Motorsport: Supercars battle the tightest in years

Shane van Gisbergen sits in fourth this Supercars season. Photo / Supplied

The fight for the 2023 Supercars championship is the tightest in years, and there’s a changing of the guard at the top.

Defending champion Shane van Gisbergen hasn’t been having it all his own way at the halfway point of the season, even sitting behind his teammate Broc Feeney in fourth place. The top two spots on the points table are occupied by a couple of young guns in leader Will Brown and Brodie Kostecki.

This weekend’s race is a night event at the Sydney Motorsport Park that’ll put the cat among the pigeons. Fellow Kiwi in the field Matthew Payne is the leading rookie and sits 18th in the drivers’ standings.

For a large chunk of the field racing at night will be a challenge, but not for Payne. He’s competed in several 24-hour races and has experience in dealing with the many and varied nuances of night racing.

“Racing this weekend is going to be quite different,” said Payne. “Everything feels so much faster at night although you’re still doing the same speeds as during a day race. It takes a bit for the brain to adapt. “Last year I did a lot of endurance racing in Europe and the first time I thought ‘this is a bit hard and more difficult to hit your marks’. It’s cool though with all the lights flashing past and it’s exhilarating as well.

“One of the coolest memories I have so far in racing was doing Spa [24 Hour] last year as it was chaos and great fun. I actually enjoy night racing.”

The 20-year-old has a very good teammate at Penrite Racing in David Reynolds. The 16-season veteran has been a good influence on Payne and is happy that the team’s cars are getting faster at each round.

“We were quick at Townsville, but we also had issues and getting hit from behind didn’t help matters much,” said Reynolds.

“We’ve got quick cars and if we can just get a few things sorted we can be one of the fastest cars on the track. Going into Sydney Motorsport Park, which is a high degradation circuit and has a lot of flow, we’re going to need a different sort of car [compared to Townsville].

“Also, with it being a night race the track is cooler so that will help with tyre wear. This being the only night race of the year it’s going to be different for us the drivers and also the engineers.”

Van Gisbergen is putting the distraction of his next Nascar event - at the Indy Road Couse on August 13 - behind him and is concentrating on this weekend.

“It’s good to be back after a bit of time since Townsville. We’re heading down to Eastern Creek in Sydney for the next race which I’m looking forward to,” he said.

“We’ve got a night race this round which will be pretty awesome. We don’t often get to race at night but it’s always cool when we do get to. It’ll be great to see the fans out there, hopefully rugged up with the cold weather.”

The weekend will be challenge for the engineers and mechanics having to deal with a long night race, and refuelling on Saturday night, and then having to get the cars retuned for a sprint afternoon race on Sunday.