Motor sport
New Zealand can claim victory in Australia’s classic Bathurst 1000km race this year as Kiwi-born Steven Richards finished first for the fourth time, this time as co-driver with fellow veteran Craig Lowndes in the Triple Eight team’s Holden Commodore.
Kiwis Fabian Coulthard, Scott McLaughlin and Shane Van Gisbergen all put in some great performances finishing fourth, fifth and eighth respectively.
Steven Richards has actually spent most of his life in Australia, moving there as a lad when his father, the great Jim Richards, shifted the family across the ditch and carried on to a great career there – he won Bathurst seven times.
The last time I talked with Steven, a couple of years ago when he was racing SuperTourers here, he was still using his NZ passport, so it seems fair enough to claim him as one of our own.
And Richards is happy to acknowledge his Kiwi roots. “You never forget where you come from,” he said after his great victory. “New Zealand has an incredible heritage of motorsport drivers. From Formula One, to Can-Am sports cars, right up to now, and we’ve managed to hold our little place in that heritage as well, which is nice for the Richards family name.”
A modest, low-key personality, Richards said he felt humbled by his victory. “You come here every year to do your best and the four times I’ve been up here I’ve driven with some great guys and been involved with some cool teams. I was pretty happy with the way I drove the car today and I’m just a very small cog in a big wheel.”
His first Bathurst victories came in 1998 and 1999 (this time with Greg Murphy), and two years ago he paired with Mark Winterbottom to take the win as a co-driver with Ford Performance Racing. Last year he won the Australian Carrera Cup Porsche championship, while his highest placing in the V8 Supercar championship was fifth in 2004 driving a Holden for the Perkins team.
However Bathurst 2015 did not start so well for Lowndes and Richards as Lowndes could qualify only 15th when changing weather conditions made driving tricky. They were not the only ones caught out by the conditions as championship leader Winterbottom was just one place ahead.
Ford’s David Reynolds started from pole after winning the top-10 shootout, again affected by rain that slowed drivers who came out later. McLaughlin shared the front row in his Volvo, with Van Gisbergen sixth and Coulthard ninth, both in Holdens. Earlier in practice Coulthard had made the headlines with a lap faster than the lap record, but later reigning champion Jamie Whincup – Lowndes’ team-mate at Triple Eight – went faster still.
Some of the teams, including Triple Eight, chose to have the co-drivers start the race. Reynolds’ team-mate Dean Canto started their green Falcon but McLaughlin was in the Volvo and did not take long to grab the lead. Van Gisbergen and Coulthard charged forward and around lap 14 the Kiwis were one-two-three in the order McLaughlin-Van Gisbergen-Coulthard.
A little later came the first crash and the first safety car. The second Volvo blew an engine, dropped oil on the track, and Renee Gracie crashed the car she shared with Swiss driver Simona de Silverstro. A mass of cars headed to the pits for fuel and tyres, with many teams changing drivers. McLaughlin handed over to his highly experienced French co-driver Alexandre Premat, who started losing places. The true picture of the race became confused because different teams were on different fuel strategies while some cars had the lead drivers in them, and some the co-drivers.
An ominous sign came around lap 32 as the other Triple Eight Commodore took the lead, Whincup benefitting from the assistance of Paul Dumbrell who was clearly the fastest co-driver. The cars of Van Gisbergen and Coulthard spent a lot of time in the top three.
Then came disaster for the Wellsford-based Super Black team, which had done so well on their debut at Bathurst last year when they finished 11th. Andre Heimgartner races the car full-time this year but co-driver Ant Pedersen was at the wheel when Karl Reindler hit the car from behind and sent it hard into a wall and out of the race. “It was pretty disappointing, it was
a stupid situation and I won’t understand why what happened, happened,” Heimgartner said. Reindler was given a drive-through penalty for causing the crash.
Winterbottom suffered a setback when an electrical failure caused his dashboard and brake lights to stop working. Officials ordered him to pit to fix the brake lights but his team kept him out for an extra couple of laps while they worked out how to fix the problem. As a consequence Winterbottom at his next pit stop had to stay stationary for an extra 15 seconds, losing several places.
Richards had had a quiet start to the race, running 20th at one point, but he and Lowndes moved steadily forward. Around lap 60 Lowndes set the fastest lap of the race so far and was running second.
After half-distance a period of rain mixed things up. It was crucial to make the right decisions as to whether and when to stop and change tyres, and of course not every-oned managed that. Van Gisbergen stayed out a little too long on his wetweather tyres as the track was drying, and lost crucial time. Lowndes dropped places, finding his car not so great in the wet – he thought the tyre pressures were too high.
But as the track dried out and he switched back to slick tyres Lowndes was in his element, finding the car getting faster and faster as its setup suited the changing conditions of the track resulting from extra rubber being left on the road.
Whincup had a solid lead at one point but positions kept changing. Later Reynolds was leading McLaughlin but Lowndes overtook McLaughlin for second. Lowndes hit the lead ahead of team-mate Whincup.
The final safety-car period had a massive effect on the final result. Lowndes headed in for his final pit stop and the team called Whincup to come in as well. But Whincup made a snap decision to stay out, knowing that if he came in behind Lowndes he would lose vital time waiting for Lowndes to clear the pit bay – each two-car team has a pit bay that can take only one car at a time.
Whincup had not realised the safety car was out but soon found out as he saw it in front of him going up Mountain Straight. Thinking he saw a green light in the back of the safety car he passed it – but officials said there was no green light and he had to serve a drive-through penalty for passing the safety car. That put him right out of contention.
Lowndes emerged with a small but safe lead and carried on to his sixth Bathurst victory, putting him third equal on the all-time list behind Peter Brock (nine) and Jim Richards (seven). Winterbottom and Steve Owen did well to recover from earlier misfortunes to take second and increase Winterbottom’s championship lead, while the Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander and Warren Luff mounted a late charge to take third just ahead of Coulthard, who shared his car with Luke Youlden.
“Quite amazing,” Lowndes said. “As the day went on the car got better – Richo did an amazing job. I had to make up for last year… thanks to all the boys from Red Bull and this man here [Richards] has been sensational. We’ve known each other, raced against each other for a long time and now to pair up and get our names on the Peter Brock Trophy is really special. I would love to drive with Steve again next year.”