{"id":787082,"date":"2026-07-08T14:04:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T14:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/787082\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T14:04:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T14:04:34","slug":"what-made-supercars-star-jamie-whincup-so-good-david-cauchi-offers-insight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/787082\/","title":{"rendered":"What made Supercars star Jamie Whincup so good: David Cauchi offers insight"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATTENTION to detail and work ethic are the traits which drove Jamie Whincup<\/a> to unparalleled heights in Supercars, according to his long-time former engineer David Cauchi.<\/p>\n

Whincup\u2019s record tallies of seven championships, 56 round wins, 125 race wins, 240 podiums and 92 pole positions all will stand for many years to come.<\/p>\n

He was especially prolific in the seven-year stretch encompassing seasons 2008-14, during which time he only once failed to win the title (and by a narrow margin on that occasion).<\/p>\n

Nowadays he is Triple Eight\u2019s co-owner, team principal and managing director.<\/p>\n

While his Supercars racing days are officially over, he will hop behind the wheel of a Gen3 Ford Mustang this coming weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But back to what made him so good. It\u2019s a topic Cauchi touched on via the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Parramatta Toyota.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just everything in the background: his attention to detail and his work ethic. I guess that\u2019s what everyone doesn\u2019t see,\u201d said Cauchi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outside world just sees us at the racetrack, they don\u2019t see the work that we put in back at the factory and what we go through, the debriefs, the analysis, the honest conversations, the hard conversations. All that stuff happens behind closed doors in office factories and boardrooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess that\u2019s what I learnt from Jamie \u2013 his preparation and attention to detail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say, even these days, 80 to 85 percent is already won or lost before you turn up to the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you\u2019ve turned up, it\u2019s really just about execution at that point. If you haven\u2019t prepared, if you haven\u2019t done your homework, if the car\u2019s set-up is in the wrong window, it\u2019s very hard to then turn that into a win. Sometimes you do, it\u2019s not impossible, but again that\u2019s what we became very good at.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe driver can set the tone for a lot of the culture as well and I think Jamie certainly take a lot of responsibility for the attention to detail and the preparation that became a big part of our culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe led by example.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cauchi and Whincup remain good friends, even after their professional paths diverged.<\/p>\n

Cauchi in fact was Whincup\u2019s counterpart during a four-year stint (2022-25) as Grove Racing team principal, but he maintains a high opinion of \u2018JDub\u2019 and is adamant that his level of performance went largely unappreciated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Jamie was doing that in Formula 1 for example, as an Australian racing in Formula 1, he would have been a national hero, we would have knighted him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in Supercars, the dominance sometimes wasn\u2019t accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having moved back to Queensland, Cauchi made a cameo return to the racing arena in GT4 Australia\u2019s Ipswich round last month<\/a> but has shown no signs of lobbing back in the Supercars paddock just yet.<\/p>\n

The Undercut \u2013 How hot is too hot?<\/p>\n

The Undercut is back for another week, downloading a hot weekend in the Top End for Supercars!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATTENTION to detail and work ethic are the traits which drove Jamie Whincup to unparalleled heights in Supercars,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-787082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787082","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=787082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}