The Great Race of 2023 was the first in history when a compound other than the hardest in the Dunlop control tyre range was allocated to teams, a decision predicated at least in part on the logic that softer rubber could survive the lighter, lower-downforce Gen3 cars.
As it stands, the soft compound is still allocated for this year’s Bathurst 1000, but Speedcafe understands that there is still time to make a change given Dunlop’s production timelines in Japan.
Drivers asked by Speedcafe gave a positive assessment of running the hard tyre at Mount Panorama due to the relative lack of marbles, although dust kept them on their toes instead.
Race 2 winner Will Brown said, “I thought it was cool racing on the hard this weekend; I felt like it wasn’t too bad.
“[There were] Definitely less marbles. I don’t know it was [because it was] dustier but, if you ran off-line anywhere, it took a fair few corners to get back on the pace.
“Chaz [Mostert] had a few moments and I thought, ‘Here we go, I’m going to get him, and then I was following him in, in a few cases, so it was a tough one.
“But yeah, I thought it was overall good racing; you know, we followed fairly closely for a fair few of those laps”
Mostert, the runner-up today at the Thrifty Bathurst 500, was more cautious in his take given the challenge of the dust but believes it would probably be a positive move.
“There’s a lot less marbles on the track at the end of 250km but, in saying that, for whatever reason, the dust out there was probably the worst it’s been for quite some time,” he noted.
“Talking to the guys at the podium, we all thought we all had about three or four moments across the top where we all thought we were kind of going in.
“On that hard tyre, when we pick up that dust, it doesn’t clear straight away.
“So, if there was no dust today, I would have thought maybe the marbles not on the track was a positive, but someone with a lot more money can make the decision.”
Broc Feeney was quite enthusiastic about a change back to the hard.
“I’m a fan of it,” he declared.
“I think I was able to push a lot harder than what I could have in the 1000.
“Obviously the stints are a bit shorter here this weekend but, especially in the last couple of stints, I felt like I was able to attack more.
“For me, where we qualified at [compared] to race pace is probably half what it was at the 1000.
“We qualified at a ‘four’ [2:04s] at the 1000 and raced in the ‘eights’; we still raced in the eights today but qualified at a ‘six’.
“So, I’m a fan of it, I think it’s better. As the boys said, marbles were less today.
“Obviously we’ll find out in a 1000-kay race, and we’ll see what they come up with, but I thought it was a positive.”
Garth Tander, a five-time Bathurst 1000 winner and set to contest this year’s enduros again with Grove Racing, weighed in on the topic on television following the post-race press conference.
He called on Supercars to listen to what the drivers had to say, while also echoing Feeney’s comment about being able to push harder.
“I drove in the 1000 here on the soft tyre [and] there were marbles everywhere,” noted Tander.
“When I jumped in the car for the second stint, I was scared to look off-line because there was a lot of marbles.
“So, we 100 percent have the listen to the drivers that drove the cars this weekend, and the 1000 last year, and understand exactly what they want.
“Listening to the press conference, it sounds like the hard tyre is how they want to go.
“It looked like Mostert versus Brown versus Feeney for those last 10 laps today were going at it hammer and tongs and extracting everything out of the car.
“You weren’t able to do that last year; you had to manage the tyre all the way through their stint.
“Listen to those that drove the cars.”
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