The start of Sunday’s Supercars race at the Sandown 500. Image: InSyde Media
Possible team tactics have been a hot topic since the start of the Finals Series, in which 10 contenders have been whittled down to four ahead of the Adelaide Grand Final.
Motorsport Australia officials are understood to be concerned about the potential for teams and even manufacturers to manipulate races under the new format.
Drivers Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown revealed on their latest Lucky Dogs podcast that a message was sent by MA officials to drivers warning of potential consequences.
It’s understood the message was sent to drivers via a WhatsApp group chat on Sunday morning at the Sandown 500.
According to the drivers, a fine of up to 250,000 euros ($444,000 AUD), disqualification and a possible race ban were mentioned for “any malicious behaviour, any misconduct.”
Regulations on fairness and manipulation are covered by the FIA’s International Sporting Code, under which Dick Johnson Racing was fined $250,000 AUD at Bathurst in 2019.
The Sandown message followed a cheeky social media video from Brown on Friday evening in which he leaned into the manipulation topic by jokingly presenting fellow drivers with “gifts”.
Cam Waters also raised eyebrows by stating in a social media video on Saturday night that he’d “come out swinging, take some cars out, do whatever we need to do” to make the cut-off.
The Saturday race involved non-Finals driver Ryan Wood mounting a robust but fair defence against Brown for second place that helped teammate Chaz Mostert take victory.
“I think Motorsport Australia, for them and the FIA and everything, one, you can’t fix a race… and the other thing is, you can’t take someone out deliberately,” said Brown on the podcast.
“If anything is looked at as being deliberate, like NASCAR seemed to get away with it, [but] not over here.
“We can rub now, and we’ve definitely loosened the rules up a bit there, but you can’t just punt someone off to try and get through, which kind of happens in NASCAR.”
Brown marvelled at the size of the potential fine, which would be the largest in Supercars history.
“That’s a lot of money when you convert it… I’m gonna have to sell my house!” he said.
“That was interesting, and I think it was also that you could be disqualified from an event or not race at the next event. So that was pretty big.
“But I think that once again, this new format… the talk in the drivers chat was that people were gonna help each other.
“And I felt like it probably wasn’t a bad thing them putting that [warning] out.
“Because someone like poor old [Thomas] Randle maybe might have been out and Cam has to get in, and the team asked him to do something.”
Kostecki dismissed the notion that any team would ask one driver to take out another to help a teammate and cast doubt on the ability of officials to penalise marginal incidents.
“There’s so many different arguments and stuff. Like when I read it, I just laughed at it,” he said.
“You can always get away with it. Like they’re never gonna be able to penalise you, unless you just turn hard right down the straight and take someone out.”
