The 2021 Supercars season will kick off at Bathurst as a focused Jamie Whincup looks to get his final year as a full-time driver off to a perfect start.

The seven-time Supercars champion announced he would be retiring at the end of the 2021 season before taking up a role as team principal of Triple Eight Race Engineering.

He will begin his final season on the weekend as one of the favourites at the Mount Panorama 500 alongside Shane van Gisbergen.

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Everyone chasing Chaz

0:45

It comes after defending champion Scott McLaughlin made the call to head to the United States and race in IndyCar.

Chaz Mostert impressed with the quickest times in both practice sessions on Friday to put his name forward for the vacant V8 crown.

There will be plenty of attention on Cam Waters too after his strong finish to last season.

The 26-year old faces great expectations, having taken his first solo race win last year at the Bend while he also broke the Mount Panorama lap record to take pole at last October’s Bathurst 1000.

Waters finished with a career-best nine podiums from 27 starts last season and can make an early statement for Tickford Racing as Dick Johnson Racing undergo changes.

DJR has an all-new driver line-up consisting of Will Davison and Anton De Pasquale following the departure of McLaughlin.

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Rookie driver finds the wall!

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The spotlight will well and truly be placed on De Pasquale who takes McLaughlin’s vacant seat, having finished the 2020 championship in eighth and taken out his first race win.

De Pasquale was the fastest in qualifying to lead the likes of van Gisbergen, Waters and Mostert.

It sets up a thrilling top 10 shootout.

It will be a challenge for all drivers involved though with a change in weather what has normally been expected when competing at Bathurst in October.

It marks the first solo round at Mount Panorama in 25 years.

We are also back at the same course that hosted last season’s finale (the first time that back-to-back scenario has occured in 50 years).

The Mount Panorama 500 will include two single-driver, 250-kilometre races along with two top 10 shootouts to finalise the grid for each race.

Follow all the action in the live blog below. Can’t see it? Click here!

FULL BATHURST 500 EVENT SCHEDULE (SATURDAY):

– All times AEDT

Armor All Qualifying (Race 1): 9:05am – 9:25am

Armor All Top Ten Shootout (Race 1): 12:10pm – 12:50pm

Race 1: 3:00pm – 4:50pm

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Motorsport

Formula One 2021: McLaren boss Andreas Seidl talks about Daniel Ricciardo, news, F1, Lando Norris,

Published

1 day ago

April 8, 2021

Prime Sports NOW

Daniel Ricciardo’s new team principal at McLaren has opened up on the reason the Formula One outfit was so keen to sign the Australian.

After losing Carlos Sainz to Ferrari – a move that somewhat surprised the British-based unit – McLaren took less than a week to unveil Ricciardo in his new orange livery alongside British rising star Lando Norris.

Now McLaren boss Andreas Seidl says the decision to sign the former Renault and Red Bull racer was based on maintaining a competitive driver pairing where each would push the other.

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F1 world baffled over new Lewis vision

0:41

While many rivals use a clear ‘number one’ and ‘number two’ driver – such as Ferrari clearly placing Charles Leclerc as their top priority ahead of new recruit Sainz, or Red Bull’s Max Verstappen leading that charge – McLaren’s rise up the constructors championships in the past two years has come from both drivers regularly banking strong points.

Continuing that balanced two-pronged approach is crucial this season, Seidl told Motorsport.com.

“As you can imagine it was obviously important for me that when we made the decision to go for Daniel that we simply made sure for the team that we have again also from this year onwards, a very strong driver line-up,” Seidl said.

“Because key in the last two years for securing these positions we could secure in the constructors’ championship was that we always had two drivers who were there and always ready to score good points.

“I’m really happy with what we have seen so far from both guys. It’s great that we again seem to have a very strong driver line-up. We managed to get through both cars in Q3, both guys always very close together.”

The pair was separated by just 0.055 seconds in third qualifying at the season-opener in Bahrain. And while Ricciardo struggled with floor damage – and therefore pace – Norris rose from seventh to fourth in a strong finish for the McLaren duo.

Mazepin crashes after only THREE turns

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With Ricciardo dropping to seventh from his grid position of sixth, the pair’s combined 18 points was good enough to move the team to third on the constructors championship – a highly promising beginning to the season.

Even more promising was the margin between Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in his best qualifying lap and the McLaren duo, which was 0.3 seconds smaller than last season.

“The gap we had to pole position was smaller compared to what we could do last time we have been here in Bahrain, which is again an encouraging sign that we’re making a step as a team with the car towards the front and that we are heading in the right direction,” Seidl said.

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Motorsport

IndyCar news 2021, Supercars, Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske, Bathurst, speeds, schedule, Alabama Grand Prix, where to watch Australia

Published

2 days ago

April 7, 2021

Prime Sports NOW

Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin has outlined the huge differences between his former career in Australia and his current one in America with the IndyCars series.

The Kiwi left Supercars a three-time champion before heading to IndyCar with Team Penske, who part-owned the Dick Johnson Racing team he drove for in the championship.

McLaughlin is in pre-season training for the upcoming IndyCar season, which starts with the Grand Prix of Alabama on April 18th, and revealed the main challenges with adapting from a closed-wheel race car, to an open wheeler – including the near 100kmph increase in speeds.

“It’s completely 180, it’s so different,” McLaughlin told Fox Sports News.

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McLaughlin on upcoming IndyCars Series

7:22

“You’ve got to really muscle the car here in America. There’s no power steering, in Supercars there’s power steering. I have to lie down in the car, I’m basically lying down in a bed. In Supercars we drive like in a road car so I’ve really had to build up strength in areas I haven’t had before, especially around my shoulders.

“I’m building up my neck strength because the G-Force is over five Gs – that’s five or six times my body weight. It’s pretty full on. In Supercars it’s more focused on heat and trying to adapt to that – here it’s a little bit different.

“It’s so bloody fast. You’re doing close to 400kmph on an oval – it’s phenomenal. The closest we got to 300kmph was at Bathurst and that was a thrill in itself.

“Learning how the slipstream works and the runs you get on other cars – it’s full on. There are things that I won’t learn until I get out and race. And that’s probably the hardest thing.

“Doing the laps by yourself, that’s the easy part. It’s going out and racing wheel to wheel, when in a Supercar I could bang doors, but in an open wheeler if you bang then wheels fly off and all sorts happens.”

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F1 2021: Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin news, Ralf Schumacher criticism

Published

3 days ago

April 6, 2021

Prime Sports NOW

Four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel has been told to “stop whining” after a poor debut race with new team Aston Martin.

The German star struggled in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix and is dealing with a dramatic slide down the grid since being let go by Ferrari.

Vettel was also beaten by teammate Lance Stroll and carried his Aston Martin across the finish line in P15 after a tough race. He was also eliminated in the first qualifying session.

The 33-year-old said after the race: “I’m not at home in the car.

“There’s a lot of things that are fighting me so that I can’t really focus on driving. We need to address them and try and fix them.”

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The negative talk has earned a public scolding from former Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher, who told Vettel to get on with the job this week.

“The whining that he doesn’t feel the car has to stop,” Schumacher told Germany’s Sport1.de.

He said “nobody cares” about Vettel’s complaints.

Aston Martin’s German driver Sebastian Vettel. AFP.Source: AFP

However, Schumacher does accept that Vettel has legitimate reasons to feel uncomfortable in a new car — especially against Stroll, who has been with the team for several years.

“I’m sorry for Sebastian. This is a huge problem and it will take time,” he said.

“Nobody cares about that, and after all, we’re in Formula 1 here and he’s also earning a lot of money.

“At the end of the day, Sebastian is an experienced racing driver and a multiple world champion. He has to clean up with his teammate now and the rest will come on its own even if the Aston Martin doesn’t turn into a winning car this year.”

Critics have questioned Vettel’s performances this year with former driver David Coulthard saying Stroll may force Vettel out of the team if he proves himself to be the quicker driver — just as Charles Leclerc did at Ferrari in 2020.

Sebastian Vettel never got his world championship with Ferrari.Source: Getty Images

Vettel’s former mentor at Red Bull Helmut Marko this week also said Vettel should have taken a year away from Formula this year to make his return when the sport is expected to undergo a significant shake-up with new regulations being introduced for the 2022 season.

“I was of the opinion, I told you that too, that he should take a year off, sort himself out, ask himself what he wants,” Marko said in an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com.

“I believe that a lot is possible within Formula 1 next year. He didn’t do that. Now he sits in the Aston Martin.”

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V8 Supercars 2021: Bathurst 500 live, live stream, live blog, start time, qualifying, top 10 shootout, news, video, highlights, times

The 2021 Supercars season will kick off at Bathurst as a focused Jamie Whincup looks to get his final year as a full-time driver off to a perfect start.