Holden exits Supercars with a win

Holden signed off on their official presence in Australian touring car racing with victory at the 2020 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.

GM’s decision earlier this year to terminate the Holden brand has had many wide-reaching implications, with the end of Holden’s factory involvement in Supercars being just one of them.

Ending an official presence that began with the formation of the factory-backed Holden Racing Team in 1969, this year’s Bathurst 1000 – which was also the finale for the COVID-interrupted Supercars season – saw Red Bull Holden Racing Team’s Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander take the win.

For Triple Eight Race Engineering, the team that runs Red Bull HRT, Bathurst also marked the end of their stint as the official factory Holden team, which began back in 2017 and followed a Holden connection that started back to 2010.

Acknowledging their last outing as factory Holden racers, both the Red Bul HRT cars of van Gisbergen/Tander and Whincup/Lowndes ran ‘Thanks Holden Fans’ livery for the 2020 Supercars season finale at Mount Panorama.

Slow Start, Strong in the Wet

The van Gisbergen/Tander pairing qualified their #97 Red Bull HRT Commodore in second place, but dropped two places in the Amor All Top Ten Shootout to start the race from fourth on the grid.

After a stable start to the race, van Gisbergen excelled when light rain started to fall after a safety car interruption on lap 51. Overtaking second-placed Scott McLaughlin (Shell V-Power Racing Mustang) on lap 54, van Gisbergen took the race lead when he passed Will Davison (Monster Energy Racing Mustang) a lap later.

In the #888 Red Bull Holden Racing Team Commodore, Whincup was out of the race early following a crash at The Cutting.

Following the driver swap in the #97 Red Bull HRT Commodore, Tander held up his end of the race, with the three-time Bathurst winner maintaining the lead and leaving van Gisbergen in the box seat for the finale, but the margin the Kiwi held over those chasing him was rarely more than three seconds.

Frantic Finale

With 20 laps to go, both van Gisbergen and polesitter Cameron Waters (Monster Energy Racing Mustang) made their final mandatory pitstops, exiting pitlane virtually nose to tail.

While van Gisbergen held a slim lead over Waters with less than a dozen laps to go, the lead was still good enough for the Kiwi to take the win if he stayed fast and clean.

All that changed with just nine laps to go when Jack Smith (SCT Motorsports Commodore) and Bryce Fullwood (Mobil 1 Middy’s Racing Commodore) crashed in separate incidents. The resulting safety car bunched the combatants up ahead of a restart with seven laps to go.

The safety car came out again a lap later when Zane Goddard (Unit Racing Commodore) crashed at the top of the mountain.

Restarting again with just three laps to go, van Gisbergen was making his car as wide as possible up and down Mount Panorama. A late lunge from Waters proved unsuccessful and van Gisbergen was able to complete the final lap with some breathing space to achieve his first Bathurst victory and Holden’s last official win.

Flying the Flag

With only a small contingent of spectators allowed at the event, there were few in-person witnesses to the race win, but one at the top of Conrod Straight was holding a Holden flag, which van Gisbergen called for to carry on his victory lap.

“I was thinking I’d pick up the chequered flag and I just saw the guy there [with a Holden flag] and thought I’d stop and grab it,” van Gisbergen explained.

“It’s pretty significant for Holden, to farewell them this way as an official race team.

“I had some troubles joining Holden, I just remember Simon [McNamara, then sponsorship manager] and Gerald [McDornan, PR manager] and the team, all the Holden guys, how welcoming they were. They really felt like a family, you really felt like a Holden driver, it’s been pretty cool to be a part of it.

“Then becoming the factory team, having that weight on the shoulders and representing them like that is pretty special.

“To win the last one for Holden is pretty cool. I think it would have looked cool with the flag out the top, hopefully it was a good way to send it off.”

Even Triple Eight’s pragmatic team boss, Roland Dane, acknowledged the significance of the final factory Holden win.

“Eras come and eras go in motor sport – that’s life,” Dane mused. “(But) clearly there is a lot of Australian motor sporting history associated with Holden, going back to the 1960s, which we respect.”

While van Gisbergen, Tander and Red Bull HRT won the battle, Scott McLaughlin and Shell V-Power Racing (DJR Team Penske) won the war – both this year’s teams’ championship and a third straight drivers’ championship for McLaughlin.

Goodbye Commodore, Hello Camaro

While Commodores will continue to race in Supercars in 2021, they will do so without factory backing. Two thirds of the current grid are made up of ZB Commodores, so no wholesale switch to the Ford Mustang is expected next year.

From 2022, the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 will join Supercars under the category’s ‘Gen 3’ rules that will also see changes made to the Mustangs, open the door to additional manufacturers and even allow the employment of hybrid drivetrains.

On the same day that the Camaro ZL1 was announced, Triple Eight confirmed they’ll run the new car in 2022, having been charged with the design of the Gen 3 Camaro race car body by Supercars under the endorsement of General Motors.

Overall, Gen 3 Supercars will be lighter by around 100kg, but downforce will be reduced by a claimed 200kg - around 50 per cent of the current level - designed to improve parity and bring a greater reliance on driver skill.

More control parts aim to reduce costs by as much as 40 per cent, while the Gen 3 revamp will also ensure the 2022-spec cars more closely resemble the cars they’re based on, with the main panels (doors, bonnet, roof) and glass to be the same as the production car.