Pressure on McLaughlin in Supercars start

Pitstop diary

Kiwi Supercars drivers will be in action this weekend as the opening round of the 2018 Australian Supercars Championship gets underway in South Australia.

The Adelaide 500 has always been a top event and a favourite amongst Supercars drivers, teams and fans. While Australian Jamie Whincup from Red Bull Holden Racing will be defending last season’s title, the pressure will be on Kiwi team-mates Scott McLaughlin and Fabian Coulthard at Shell V-Power Racing.

The Penske team were the form drivers last season with the fastest car, the most race wins and pole positions of any team. McLaughlin could have and should have won the title but Lady Luck was not on his side as the final race of the season allowed Whincup to grab the championship. Whincup was a more consistent finisher, collecting points from all 26 races, while McLaughlin’s one retirement was at the Bathurst 1000, a key race in the season with double points on offer.

Team expectations will be for McLaughlin to win the overall title. Coulthard will be considering how to beat his team-mate (with equal machinery) enabling both to deliver the team title. Fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen, the 2016 champion and team-mate to Whincup, heads into the season under less pressure.

His factory Holden team are debuting the new ZB Commodore with the expectation that this will be an improvement on last season’s car. Andre Heimgartner is back on the track with a full time drive in Supercars, this time with the Nissan Motorsport team.

He has had a superb lead up to Adelaide, racing back here in New Zealand in the BNT V8s series where he has led from the front.

Making his fulltime debut in Supercars is Richie Stanaway with Tickford Racing, having made an impression as a co-driver in the Pirtek Endurance Cup Supercars races (Sandown, Bathurst and Gold Coast) over the last two years.

Stanaway has the talent and the only thing holding him back will be whether he has the machinery to be a front-runner.

Hartley’s car proves reliable Brendon Hartley’s Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula One team unveiled their 2018 car shortly before the first test session got under way at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday.

This proved a successful test, not because of how fast both Hartley and team-mate Pierre Gasly were compared with other drivers.

Rather it was the reliability of the Honda engine over a significant amount of completed laps.

This is in stark contrast with a year ago when the McLaren– Honda F1 car came to abrupt halt after one lap with a major engine problem.

This was the start of a season of unreliability and eventual parting of the McLaren-Honda relationship.

The low-key reveal of Hartley’s car with similar livery to last season had experts are already applauding the STR13 car.

Much has been made of the McLaren F1 team switching from Honda powered engines to Renault, and of their integrating the engine package with the chassis.

Toro Rosso faced a similar problem with their reverse switch from Renault to Honda and so far have achieved a superb result, particularly for a small team. Benjamin Carroll is the online editor of nzmotorracing.co.nz