Supercars: Sandown race report with Roland Dane

The Supercars endurance season has begun with this weekend’s Sandown 500.

Or rather, the Sandown 390 after a Lap 1 incident caused a red flag while the tyre wall was fixed, pausing for the race for almost an hour. When this happens, the race becomes time certain and distance is shortened. This happened to be one of several things that hampered TeamVortex’s weekend, but we’ll get to that later.

The method for deciding the grid is unique to Sandown in that we have two qualifying races, the first of which is driven by the co-driver, who in TeamVortex’s case is Steven Richards. A poor start saw him fall through the pack and it was an uphill battle from there.

Craig was behind the wheel for the second 20-lap race and had a good car to make up some positions. However, a power steering issue forced him to retire the car, thus handing them a starting position for the race of 23rd.

The overall result of the race was really compromised by the power steering issue on Saturday, the only saving grace of it being that it surfaced before Sunday, not during the race.

The steering rack, designed and built in-house by Triple Eight is a part that rarely fails. We ascertained why it failed very swiftly and every measure will be taken to ensure it won’t happen again.

Back to the red flag, it really had a negative effect on the strategy that TeamVortex had taken, ruining the strategy that the crew had worked out for that car. Unfortunately it meant that they were a little bit on the back foot all day, trying to make up time.

Given these circumstances, Craig, Richo and the team actually did very well to get up to twelfth place and finish there with the car in one piece. Despite the numerous issues that were thrown at them, the majority out of their control, there are still positives to be taken to the next event.

In three weeks we’ll be fighting for the holy grail of touring car racing – the Bathurst 1000.

The race is a completely different ballgame – as we’ve seen over the years, almost anything can happen – but I think we’ll fundamentally have a good car at Bathurst and we’ve just got to maximise the strategy on the day.

Did you watch Sandown? Tell us what you thought of the race in the comments.