{"id":751673,"date":"2026-06-21T22:46:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T22:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/751673\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T22:46:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T22:46:22","slug":"supercars-news-charlie-schwerkolt-claps-back-at-mark-skaife-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/751673\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Charlie Schwerkolt claps back at Mark Skaife criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Schwerkolt
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTeam 18 won its second race as the factory GM team on Sunday. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\"\"\/
<\/a><\/p>\n

Anton De Pasquale triumphed in the Darwin Triple Crown finale<\/a>, sharp work in the lane helping him into a lead after the first round of stops.<\/p>\n

He then held strong throughout the race despite late pressure from Matt Payne, which had dissipated even before a late safety car that put the result beyond doubt.<\/p>\n

It was Team 18\u2019s third win in total, second of the current season and second as the General Motors homologation team.<\/p>\n

The victory followed stinging criticism of both Team 18 and GM from Holden hero Skaife earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Fox Sports\u2019 MotorRacing 360 show, Skaife said GM had \u201cdone nothing\u201d since Triple Eight defected to Ford and that, \u201cTeam 18 [is] not operating like a proper, proper factory team\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of De Pasquale\u2019s Darwin win, Team 18 owner Schwerkolt didn\u2019t miss his opportunity fire back at Skaife.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there\u2019s plenty of critics out there,\u201d he told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually a shame Mark Skaife is not here to see this win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to bits with the team. We are a solid team, Chev\u2019s backing us all the way, Anton did an amazing job, and our pit stops were well executed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t make one percent of a mistake in this game and we didn\u2019t today. We executed exactly right.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook\u2026 I bit my tongue a 100 times thinking about going back to Mark and saying, \u2018don\u2019t be so critical of our team\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot to live up to from Triple Eight and the resources they\u2019ve got behind them, the longevity of all their staff and all that sort of stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a long way to go to get anywhere near them, but don\u2019t criticise us too much.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this really galvanises the whole team. It really does.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great team. As I said, the pit stops were amazing, up there is the quickest. And the strategy was good. The culture is very special and it\u2019s great for all the sponsors and everyone involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic result for the team, and do you know what? There\u2019s more to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Pasquale\u2019s weekend capped off a solid weekend in the Top End that included a front-row start in the first race that was converted to a sixth place finish.<\/p>\n

There was a stumble in qualifying for the Saturday race, De Pasquale starting 20th but racing through to eighth place.<\/p>\n

David Reynolds showed signs of speed as well, running inside the Top 10 in Friday\u2019s opener before being spun by Jack Le Brocq with four laps to go.<\/p>\n

On Saturday he was just 17th in the race, however finished with a 10th place on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Team 18 sits fifth in the teams\u2019 championship standings heading to Townsville next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Team 18 won its second race as the factory GM team on Sunday. Image: Supplied Anton De Pasquale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[42655,64,63,127332,806,805,803,804,85,42657],"class_list":["post-751673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-anton-de-pasquale","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mark-skaife","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports","tag-team-18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}