Eventful afternoon for Whincup
After narrowly avoiding a wipeout, championship challenger posts lap record
Hot on the heels of the withdrawal of Audi from the World Endurance Championship, the VW Group ( owners of Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini and Ducati to name but a few) has announced VW will be pulling out of the World Rally Championship at the end of 2016.
Their decision to leave sees the dominant team of the past four seasons exit the sport and three of the best drivers without contracts for 2017 and beyond.
Four- time world champion Sebastian Ogier is the highest profile casualty.
The Frenchman had a contract for 2017 but is now without a drive.
Kiwi driver Hayden Paddon’s drive at Hyundai is unaffected.
The company say it’s all about concentrating on what the customer wants and hybrid technologies. Yeah right. It’s more likely it’s about the huge bill about to arrive because of the emissions scandal surrounding the company. Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen’s Supercars championship rival Jamie Whincup lowered the lap record at Pukekohe Park Raceway with the fastest time in the final practice session for the ITM Auckland SuperSprint yesterday.
The Red Bull Racing Holden driver was one of 11 cars to go under the lap record van Gisbergen had set earlier in the day — posting 1min 2.12s.
Whincup trails teammate van Gisbergen by 148 points in the cham- pionship with two rounds remaining and isn’t reading anything in to his slight advantage on the opening day. It was a mixed performance that saw him have a high- speed spin during the second session, when he did well to keep the car off the concrete wall.
“It was an eventful day for car # 88 today,” Whincup said.
“I tried to write the car off early in practice 2. Somehow, with more ass than class, the thing stepped a bit right which kept me on the black stuff.
“For the record, the black i s definitely more grippy than the green, especially after it has been raining,” he said.
“We were able to recover. We did a couple of practice sessions with badly flat- spotted tyres. But then when we put a second set of our green rubber on, the car was pretty good.
“The track is surprisingly quick. We didn’t expect to be going this quick. You don’t take anything out of the time. We are both feeling good and the cars are there or thereabouts.
“I just feel good we are in this position. It is a great position to be in. Both cars are 1- 2 in the championship and we can battle it out.”
The 27- year- old van Gisbergen ran near the front of the field throughout all three practice sessions yesterday and was relieved to finally get in to the car after a hectic build- up as he tries to become the first New Zealander since Jim Richards in 1991 to win the championship.
“Yeah, it is cool,” van Gisbergen said. “It has been a pretty intense week with the media and that. I was pretty excited to get in to the car today.
“It has been good. The car has a really nice set- up — one of the nicest I’ve ever driven around here.
“The track seems to be pretty grippy for everyone.”
“I am just keeping the same approach as always. For me, it is like every other weekend.
“The championship is there but my approach is the same — four good races with no mistakes is my goal.”
Kiwi Fabian Coulthard was second fastest, 0.19s behind Whincup, while series champion Mark Winterbottom was third in his Ford and van Gisbergen fourth.
Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin, who had featured prominently in the earlier sessions, could only muster the 19th fastest time.
A number of cars had i ssues between turns two and three as gravel got swept o nto the racing line by cars running wide.
It badly affected the grip levels of the following cars and, on a couple of occasions, the red flag was brought out so the track crew could sweep the circuit clean.
“The gravel seems pretty soft — a nice soft sand that you would see at the beach,” Whincup said.
“They’ll have a look at it tonight and do the best they can — hopefully find something that is a little harder packed.”