Hungry Van Gisbergen
Erebus Motorsport’s David Reynolds believes Shane Van Gisbergen is more desperate to win this year’s Supercars title than sixtime champion Jamie Whincup.
The two Triple Eight drivers are leading the championship after 17 races, with Whincup on 1821 points and Van Gisbergen on 1711.
While there’s still almost half the season to go, including the endurance rounds, only Mark Winterbottom, on 1701 points, looks to be able to stop a Triple Eight driver taking the title. Question is, which one? ‘‘Jamie is still a very good driver, but Shane is a bit more hungry,’’ Reynolds said.
‘‘Jamie has won six titles, so where is his motivation going to be after winning so many races?
‘‘He’s about to win his 100th race and will do it in half the amount of time it took Craig Lowndes.
‘‘So his goals might not be the same and he’s just started up a small business outside of this, that might detract some of his focus too. But Jamie is arguably the best driver this sport has ever had.’’
While Van Gisbergen is still in a good position to win the title, his chances would be better if he hadn’t made a few of costly errors.
In Tasmania, after leading for most of Sunday’s race he slid off the track, going over an oil spill and ended up in the gravel trap.
In Darwin later in the season he overtook Michael Caruso too early after a safety car restart and was punished with a drive through penalty.
Then last Sunday in Ipswich he thought a safety car was about to be brought into the race after Scott Pye crashed and dived into the pits, only to find himself double-stacked behind Whincup and to make matters worse, the safety car didn’t come out.
‘‘If Shane didn’t stuff up all the time, he’d probably be leading the series,’’ Reynolds said.
‘‘He lost a lot of points for what happened at Darwin and Tasmania and he’s only got himself to blame for that.’’
Reynolds came to New Zealand a few weeks ago for the official launch of the Auckland round of the series from November 4-6. The schedule for the Pukekohe weekend has been changed this year, with four 100km races on the Saturday and Sunday, rather than one longer race on the final day.
It means there won’t be much of the tactical battle in races between the teams that occurs in the Australian races.
‘‘I like the races where the pit stops have to happen and that brings the teams into it a lot more and there’s a bit of strategy,’’ Reynolds said.
‘‘But the sprint races are a lot more intense as a driver, because you don’t get a rest, you’re constantly getting hammered. No one takes a conservative approach over tyre life, they’re just going out there looking for raw speed.’’
Reynolds has switched from the big Prodrive Racing Australia to the smaller Erebus Motorsport this season.
It meant there was no chance of him finishing third in the championship again this year and his best placing for the team has been a fifth in Adelaide.
‘‘We’re a new team, with new crew, new cars,’’ he said.
‘‘Cars that weren’t that fast to begin with, they were old HRT cars and they weren’t that flash to begin with, but we’ve done an array of things to make a difference, changed lots of stuff.
‘‘I’ve been part of bigger teams where there’s a different feeling. In this team everyone’s personality is highlighted a bit better, everyone takes more responsibility for their own job and we all get along well.’’