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Triple 8 domination – phase or dynasty?
by Stefan Bartholomaeus
pic: Team Vodafone
As 2009 rolls on, the terms ‘Triple 8’ and ‘domination’ are becoming ever more synonymous.
Considering the level of competition in modern day V8 Supercar racing, the achievements of the Roland Dane led squad have been quite remarkable. At the moment, it’s not a matter of whether a Vodafone car will win, it’s which one...
The front splitter saga that occurred at Winton was a clear indication that the frustration level in rival camps is on the rise.
The question that everybody is asking is how long can this level of supremacy be sustained for? Are the Banyo (Queensland) based Falcons going to dominate the category in the same way that the Holden Racing Team were able to from 1998 to 2003?
With that question in mind, it’s important to get some perspective on the current situation.
Triple 8 entered the 2009 season as reigning teams’ and drivers’ champions, three time defending Bathurst winners, and winners of three of the last four Clipsal 500s.
Heck, only once has a rival team managed to outscore the lead Vodafone car over a race weekend since July last year! That’s an extraordinary statistic.
The real train-spotters may have also noticed that, since Mark Dutton moved into the role of ‘race engineer’ for Whincup at Winton in 2007, Jamie has completed a mammoth 14 weekends without being outscored. That’s exactly half the number of championship meetings run since they teamed up....
Add in three dominant weekends for Lowndes in that period (Hidden Valley 2007, and Albert Park / Winton 2009), and it’s easy to simply label the last three years as Triple 8 territory. At this point, it is starting to look like a HRT-esq dynasty of domination.
But as impressive as the above stats are, we must be careful not to get caught up in the current hype. The statistics presented thus far fail to convey the whole reality.
Looking closer at 2007, the Walkinshaw VEs took seven out of the 14 round wins, as well as both the teams’ and driver’s titles. If you had to nominate a V8 Supercar ‘car of the year’, there’s little doubt it would have been one built in Clayton.
Despite some less than optimal internal shuffling in the off-season, the Walkinshaw Performance crew managed to roll this form into 2008. It’s easy to forget that, during first third of last year, Tander and the HRT looked almost unstoppable. Their run of six race wins in just two weekends (Hamilton and Albert Park) had the media talking of GT as a two-time champion already...
Fast forward a few rounds, and it was Ford Performance Racing doing all the winning. When Winterbottom qualified on pole by a staggering four tenths at Winton last year, FPR had won five out of the last six races, and were ‘on a hat trick’ of round wins. The fact that Frosty was so relaxed about a weekend-crippling race one puncture was a clear sign of the confidence within the team. Their cars were just that good.
At the halfway point of the season, Triple 8 had won just two of the eight rounds, and it was Winterbottom and Tander duelling for the championship lead. Of course, Phillip Island and Bathurst were the start of Whincup’s 2008 title run, and the team’s domination that has continued through to today.
So what does it all mean?
It’s easy to talk up the current performance of Team Vodafone, but we must remember how quickly things can change in this business. The category is still tremendously competitive, and success runs in cycles. Triple 8's performance over the last twelve months has been outstanding, but with the level of skill and resource elsewhere in the pitlane, this level of domination is very unlikely to continue for the sort of time period that was possible in the past.
It should be of no surprise to see the HRT or FPR teams in particular finding that little bit more to get on top of the ‘Banyo boys’ before 2009 is run and won.
Critically, if either Tander or Winterbottom really want to win this championship, they’ve first got to stop tearing up their equipment. Only then can they have a chance to fight Roland’s men for the victories...
- Stefan Bartholomaeus
© 321 IGNITION Pty Ltd 2009
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