Cameron Hill was gunning for his second Supercars win, Erebus rookie Cooper Murray found himself in rarified air on row two, and rain meister Richie Stanaway was to start alongside him.
In the end, it was a non-event. Chaz Mostert escaped the biggest scare. He was going to start last. Meanwhile, Will Brown was a lowly 18th. It had all the makings of a blockbuster contest.
The 24-car field wobbled around Albert Park in the wet hoping for conditions to improve but officials scratched the race with just a handful of laps on the board under the Safety Car, despite the rain having largely abated.
As the third pick of the support categories and time so precious to come by in the schedule, Supercars was always at risk of having its measly 14-lapper cut from the program.
Formula 3 had its race shortened by rain before Supercars and Formula 2 was a non-event afterwards. Nevertheless, conjecture reigned.
Some drivers wanted the race to go ahead. To no great surprise, the man at the head of the field, Broc Feeney, was keen to get the race going.
Those behind him expressed some concerns.
“If it was another track like Winton, maybe we could have had a start,” David Reynolds wrote on social media.
“It was the puddles on the race line at some very fast corners like Turn 5 and Turn 7 that would have caused big crashes.”
One school of thought was that the short turnaround to get cars ready in time to be shipped to New Zealand for the ITM Taupō Super 440 could prove problematic if cars got wrecked — but that problem existed long before the rain arrived, and no one was saying let’s not race on Sunday in the dry.
Racing in the rain comes with some trepidation, but if Thursday or Friday or Saturday proved anything, it’s that Supercars is just as chaotic when it’s bone dry.
“The race car driver in me and as a spectator, let’s go racing – flat out,” said Triple Eight team principal Jamie Whincup on the Fox Sports broadcast before the race was cancelled.
“It is quite wet out there though. The other factor to consider is we’ve got a two-day turnaround.
“We can’t go back to the workshop so we’ve only got a two-day turnaround to get the cars in the containers to go to Taupo.
“The sensible part of me is saying let’s take it a little easier, but at the same time we want to be racing as well.”
PremiAir team owner Peter Xiberras was fairly straightforward in his assessment of the conditions.
“It’s stopped raining, so what’s the excuse?” he said.
Asked about the prospect of having to repair cars overnight, he said: “That’s tomorrow’s problem.”
All of this comes with the footnote that Dunlop made strides forward with its wet weather tyre — but if the “wet” tyre isn’t good enough, why bother?
While Xiberras was happy for the race to go ahead, team principal Ludo Lacroix wasn’t entirely unhappy that it didn’t happen.
“For Richie in particular I think it is a case of what could have been,” he said.
“Being P4 and with what he has in his car and himself on wet tyres, he had the potential to move up and perhaps could have gotten our first podium of the year.
“For the show and for us – the Supercars family – the weekend has not been exceptional in terms of quality in my opinion.
“That is just my opinion – I am probably more of a purist and a lover of motor racing, rather than just crashes and getting safety cars…so I think it was the right call, even if it is a bit of a case of what could have been for us.”
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