Supercars’ new live pit lane order will bring teams’ and drivers’ form even more sharply into focus, believes Chaz Mostert.
For 2024, the category has dropped its longstanding system for setting the pit lane order, which had largely been set for the season on the basis of previous year’s teams’ championship results.
Instead, the final 2023 teams’ championship results will determine garaging for just the 2024 season-opener at Mount Panorama, after which teams will be ordered based on the standings at the end of the preceding event.
It means Erebus Motorsport, which came out on top this year, will not enjoy the spoils of that achievement for very long.
There is a sense of pride, and potentially commercial bonuses, from winning the teams’ championship but no other sporting reward, which has been raised as a criticism of the new system.
However, a live pit lane order does create a physical reminder of team formlines in close to real time.
Mostert, whose Walkinshaw Andretti United team had been fifth in the lane for all of this year, backed the change.
“I think it’s pretty cool,” he said.
“It’s something different, it makes guys try to be more consistent throughout the year.
“It makes it important for the crew in the pit lane if we do have a scrape or an accident and we’re trying to get cars back out because every point matters.
“That middle pack has been super tight throughout the middle of the year – back and forth – [and] it gives you something extra to strive for.
“The teams’ championship, other than probably where it ends up for the year… it obviously mean something for the teams [but for] the drivers, we probably don’t focus on it as much.
“But if you add that element to it, I’m sure it’s going to be an extra thing that’s going to be in the back of our mind and I think it’s a good judge of fact of who’s making games and who’s slumping in the middle of year.”
A position nearer to pit exit is considered advantageous for multiple reasons, including strategy, track position in qualifying sessions, and avoiding congestion under Safety Car periods.
WAU is set to line up seventh in pit lane at February’s Thrifty Bathurst 500, given it finished sixth in the 2023 teams’ championship, behind one of the two Brad Jones Racing ‘teams’ which will move around as a quartet.
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