Team TRTPOWER RANKINGS: Symmons Plains
WHO WOULD have thought an ex-NASCAR driver would’ve had such an impact on a supercars broadcast.. but there you go! Marcos Ambrose was the star of the show at the weekend.. literally.
The double champion featured heavily in our post-event call out for Rankings content and it’s no surprise given how good old Marcos was on the Teev at Symmons Plains.
But there’s much more HOT to come out of the weekend, including someone finally beating SVG and some absolutely bonkers stuff going on throughout the event – both on and off track.
As usual there’s some stuff to work on and they’re covered extensively in the ‘NOT’ section further down below – for constructive criticism only, of course – we don’t resort to that name calling rubbish here.
Once again it’s your almost fortnightly, depending on when each round happens, rundown of what was ‘Hot’, ‘Not’ and ‘What’ from the Tassie SuperSprint at Symmons Plains.
HOT
- Shane Van Gisbergen
Call off the medical tests – he is human after all. A second place and a lowly sixth for the event were kicked off by his sixth straight win of the season. What marginally gives the runaway championship leader the top spot is his Saturday qualifying effort – three tenths faster than the field, when similar numbers cover numerous cars, is ridiculous. Granted, he got a draft off De Pasquale, but you still have to be in a position to get that draft.
- Jamie Whincup
Edged out his teammate to register the most points overall for the weekend, win number 123 shows that there is plenty of fight left in the GOAT. Still second in points and remains a formidable competitor. Symmons Plains has always been a “Triple Eight track,” but they consistently get the job done.
- Chaz Mostert
Finally.
- Marcos Ambrose (and friends)
Firstly, it’s just great that Marcos has literally returned from the wilderness – we saw him last year in the Eseries, and also trackside with the Trans Ams this year. But picking up the microphone this weekend, he slotted in perfectly, with great insight throughout, demonstrating his astute motorsport mind. Also, it was fantastic that he was able to get behind Will Davison’s car for a Sunday morning spin. Having him share a desk with Mark Skaife should keep punters on all sides of the argument happy. Can we ask for more in future, pretty please? Shoutout too to Garth Tander, who continues to find his feet – his level of analysis could be clumped in with Marcos, and his piece on Longford was spot on.
- Dick Johnson Racing
It’s not the DJR of old, but dang, they’ve got two cars up and boogying; four podium finishes from three races is a marked step up in performance. Back onto the boat sixth in the team’s championship, returns to the mainland second. Now, to take that next step at The Bend – Anton was on the podium there last year, and Will topped the test day. The drivers and the team are capable, all in a package that probably doesn’t need a parity adjustment to get the job done…
6. Symmons Plains + the Crowd
Tassie fans love their motorsport, and this weekend was no exception. Working to a Covid-capped 10,000 per day, the event was just 500 short of that on what looked a very full Sunday. Good result.
Also, how good is Symmons Plains? We’ll picket the place if they ever extend it. The sport needs places with a 50-second lap as much as it does big tracks twice as long. We love the bullring.. keep it!
- Zane Goddard
Qualified fourth and finished seventh in the finale, all from an overachieving Matt Stone Racing squad that was celebrating its 10th birthday over the course of the weekend.
- Will Brown
The rookie battle at Erebus Motorsport this year is shaping up as a fascinating one. While last time out was all about Brodie, Will this weekend came home with results of ninth, fifth and 15th. Stout stuff.
- Jack Smith
The only BJR car to make it out of Q1 for race one, in fact making it all the way through to Q3, although a post-qualifying penalty dropped him to 13th on the grid. Big attaboy for his first ever appearance at this end of the rankings.
- Scott McLaughlin
Making his full-time Indycar debut, Scott McLaughlin looked like he belonged in open wheelers duking it out with some of the world’s best in Alabama. Why the Hot? Scotty has scaled the motorsports ladder solely via Supercars, from Super2 champion to three-time Supercars champion, to Indycar. It’s the path never before taken, and his achievement is doing our home-grown product proud.
11. This
Not strictly Supercars related, but have you seen that the TRT-supported Check It Out Racing Excel team has a new sponsor? And that it’s a German Beer company? And that their other sponsor is a restaurant specialising in Schnitzels? We don’t know what we’ve done to deserve this, but we’d like to thanks whatever god of nice things made it happen.
THAT RACE TWO START
Hot: ACTION! Plus, no safety car.
Not: Incredibly messy.
Thus, after much debate, we couldn’t figure out a place to put this, so it sits here in purgatory.
WHAT
More What than usual in this Power Rankings edition… no full moon, but we were racing in Tasmania so that probably explains things..
James Courtney Goes Full What
Blown a Tranny
Fortunately they found a shortcut…
Where’s the beef?
Is that allowed in this TV time slot?
Re: Will Brown
supercars.com/new-idea
NOT
- Split Qualifying
This one will be inducted into the NOT Hall of Fame at the end of the season. When the commentators don’t know what is happening and award the pole position before half the field have qualified, and the drivers have no idea what’s going on, what chance do casual fans at home have? Qualifying can be the highlight of a race weekend, but this format sucked the life out of it. This must never, ever happen again.
- Cameron Waters & Tickford Racing
Bloody frustrating. Qualified second, first and first, led the first two races and ran strongly in second in the third but then finished sixth, fourth and fourth with a decided lack of race pace. Soundly behind the Shell Fords in all three races, yet brought up the dreaded P-word with Saturday post-race remarks such as:
“One hundred percent it’s parity… I hate that it’s so political like that. For me, I just want what’s fair.”
Parity for Ford was just fine when Scotty was hitting them out of the park six months ago… and that raises the question: if Scotty were still here, how many races would he have won this year?
Tickford were pretty open about the fact that they were struggling for race pace, but you can’t go and complain about parity on day and then go and whack the thing on pole for the next two races the day after.. especially when you’re being beaten by cars from the same brand and at a circuit that routinely features domination from the T8 Holden’s.
Comments like this needlessly agitates the small percentage of social media warriors who make the internet such an average place.
We’ll give Cam the benefit of the doubt for saying something off-the-cuff while being (understandably) disappointed about his race one performance.
- Limited Undercard
Has there ever been a Supercars undercard that has only featured 27 starters, consisting of 21 Aussie Racing Cars and 6 Stadium Super Trucks? Not knocking the quality of racing; glossing over oil downs, the Aussies were their typical cut and thrust, and the three competitive jumpy trucks in Saturday’s opener shows that they don’t need a big field to be fun. Obviously, the COVID-induced delay to the weekend saw the possibility of the Targa cars filling another support slot evaporate, but it would be great to see some more value for money for the punters trackside in future.
- BJR Qualifying
Nick Percat (19, 20, 20), Todd Hazelwood (24, 21, 21), Macauley Jones (17, 17, 24) and Jack Smith (10, 14, 23) had an absolute battle on their hands in the three qualifying sessions. Some oopsies in practice didn’t help, either. Fortunately, they tended to have vastly better race cars than qualifiers, with Percat and Hazelwood each having a race where they climbed up 10 places each. If only BJR’s race pace could be combined with Cameron Waters’ qualifying speed, there would be a new unstoppable force on the race track…
- Bryce Fullwood
A tough weekend, especially when your team mate is standing on the podium. He can do better than his 23rd, 17th and 17th show. Sophomore slump for the second-year driver? Or just a blip on the radar?
- Have we mentioned qualifying?
We were going to give Team Sydney another clip here, but then Fabian went and finished 13th on Sunday which was exceedingly competent for where they are at, plus his unceasing positivity and glass-half-full approach despite having lost one of the best rides in the paddock are noteworthy.
So instead.. has anyone got any more thoughts on Qualifying? What? You do? Who’d have thought..
- CoolDrive Wheel off
Nobody wants to contribute to the Motorsport Australia Christmas Party fund: a tough way to open practice.
- Kelly Grove’s Saturday Stops
A stall a piece on the Saturday pit stops for both cars resulted in Reynolds finishing 16th and Heimgartner 22nd. Top-tens on Sunday eased the pain but it’s blips like this that are the difference between most teams and the dominant teams..
- Phone Reception at the Track
What is the point in investing millions of dollars to bring an event to your state, if there isn’t enough phone reception for people to get online and report or talk it up on social media? Symmons Plains has the worst internet on the tour, and that’s saying something given we visit places like Queensland Raceway, which regularly has none at all. Surely the Tassie Government, who are sensational motorsport supporters, can put the pressure on the main providers to up their service. Symmons is only 30km from Launceston, so you’d think it wouldn’t be that bad, surely..
(This wasn’t a Supercars-event centric thing either; the Race Tasmania event suffered identical issues in January, too).
- Canned Applause at the Chequered Flag
We’ve talked about this before and will continue to do so until it’s goorne..
Piping through the same canned applause over victory laps / celebrations or podiums time and time again just sounds rubbish. Sure, the Symmons crowd probably doesn’t cheer as hard as the Bathurst faithful, for example, but there were 10,000 there on Sunday and they can’t have all been silent. We don’t like it and it cheapens the otherwise outstanding broadcast.
Also, here’s something else worth considering while we’re talking TV.. The fans are speaking.
TWEET
A bit to take in here
The Dude on Coaching Duties
Choo Choo, Tickets Please
Welcome to Tasmania
He’d probably be pretty good at cricket too…
Is this actually a Meme?
Soz, My Bad
Interesting Theory
MEMES
Split Qualifying
Jack Smith
Could SVG be beaten?
It wasn’t great…
