After a relatively quiet year, war has broken out in V8 Supercars between title protagonists Mark Winterbottom and Jamie Whincup and between Nissan and every other team on the grid.
Don’t worry about Winterbottom and Whincup – they’ve been taking shots at each other since they were in shorts and braces racing go-karts - but the Nissan fracas is interesting and could lead to a long, drawn-out summer of squabbling about parity.
The latest chapter to emerge over the weekend at the Gold Coast endure was a new rear wing intended to give the Nissan Altimas enhanced straight-line speed. This is an especially interesting development as we heard the racing Altimas were first presented with a very handsome rear wing designed, wind-tunnel tested and manufactured in Japan by the factory NISMO operation.
“No you can’t have that,” suggested the V8 Supercar rule-makers (with Holden and Ford bleating in their ears) and instead offered Nissan a device which looked like it came straight from Fred Flintstone’s car.
Now we know the Altimas have suffered from a lack of straight-line speed all year but actually showed increased pace around the streets of Surfers Paradise (James Moffat ran with the front pack on both days before mechanical gremlins sidelined his Norton-backed Altima and the Rick Kelly-Karl Reindler Jack Daniels Nissan finished sixth yesterday’s race).
Then there are the Erebus Mercs – (although Lee Holdsworth and Craig Baird brought their come home in fifth yesterday). What parity freedoms will be approved for them?
And what about Volvo coming in next year with an engine which will be the oldest design on the grid. Allowances for the Swedish giant?
Wow! This getting complicated and with so much investment on the line, don’t expect Holden or Ford teams to embrace ‘compromise’ any time soon.
As for the championship itself, well that’s very much up for grabs after Whincup’s Red Bull Commodore was busted early in Saturday’s race and his team-mate Craig Lowndes cruised to victory is a safety car-punctuated event.
Yesterday the Bottle-O backed Ford falcon of David Reynolds and Dean Canto showed sheer pace and great race tactics to post a memorable win (Reynolds’ first in V8 Supercars). In fact they were the 17th different winners in the series so far in 2013.
So heading to the high-speed Phillip Island circuit for the penultimate race, Lowndes leads the championship by just six points from his team-mate and the come the Ford duo of Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison.
So what do you think Car Showroom fans – could the unthinkable happen and Winterbottom or Davison deliver Ford a real shot in the arm and steal the 2013 championship from under the noses of Holden?
