Rankings are always a hot topic at The Race Torque.

Outside of the Power Rankings, we also rank the Repco Bathurst 1000 co-drivers each year, so it seemed only fitting to have a crack at some mid-year rankings – not of the drivers, but this time around, the Supercars Championship teams themselves.

But comparing the performance of a four-car squad such as Brad Jones Racing to the single-car operation of Blanchard Racing seemed a bit unfair. So, we have gone with the official Supercars Teams points, splitting the BJR and Tickford teams into two lots of two. Make sense?

Oh, and as that ‘’P” word is back in vogue, we have drawn battle lines between the Bowtie and Blue teams and decided to review by make.

Coming into this weekend’s event in Townsville, the scorecard reads:

• 1    Coca-Cola Racing by Erebus – 2269 – Camaro
• 2    Red Bull Ampol Racing – 2127 – Camaro
• 3    Brad Jones Racing (8 & 14) – 1553 – Camaro
• 4    WAU Racing (2 & 25) – 1452 – Mustang
• 5    Shell V-Power Racing Team – 1421 – Mustang
• 6    Tickford Racing (5 & 6) – 1420 – Mustang
• 7    Team 18 – 1368 – Camaro
• 8    Nulon Racing – 1365 – Camaro
• 9    Truck Assist Racing – 1343 – Camaro
• 10   Penrite Racing – 1332 – Mustang
• 11   Tickford Racing (55 & 56) – 953 – Mustang
• 12   Brad Jones Racing (4 & 96) – 890 – Camaro
• 13   CoolDrive Racing – 592 – Mustang
• 14   Supercheap Auto Racing – 76 – Camaro Wildcard

First up, we look at ‘The Camaro Cup’ runners.

Coca Cola Racing by Erebus         A

The new force in the Gen 3 era, so far. The team is fast and aggressive. Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown sit first and second in the drivers’ standings and Erebus lead the team’s championship. Under the guidance and focus of Team Manager Barry Ryan, Erebus has matured into a very slick unit. Botched pit stops are now rare, qualifying speed is excellent and both drivers give as good as they get. Witness the Kostecki and SVG battle in Perth. Team morale seems high, and their independence is paying huge dividends.

Red Bull Ampol                               A

The Camaro homologation team bounced out of the blocks very strongly. A hiccup at Newcastle with driver cooling aids robbed them, but the Triple Eight squad looks every bit as good as past campaigns. Broc Feeney has continued his great Adelaide form, and his Mr Sunday title is a regular highlight. SVG, is always a contender, and he trails his young teammate at the halfway point. He seems under more pressure than normal and has been vocal about the new Gen 3 attributes, and indeed his stunning NASCAR win in Chicago may indeed throw up a whole new career direction. But that is a problem Jamie Whincup has for the future. The team continues to earn their place as the best in the business.

Brad Jones Racing – 8 and 14      B

Completing the Camaro trifecta at the top of the standings is the BJR squad of Andre Heimgartner and Bryce Fulwood. There is no doubt that Heimgartner is the leader at BJR, and the recent results for Fulwood in Tasmania and at his hometown in Darwin are showing that the Middy’s Camaro pilot is heading in the right direction, to sit 12th in the driver’s standings currently. Heimgartner is now producing consistent results, and multiple podiums in Darwin were a good reward. Although third in the Team’s standings, they are a whopping 574 points off the pace. However, after some inconsistency in recent years, BJR is looking solid.

Team 18              B-

Sitting fourth in the Camaro Cup, but seventh overall in the team’s Championship is Charlie Schwerkolt’s Team 18. The squad has only one DNF so far this year was for Mark Winterbottom from an accident-prone race at the AGP. Teammate Scott Pye has finished every race but is yet to be out of the midfield. Unbridled joy came for Charlie and his team in Darwin when ‘senior’ Supercars driver Mark Winterbottom delivered the team’s first-ever Supercars Championship race win. A feel-good moment on a weekend where smaller teams got a real leg up. To underpin their rising status, Team 18 sits less than one hundred points behind heavyweights WAU, Shell V Power Racing and Tickford (5 & 6)  

Nulon Racing     B-

The Peter Xiberras-owned outfit continues to build into a strong and competitive team. The driver lineup of James Golding and Tim Slade is showing consistent speed and is being rewarded with some strong qualifying results. The actual race results are still up and down but these are more growing pains than poor performance. The two drivers sit thirteenth and fourteenth respectively and the team is only three points adrift of Team 18. Converting pace into results is the challenge for the Nulon squad but to be where they are in only the second season under the PremiAir banner is an achievement. Nulon Racing has notched up ten top tens so far this year, but that elusive podium still awaits. Boosting its engineering focus, Romy Mayer is joining the team and will be on deck in Townsville.

Truck Assist Racing – MSR    B-

Matt Stone was a very happy team owner in Darwin. Like Charlie Schwerkolt, the trip up north delivered in spades for the small Yatala-based team. Jack Le Brocq now sits eighth in the Driver’s Championship, and the Darwin results moved MSR into a fierce battle with Team 18 and Nulon Racing. Just twenty-five points separates these three Camaro teams, and not unlike Formula 1, this is the midfield battle to watch. Stone said after the team’s win in race fifteen, his focus since moving from Super2 into the Championship was always Gen3. The team had worked hard to make sure they could deliver a competitive package and took a long-term view which is clearly paying dividends. Cameron Hill has also made an impressive main game debut, with a standout round at Symmons Plains the highlight.

Brad Jones Racing – 4 and 96     C-

A quandary for team owner Brad Jones. Peter Smith’s SCT Logistics funds the #96 Camaro of Jack Smith, but the occasional top fifteen cannot be any gauge of success. Jack Smith’s finishing average in 2023 is 18.5, so results are needed to justify this investment. On the other side of the garage is Brad’s boy Macauley. Every now and again, Macca looks the goods. A great AGP weekend and a P7 in Darwin underpins that, but he, too, only scores an average of 15.1 for the races to date. With only the single-car Blanchard Racing Team behind them in Championship points, these two drivers must lift in the second half of 2023 to legitimately make a claim for a spot on the 2024 grid. 

And so, to the Blue Oval. A win in Newcastle due to Ampol Red Bull DSQ, and a smattering of podiums is unprecedented for the Ford brand. The fact that three big Ford Teams, WAU, DJR, and Tickford (5 & 6) sit line astern in fourth, fifth and sixth in the Teams Championship shows that although they are picking off plenty of points, just not enough points at the pointy end. Currently, WAU, the leading Ford team, due to Chaz Mostert, sit 101 points behind third-placed BJR (8 & 14)

WAU Racing        B-

The biggest move from the off-season was the change of this famous brand to Ford. Did anyone expect they would be the leading Ford team at the halfway mark? Thanks to the ‘never say die’ efforts of Chaz Mostert, WAU sits fourth place overall in the team’s pointscore. Mostert has been an outstanding asset for this team with one DNF, and some less-than-ideal qualifying results, but a race package and strategy that has seen him carve his way up to major points-scoring positions time and time again. His work with long-time engineer Adam DeBorre continues as one of the best combinations in Supercars. Teammate Nick Percat, however, has looked all at sea. Qualifying speed has been absent, and he constantly has to battle just to find a mid-field result. Mostert sits P5 in the driver’s ladder going into Townsville – Percat P23.

Shell V-Power Racing – DJR         C+

Is it conceivable to mark one of the most dominant forces in Supercars this low? Unfortunately, yes. The official Ford homologation team has failed to produce the results anywhere near what is realistically expected of them. Doomsday merchants were predicting the demise of DJR in the post – Penske era but that was more clickbait than the reality. In 2021 and ‘22, Shell V-Power took the fight to Triple 888, but in 2023 the team is way behind its nemesis and fighting for mid-field supremacy. So, what has gone wrong? Undoubtedly, all Ford teams fielding the Gen3 Mustang have struggled, but the lack of results particularly by Anton De Pasquale is troubling. He sits seventeenth at the halfway mark, but over 120 points behind teammate Will Davison. From the team’s perspective, #17 of Davison has been the glue. Will continues to push hard in qualifying and is getting results, with a much-needed podium in Darwin some reward. With a relatively unchanged team in the garage, the leading Ford team must step up in the second half of 2023, or changes must be made. Can ex-AFL coach David Noble restore the team’s winning culture?

Tickford Racing – 5 and 6             B-

It is fair to say that had Cam Waters’ Monster Energy #6 Mustang not become a Darwin firestorm, Tickford would be the leading Ford team by a margin rather than trailing DJR by one solitary point. But Tickford is renowned for strange and weird results. There is no doubt that the quickest Ford Mustang in 2023 is Cam’s Monster #6. He is the leading Ford qualifier, but the results have just not fallen his way. His #6 partner James Courtney has shown flashes of brilliance mixed with poor qualifying and the obligatory fire. He sits P20 in the points, and Cam is in P7. These two have the ability to be the leading Ford crew…. if only.

Penrite Racing                  C+

Tenth out of thirteen teams and the fourth Ford Mustang team at mid-season is not what Steven Grove would have been aiming at. And the team sits nearly a full round of points behind the Tickford duo of Waters and Courtney. With rookie Matt Payne being elevated to the main game, the heavy lifting was undoubtedly left for David Reynolds. He has scored points in every race so far, but the #26 Penrite Mustang has rarely troubled the top five at race end. Payne’s rookie year is as many expected. He sits eighteenth in the driver’s table ahead of seasoned drivers such as Courtney, Randle and Percat, and is delivering a solid performance.

Tickford Racing – 55 and 56        C-

The second Tickford grouping, following the official Supercars Teams Points score, is the Thomas Randle and Declan Frazer combination. Randle often pops up with a strong result in qualifying but has had trouble converting those to race results. He has had a number of top-ten finishes, but eighth is Randle’s best result to date. Declan Frazer is a clear demonstration of just how hard the jump from Super2 to the Championship really is. He sits last in the drivers’ points, with only Wildcard Zane Goddard officially listed below him. He snuck into the top ten in one of the ‘topsy turvy’ AGP races, but a number of DNFs and back-of-field results have been a tough induction.

CoolDrive Racing             C

The struggles of a single-car team. New for 2023, Todd Hazelwood has shown some flashes of brilliance, none more than in Perth with two strong top tens, but the balance has seen the CoolDrive Mustang buried in the pack in the bottom third. Consistency is the key for this team; so far, it has been too much of a roller coaster.