Start to new Triple Eight era ‘monkey off the back’ – Whincup

Red Bull Ampol Racing team principal Jamie Whincup says the start of the team’s new era was a ‘monkey off the back’ following Shane van Gisbergen’s victory in the season-opener at Sydney Motorsport Park.

The seven-time Supercars champion, who stepped down from driving at the end of last season to effectively replace outgoing boss Roland Dane, is now leading what is a much-changed outfit for the 2022 campaign.

Triple Eight Engineering has been in the spotlight ahead of the opening round of the year already, as it announced it was to take legal action against its former race engineer David Cauchie, who it believes is in breach of contract having started his new role at Grove Racing.

But despite the ongoing battle off-track, Whincup was understandably relieved to begin his tenure as team principal with a winning start.

“It’s a bit of a monkey of the back to be honest,” Whincup told Fox Sports.

“Shane did a great job out there, what a race. So many different strategies, everyone put their supersofts tyres on at a different stage of the race, it was fantastic.

“It couldn’t be better, obviously there’s a lot of momentum which has carried on from a long time but there was certainly some pressure there to make sure we perform this year.

“It’s only round one, but we couldn’t be happier to get a race win.”

Key to van Gisbergen’s victory in the opening 300km race of the season was the team’s decision to move the defending champion onto the quicker supersoft tyres at the second stop, while also putting less fuel in the Kiwi’s Holden Commodore.

That allowed van Gisbergen to keep his pace high approaching the final stop and make the switch to fresh soft tyres for the final 10 laps while rivals Will Brown and Anton De Pasquale were at the end of the performance window on their own softs.

“That was a team win,” said van Gisbergen post-race.

“I had no idea what was happening in the middle of the race there, but an awesome job by the team.

“We’ve had some big changes in the team – which has been well talked about – but the team feels the same, it’s a great way to start but there’s a long way ahead of us so we need to keep working and not get too carried away with ourselves.

“The car is really good, we’re getting closer in qualifying but Anton was unreal this afternoon. We could get a bit better there but in a 300km race it doesn’t really matter where you start.”