melbourne Grand Prix this weekend, where we should see four interesting races last year, it was Matt Stone racing that had a breakout event with Cam Hill racing into his first ever victory in the Supercast series. This year, Cam Hill has moved to Toyota and Brad Jones racing, but Matt Stone has got another Cambra driver, Zach Bates, who featured heavily at Sydney Motorsport Park, qualifying in the top 10 in all three races, it will be fascinating to see if Bates can produce another standout rookie performance at this weekend's event. Of course, it's also the start of the Formula One season with new regulations in place, and all interests will be on, will Oscar Piaestry be able to beat his defending Formula One champion teammate in Lando Norris?

9:17It'll all be revealed throughout the weekend after two separate lots of practice and testing have been carried out in the Middle East. We'll wait with interest to see if Oscar Piaestry can turn the tables on his McLaren teammate. We'll look back at the Formula One next week on Inside Motorsport, so until next time comes around, keep smiling and bye for now. Inside Motorsport is produced by Thunder Media for the Community Radio Network.