Austin Cindric\u2019s battle with the Playoffs may be done for the year, having been knocked out of the NASCAR Cup Series title fight in the Round of 16, but the 27-year-old is set to insert himself right into the middle of another battle for a championship in a matter of days.<\/p>\n
Having recently traveled to Australia, NASCAR<\/a> star Cindric is set to make his Supercars Championship debut<\/a> as a wildcard entry in the No. 5 Tickford Racing Ford Mustang at the BP Adelaide Grand Final.<\/p>\n The three-day event will see Cindric compete in three races on the two-mile street course, looking to showcase his skills by achieving the highest finishes possible, all while staying well clear of the title fight between Broc Feeney, Chaz Mostert, Kai Allen, and reigning champion Will Brown.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, I definitely don\u2019t want to have any effect on what happens at the end of the day, whether that\u2019s causing a caution or being in the mix racing guys that are at their most important part of the year that they\u2019ve raced all year for,\u201d Cindric recently admitted, as per V8 Sleuth<\/a>. \u201cSo very aware of what\u2019s on the line, because I have been on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n Cindric, who recently got to test his new equipment while also getting the opportunity to watch the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 in person, noted how there are \u201ca ton of similarities between the finals and our playoffs system, how it\u2019s structured and what it rewards, so it has been fun to kind of see this for the first time with this category.<\/p>\n Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a race fan, I follow along, and it\u2019s been fun to see. It\u2019s a bit of an alternative universe in a lot of ways, so it\u2019s cool to see the excitement around it and how it\u2019s kind of pushing drivers and teams to their limits in maybe different ways other than just standard points racing.\u201d<\/p>\n Following his recent test at Sandown, Cindric returned behind the wheel of the No. 5 at The Bend Motorsport Park, and it seems safe today he\u2019s well aware of the scale of the challenge he faces.<\/p>\n In fact, the three-time Cup Series race winner opted against specifying any goals for the event, simply saying, \u201cI have to keep it realistic and I think realistically this is a super competitive series, we\u2019re at the end of the season, guys are at their absolute best.\u201d<\/p>\n Thankfully, so far it seems Cindric has managed to get a solid grip on the No. 5, saying at Sandown that the experience was \u201cquite a bit of what I expected.\u201d<\/a> In fact, Cindric has been so impressed by the equipment on offer that he even suggested that the Gen 3 Supercar \u201cdrives a lot better\u201d than the often criticized NASCAR NextGen car.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s got more overbody downforce,\u201d he added. \u201cEven just by looking at the car, it\u2019s a lighter car, grippier tyre, so all the things it does better.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of similar concepts as far as the limitations of the car, the rear grip under braking, a number of other things. It\u2019s comparable, but the current generation Cup car is a lot more rigid. Like, I\u2019ve really had to talk myself into using the kerb as much as I can with this car.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, it has a bigger effect on the driver, but the car still says gripped up, whereas if I hit some of these kerbs in a Cup car I\u2019d be in the blue tent!\u201d<\/p>\n With these various practice sessions to run, the virtual assistance of two three-time Supercars Championship winners, current IndyCar<\/a> star Scott McLaughlin and Cup Series rival Shane van Gisbergen<\/a>, to lean on, as well as three days’ worth of running scheduled in Adelaide, Cindric should be in good standing come the finale between November 27-30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austin Cindric\u2019s battle with the Playoffs may be done for the year, having been knocked out of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[21621,49,48,634,8354,9706,82,49537,104856,134201],"class_list":["post-298678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-austin-cindric","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-sports","tag-supercars","tag-supercars-championship","tag-tickford-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}