Opinion – Nigel Chiu: Why the V8 Supercars is my favourite motorsport series

“The Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, (formerly known as the V8 Supercars championship) is my favourite motorsport series in the world, I crave everything about it” starts Chiu.

I’m not an Aussie but my passion for the series is massive and I’m a fan of lots of motorsport championships (yes, not just F1). That said, I will always watch F1 no matter how bad it gets but as a motorsport fan, you must watch other motorsport championships which are more exciting and thrilling.

Firstly, the racing for me is some of the best in the world. The racecraft of the whole field is top notch and they all race very hard yet very fairly. The shape of the cars do help as they’re big, fast touring cars with 18 inch tyres and 650BHP.

Bumping the car in front doesn’t do any damage which means you can rub the back of the car in front of you which creates not just some great camera shots and angles but close racing as you can apply lots of pressure for lap after lap. As long as you don’t “bump and run” (bump a car out of the way and overtake) then a little bit of contact is okay.

That just adds to the spectacle as seeing cars make light contact adds to the thrill of the sport. It’s not bumper cars and it’s acceptable racing. In fact, the drivers don’t always make contact when making an overtake but a “love tap” here and there is no harm.

Currently, there are just three different types of car in the Supercars championship. The Nissan Altima, the Ford Falcon FG and the brand new Holden ZB Commodore. Nissan will lose their factory support from next season which is a shame but Ford and Holden will have factory backed teams just to add to the classic Ford vs. Holden rivalry.

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Ford will also introduce the Mustang which is a legendary name for Australia and the series. It’s already used in America in the SportsCar Challenge for example. Ford fans can’t wait to see it out on track and it’s the most excited fans have been for the arrival of a new car.

It’s a massive shame that there are only three types of car and that’s the only major downside to the series. Just a few years ago Mercedes and Volvo were in the sport but they quickly left after just 2-3 years. I hope Chevrolet will bring the Camaro into the sport (even though Holden and Chevrolet are very closely related) and perhaps Toyota or Lexus can come into the sport too. I hope Supercars can get on top of the lack of manufacturer interest in the sport.

Speaking of the cars, you may be wondering how they can make three very different cars so close in terms of performance. It’s very clever. The shape of the car stays the same which is a big positive but Supercars homologate new cars to make them competitive.

In the Ford Mustang’s case, the aim is to make the equivalent amount of downforce that the current Ford Falcon makes. How they do this is through things such as the side skirts, the length and width of the rear wing, the endplates, the undertray and a few more important pieces on the car. But that’s as artificial as it gets.

There’s no championship ballast or increase in boost levels which change throughout a season like other touring car series or GT championships have. None of that. After the car is homologated, Supercars leave it down to the teams to develop and tune their cars like F1 teams do. This is great because it means that it’s pure racing which you see on track. No gimmicks are involved during the racing season.

Somehow, Supercars gets the homologation aspect to an excellent standard which means we see so many classic Ford vs. Holden battles. A battle that’s raged on for over 50 years and it one of the most famous and historic rivalries in motorsport. If you leave Ford to go to Holden or vice versa, it can be seen as a defection to some fans, thus the massive rivalry.

It would be like going from Liverpool to Manchester United. (For those of you that like that stuff)

The competition is always so close in the series. There’s a reason why they measure the laptimes to ten thousandths of a second (four decimal places) rather than three decimal places in any other motorsport category. It’s pretty similar to the competitiveness of the British Touring Car Championship.

That’s why they are always on the limit and using every millimetre of the track to get the maximum out of their car. Tiny things like tyre pressures, track conditions, even cloud cover makes a massive difference to the car’s speed. Doing a lap with cloud above the track and a lap without cloud will find you a tonne of speed, you don’t really get that in other motorsports.

Amazing that all of the development and fine tuning over a weekend can come down to a cloud!

The format is something that a lot of other motorsport series should copy. There’s a whole mixture of formats over a season and fans don’t get confused because a race is a race. It’s not that hard to know how long a race is or the rules of the race, especially with the excellent coverage of the sport. For casual fans, they will just turn up and watch the race no matter what the format is.

There’s typically two races per weekend with a short race (120KM) and a long race (200KM) although street circuits usually have two races of the same distance. Then you have the endurance season which has longer races, including the Bathurst 1000 (my favourite race of the whole motorsport year). Even qualifying has lots of variety. Sometimes it’s knockout qualifying, sometimes there’s a top 10 shootout, mostly there’s just a straight 15 or 20 minute session which determines the grid.

Variety is a good thing in motorsport and the series definitely has that.

Even the tracks are unique in their own way. You have European-style circuits, short circuits which can be done in under one minute, street tracks which are right in the middle of a city and of course Mount Panorama. All of them are old school which is great because you get punished if you make a drive error.

The series is actually very harsh when it comes to penalising people. To put it this way, the most lenient penalty is a 15 second time penalty. A tiny error can really hurt your race. What’s good though is that it doesn’t stop the drivers from pushing and racing hard. The stewards are much better than other stewards around the world and they make decisions very quickly and usually accurately as well.

I have to praise the marshals as well. A lot of people say that the British marshals are the best in the world but I think it’s the Australians. They can move a car out of harms way so quickly which means a safety car period is short and the racing can continue. All marshals are excellent to be fair and without them we genuinely couldn’t go motor racing.

Sometimes, national series tend to have less talented drivers are drivers who aren’t exactly the best (to try and put it kindly) but I think the Supercars has an excellent field. Currently, the very best are Jamie Whincup, Shane Van Gisbergan, Chaz Mostert and Scott Mclaughlin and I believe they are all in the top 10 list for the best touring car drivers in the world.

But the midfield drivers are no slouches either. A lot of the Supercars drivers to the Bathurst 12 Hour race in February which contains some of the very best GT drivers and it’s usually the Supercars drivers which are the fastest despite having to get used to the cars which is more important than circuit knowledge.

I would love to see more of them go international when they can because if you look at what SVG (Van Gisbergan) does when he does some GT racing, he’s right on the pace of the best guys.

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Sometimes, F1 doesn’t listen to its fans but Supercars definitely does. The format and the places where the series go is all done for the benefit of the fans. The recent Sydney Motorsport Park Saturday night race was a massive success and the turn out was pretty good. The fans is are a massive part of the sport and they’re all so loyal and passionate. I guess the series is a bit more traditional than other motorsport categories because I don’t think the classic V8 engine currently used, would be used right now if it wasn’t for the love of the noise and history of it from the fans.

To finish off here are some of my favourite moments from the V8 Supercars from the last 10 years or so:

Scott Mclaughlin vs. Jamie Whincup incredible last lap battle

The intense battle between Shane Van Gisbergan and Jamie Whincup

“All in the wall!”

Ford vs. Holden in last laps of Perth

The Greatest finish to the Great Race

The fastest ever lap in a Supercar around Mount Panorama

Controversial, unbelievable conclusion to last year’s championship

There are lots of other great moments and it was hard to choose just some. The Bathurst 1000 alone has had many of the championship’s most memorable moments, some to do with racing, others controversial. These moments don’t just happen by luck, they happen because the competition is so good and the standard is so high. In terms of racing, the series couldn’t be in a better place right now.

In Australia, the coverage of the V8 Supercars is superior to anything else. It is behind a paywall on Fox Sports but it’s worth paying for, if you can. It’s much better value for money than Sky Sports F1 in my opinion. Neil Crompton and Mark Skaife call the race and do a fantastic job with their experience and insight.

Presenter Mark Larkham is one of my favourite people in motorsport. He literally touches the cars when they come down the pitlane and gets millimetres away from the pit crew while they’re doing the tyres or fuel. You don’t get that kind of access in any other motorsport series. It makes for standout coverage.

He makes complex things simple, which is harder than you think and is an absolute nutcase in many ways! The whole broadcasting team do a stellar job, from camera angles, to the reporters and features that they do.

That’s just an overview of why I love this series. I wish I got into it a bit earlier because it really has made me scream and shout whenever I watch it.

It puts me on the edge of my seat nearly every time.