On what can best be described as a cagey first day of track action, Erebus was the only team willing to show its cards, ending the evening in a dominant top spot thanks to title leader Brodie Kostecki and an outstanding performance from co-driver David Russell.
Car 99 had well over half a second in hand over its rivals by Thursday night. Sure, it’s only Thursday and we’re only two sessions into a six-practice schedule, but the unusually large gap was meaningful at a circuit that usually splits cars by much less.
It puts the ball firmly in the court of Kostecki’s title contenders to halt his momentum lest it turn into a freight train come qualifying on Friday night.
Not that Ford rates its chances of disrupting the party. Despite Grove getting a car into second by the evening, the parity pain continues, with the Mustang teams keen to remind the sport that it doesn’t believe the playing field is level as Supercars embarks on its biggest race.
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Bathurst Practice One Highlights! | 01:43
EREBUS BURSTS FROM THE BLOCKS
Erebus arrived at Mount Panorama favourite to score its first Bathurst victory, and it started with a blinder.
Will Brown topped the first session by a slender 0.007 seconds, though the Erebus teammates were consistently contending for top sport.
David Russell then blew the field out of the water in the second session, putting his and Brodie Kostecki’s Camaro into top spot by a whopping 0.653 seconds in a dominant display by the co-driver.
“The car rolled out really good,” Russell said. “Clearly it’s got reasonable pace.”
Kostecki surrendered some of his first practice time to Russell to build up his lap count, meaning there’s surely more to come from the title leader too, having finished P1 third and only 0.1 seconds off the pace.
“I was quite happy with the balance of the car,” he said. “It’s only Thursday, so there’s no real point chasing the car too much today.
“There’s still a lot of rubber to go down on the track, so it was good to get D Rus in and get some more laps, and then obviously he went out and did an awesome job in P2.
“The team’s done an awesome job with the set-up of the car so far, so we’ll just see if we can carry it on through.”
Second quickest was Grove duo Dave Reynolds and Garth Tander.
Tander, however, said the gap to the leader was more relevant than the position.
“I finished second but I wasn’t anywhere close to topping that session,” he said. “It was 0.7 first to second — that’s a big chunk of time.
“But the session went reasonably well. We’ve still got a lot of work to do with the car — the car’s very, very nervous in the rear.
“A lot to do to improve the car overnight, which hopefully we can do.”
Triple Eight ended the day a relatively subdued third, with Richie Stanaway leading the way 0.702 seconds adrift, but Shane van Gisbergen was quietly confident his team was within striking distance.
“It was a pretty reasonable day,” he said. “We’ve got a bit of speed to find, but all three [Triple Eight] cars are there or thereabouts.”
The beauty of Bathurst is we don’t have to wait long to get some real answers, with qualifying coming on Friday night after just two more hours of practice.
‘This track suits us well!’: Mostert | 03:22
PARITY SKIRMISHING CONTINUES OFF-TRACK
The relatively quiet practice day was dominated instead by yet more skirmishes about parity, with Ford clearly keen to remind punters that it feels it’s racing at a disadvantage.
Following a joint statement from the Ford teams on Thursday morning, Ford Motor Company itself put out a longer statement with which it decried a lack of transparency from the sport on data sharing and complained that “a lack of movement by the series organiser has restricted our ability to compete on an equal footing”.
“We are therefore deeply disappointed by the ongoing lack of technical parity in the Supercars Championship, which has left Ford and its teams at a significant disadvantage throughout the 2023 season,” the statement read.
“We … urge Supercars to create the level playing field [fans] deserve.”
They were strong words following claims by the Ford teams earlier in the day that both the Supercars and the Chevrolet marques had acknowledged the disparity between the Mustang and the Camaro.
The Supercars was put in an invidious position by Ford’s posturing on the eve of its showpiece race and released a statement shortly before first practice attempting to hose down the criticism.
“The prescribed number of parity triggers showcasing a parity imbalance, as outlined in the system, have not been met at this time and there is no scope for a parity adjustment to be made for the Bathurst 1000 under the parity review system,” the sport said.
“We value the input and perspectives of all involved parties and aim to continue working in a manner that preserves the integrity of our sport and the rules and regulations that govern it.”
There was notably no admission of any disparity between the cars.
Garth Tander, ever the statesman, chose his words carefully when asked about the parity situation on Thursday night.
“We’re going do exactly what we did at Sandown and focus on our own performance and focus on making our car as good as it can be and then see what happens on Sunday.”
Though he did add he took no real solace from finishing the day second on the time sheet.
“I think there are a few of a particular branded car that are running very, very heavy at the moment,” he said pointedly.
Top 10 BRUTAL Bathurst 1000 crashes | 05:21
LESS DOWNFORCE MEANS LESS CONTROL
We were promised more lively driving at Bathurst this year, and the Gen3 car has delivered.
Downforce has been slashed under these new regulations, with cars producing something like two-thirds less load than they were last year, an enormous reduction.
The effect was clear around the season’s most challenging circuit.
Drivers were clearly struggling for grip all afternoon, with a couple of key hotspots catching several drivers out.
The first, unsurprisingly, was Skyline, the very top of the mountain, where the cars were getting light as they crested the highest point of the circuit.
The dive down into the esses then became perilous.
Tander was almost a victim at one of the track’s most dangerous points, wisely abandoning to the run-off between turns 11 and 12, his car surviving for another lap.
Scott Pye nearly put his Erebus Camaro into he wall at the same place, hopping the inside kerb at turn 11 and almost smacking into the outside barrier.
Garry Jacobson just about got away with a slide through the esses, appearing to kiss the outside wall before continuing unscathed.
The Chase was the second danger zone, with the kink before the braking zone no longer the easy flat turn it used to be.
“I held it flat on my first flyer,” Brodie Kostecki explained. “I scared the absolute crap out of myself.
“I was only just able to pull it up. I thought I was going to end up in the fence on the right-hand side.”
He admitted afterwards, though, that on fresh tyres in qualifying he was confident he’d be able to do it.
Dave Reynolds, however, said he had no trouble keeping his right foot to the floor through the bend.
“We were told not to do it lap 1, so it was lap 2,” he said. “It was pretty easy, not too difficult.”
But there’s clearly some gamesmanship afoot, particularly with so little known about performance profiles at this track.
“I’m not doing it yet,” Cam Waters said. “I’ll save a couple of things up my sleeves for quali.”
The final corner, somewhat unexpectedly, was the third zone also catching drivers out, most notably Dean Fiore, who was the only crasher of the day after locking up in the braking zone and spearing into the outside wall.
Top 10 controversial moments at Bathurst | 07:54
TIMES ARE SLOWER, BUT NOT BY MUCH
With less downforce than in previous years, lap times were unsurprisingly slower, albeit not by as much as you might have thought considering the massive downforce loss.
Year-on-year difference
First practice: 1.596 slower
First practice: 1.547 slower
The lack of aero is ameliorated by the soft tyres in use for the first time this year, the effect of which is particularly pronounced through the esses on the mountain, meaning the cars are a relatively modest 1.2 per cent slower.
Less downforce also means more straight-line speed, further limiting the losses.
That said, pre-race forecasts for a possible breaching of 300 kilometres per hour down Conrod appear wide of the mark, with both Van Gisbergen and Reynolds suggesting they maxed out around 10 kilometres shy of the target.
Somewhat interestingly is that the field spread hardly improved from first to second practice.
In 2022 times improved by around 1.3 seconds, whereas this year barely 0.1 seconds was found between sessions, with the teams split by approximately three seconds on Thursday night.
While it’s not a massive gap, it suggests that teams are less certain about set-up direction than they have been in the past, which is understandable. It also points to the chilly conditions prevalent at Bathurst this weekend.
Track evolution is always significant at this rarely used circuit, and mastering the gripping-up conditions as the weather improves will be a major part of getting to Sunday in a strong position.
