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Soap operas, superstars, and grid positions...
by Stefan Bartholomaeus
pic: HSV Media
V8 Supercars is the best Australian soap opera going around. You can keep your ‘Neighbours’ and ‘Home and Away’, the midweek mutterings in the sport we love are far more entertaining.
There are always a variety of storylines going on, with driving standards, race formats, and technical regulations among the favourite themes. Heck, sometimes pigs even get a mention.
The central plot for this week of course has been the new for 2009 grid system, whereby the starting order for Race 2 is set by the qualifying result, rather than the finishing positions from Race 1.
Enter the critical element of any soap opera; conflict.
The paddock has reacted to the changes with no shortage of volume and emotion. Some have barely stopped short of labelling the new system as an act of terror; implemented by extremist officials that share neither the values nor beliefs of the current competitors.
Words like ‘dumb’, and ‘stupid’ are being thrown around, with several publicly claiming that they have ‘no idea’ what the move is trying to achieve, and that there are no positives ramifications of the change.
Clearly, these critics were not at the same race track as this writer last weekend, because the Clipsal 500 would have been a real fizzer if not for the new system. Let me explain...
There were five cars at the Adelaide parklands circuit that looked capable of winning. In the opening race, two of them ended up on the podium (Whincup and Davison), whilst the other three finished well down (Lowndes and Courtney), or not at all (Tander), due to mechanical problems.
With the old system, race fans would have entered the track on Sunday morning knowing that it was realistically only ever going to be a two-horse-race. The days of coming from the back to win are long gone... even the most optimistic of HRT fans would of had trouble explaining how Tander was going to beat Whincup if he’d had to start from the rear.
Thankfully, the new system meant that the ‘superstars’ were all able to fight it out at the front of the field. Big crowd, big names... best car and driver on the day gets the trophy. Is that really such a terrible system?
The argument that the new rules are unfair on those who have a problem in qualifying (mechanical or driver induced) isn’t a strong one.
Yes, McConville’s crash on Friday made his weekend virtually impossible. Clearly, making the same mistake in 2008 wouldn’t have been punished as severely.
But what if he’d qualified reasonably, and then crashed in Race 1 instead? In 2008 he would have been ‘punished twice’ (a DNF in Race 1 and a rear of grid start for Race 2). Fast forward to 2009 and a Race 1 crash sees you only punished once (a DNF)... not twice.
Now think of how many incidents there’ve been in qualifying in the past, compared to in Race 1. History shows many more cases of drivers being punted off or suffering mechanical failures (etc) in the first race than qualifying. And trouble in Race 1 is where the new system saves you...
At the very least, the upsides and downsides of the new system even out. There is now less consequence for messing up a passing move on Saturday, but by the same token, there is less incentive too, because you don’t gain a grid spot along with each position gained on the track.
So why all the fuss? Are people against the new system because it destroys the racing and is fundamentally unfair? Or are they against it just because it’s different and not what they’re used to?
Maybe it needed to be changed, maybe it didn’t, but a regulatory back-flip after just one round would be the equivalent of killing off the new character in town, before anyone even knows their name...
- Stefan Bartholomaeus
© 321 IGNITION Pty Ltd 2009
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