Silly Season 2023

[Brazen]

Same thing happened with COTF and when the ZB and deformed mustangs were introduced... it's always tight... like Adrian Burgess said "It's always 2 minutes to midnight"

[Sonic]

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/01/28/supercars-abandons-gen3-test-dates/

so the current testing schedule is now abandoned... some teams unhappy that some will get mileage while others won't... that is prob fair enough... (although from what I read of the test day it was a joke anyway? 60km testing ONLY available... so for the Melb teams, 3 hour drive up the Hume, unload, setup, drive 19 laps, pack up and drive 3 hours back home... seriously??

the alternative now is that they can test when they want with no mileage limits... talk is that Blanchards are ready to go... so if they want they can now go to Winton on the scheduled day and run around for 8 hours trying out whatever they want while the other teams are still struggling to get 1 car to a driveable state... and that is a fairer option? leaves me scratching my head...

how many weeks off is Newcastle?

[Brazen]

40 days to go... heaps of time for the first round they might just be bit rusty in some areas, expect some random tech failures over the weekend

[djr18fan]

What do the teams need to test? The cars and all their components have been tested pretty thoroughly and aren't new technology.
The teams are assembling vehicles from parts already tested and run.
It's not much different than when teams have built new Gen 2 cars when they've had a limited lap shakedown day.
Anything more than that is exploring the characteristics of the car and getting drivers familiar with them.

[stp01]

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/01/28/supercars-abandons-gen3-test-dates/

so the current testing schedule is now abandoned... some teams unhappy that some will get mileage while others won't... that is prob fair enough... (although from what I read of the test day it was a joke anyway? 60km testing ONLY available... so for the Melb teams, 3 hour drive up the Hume, unload, setup, drive 19 laps, pack up and drive 3 hours back home... seriously??

The new car shakedowns do normally limit to 60km. I think the rule has been around for a while. So if you go there and find a problem, you're not stressing about testing the car, just fixing the issues, or pack up and go home to fix it. But if the 60km goes well, you can keep going, and it becomes a test day, so it could be a fruitful day. I guess in the past shakedowns could be done on some cars, while other cars are testing, so it's not a waste of travel.

The structured Shakedown Day and Test Day for this year would have been a bit of a waste if you didn't have both cars ready to go. For Gen 3 they have affectively given them two test days now, plus the all-in test, which is probably a good thing.

[AlbertM]

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/01/28/supercars-abandons-gen3-test-dates/

so the current testing schedule is now abandoned... some teams unhappy that some will get mileage while others won't... that is prob fair enough... (although from what I read of the test day it was a joke anyway? 60km testing ONLY available... so for the Melb teams, 3 hour drive up the Hume, unload, setup, drive 19 laps, pack up and drive 3 hours back home... seriously??

the alternative now is that they can test when they want with no mileage limits... talk is that Blanchards are ready to go... so if they want they can now go to Winton on the scheduled day and run around for 8 hours trying out whatever they want while the other teams are still struggling to get 1 car to a driveable state... and that is a fairer option? leaves me scratching my head...

how many weeks off is Newcastle?

The 60km only applied to new cars. This allowed a new build to be checked over and correct any faults. This shakedown was not counted in the limited test days. The 60 lap limit was to prevent a full blown test day.

[Helix]

here is a question- seeing as last night 3rd feb, redbull announced a partnership with ford to rebrand the redbull powertrains engine on both the alfa tauri and redbull cars from 2026 when the new regulations come in --- will that in turn require the redbull sponsorship within the supercars eg 888 be turned over to a ford team ?

[AlbertM]

here is a question- seeing as last night 3rd feb, redbull announced a partnership with ford to rebrand the redbull powertrains engine on both the alfa tauri and redbull cars from 2026 when the new regulations come in --- will that in turn require the redbull sponsorship within the supercars eg 888 be turned over to a ford team ?

Highly doubt it.

[skaifeman]

here is a question- seeing as last night 3rd feb, redbull announced a partnership with ford to rebrand the redbull powertrains engine on both the alfa tauri and redbull cars from 2026 when the new regulations come in --- will that in turn require the redbull sponsorship within the supercars eg 888 be turned over to a ford team ?

Red Bull sponsor various factory teams and multitudes of athletes. Fingers in every pie type thing. I highly doubt they'll ever become a "one make only" business model. I also highly doubt anything in F1 has any impact whatsoever to a sports sedan category in Australia.

Great news for Ford and F1 though. F1 has become cool again and everyone wants to jump on it.

[stevo qld]

The 2023 Pit Lane order has been issued and, once again, the smaller teams have been shafted.

For example, Tickford's second team, which placed 12th, has been promoted to 4th., above smaller teams that have earned a better pit position order.

I can understand why Tickford and BJR might want to keep both their teams in adjoining garages,

If so, then their garages should be positioned based on the lowest of their teams.

I cannot understand why the other teams that have been shuffled back have not demanded a fairer allocation commensurate with their achievements.

Frankly the situation stinks.

[Bloopy]

You're basically suggesting punishing Tickford for running extra cars that give young drivers a chance in the sport.

Of course teams should have all of their garages together. At a stretch it could be based on the average of the two pairs, but I think it makes more sense from a viewing perspective to keep Waters & Courtney in the spot they earned. Not that different to other sports where not all team members have to score goals or even come off the bench to share the win.

[AlbertM]

Maybe the smaller teams should sink as much money and resources into the sport as Tickford, they too can capitalise on their pit position.

[djr18fan]

The 2023 Pit Lane order has been issued and, once again, the smaller teams have been shafted.

For example, Tickford's second team, which placed 12th, has been promoted to 4th., above smaller teams that have earned a better pit position order.

I can understand why Tickford and BJR might want to keep both their teams in adjoining garages,

If so, then their garages should be positioned based on the lowest of their teams.

I cannot understand why the other teams that have been shuffled back have not demanded a fairer allocation commensurate with their achievements.

Frankly the situation stinks.

Quite right. If a team wants to spend lots of money and run 4 cars, they should be able to manage having 2 of those cars some distance from the other 2. If they really want all 4 cars together they can put all 4 further back. That would be their choice.

[mikeamerica84]

The 2023 Pit Lane order has been issued and, once again, the smaller teams have been shafted.

For example, Tickford's second team, which placed 12th, has been promoted to 4th., above smaller teams that have earned a better pit position order.

I can understand why Tickford and BJR might want to keep both their teams in adjoining garages,

If so, then their garages should be positioned based on the lowest of their teams.

I cannot understand why the other teams that have been shuffled back have not demanded a fairer allocation commensurate with their achievements.

Frankly the situation stinks.

Interesting.  I would like to see the formula utilized to come to this conclusion.

I could see a formula for a total season points for a team, for all cars on said team, whether it be one, two, three, or four, divided by the number of cars.  But this doesn't fly with the aforementioned results.

Kye?  Can you make any sense of this?

[Troy01505]

I agree, 2 of the Tickford cars were nothing short of hopeless last season so they should be placed in their combined points order in pit lane.

Bigger logistics and "well Tickford invest more in the series" bull****, Tickford chose that model and should gain no advantage whatsoever from it.