Virgin Australia LASTCAR Championship: September 2015

Sunday 13 September 2015

Race for last Hots Up as Percat and Gavin finish last at Sandown

Nick Percat picked up his 4th last-place finish of his career, while Oliver Gavin picked up his 1st last-place finish of his career, when their #222 Repair Management Australia Holden retired with Steering dramas after 18 of the race's 161 laps. The finish came in Gavin's 4th start and Percat's 34th start.

After a late-race collision with Jack Perkins in the #22 Mobil 1/SP Tools Holden in the second qualifying race Andre Heimgartner and Ant Pedersen in the unsponsored #111 Super Black Racing Ford started the race in the rear, however almost instantly Steven Richards in the #888 Red Bull Racing Australia Holden fell to the rear of the field after a bad start. By the end of the first lap Chris Pither in the #34 Wilson Security/PAYCE/Valvoline pitted, dropping him to the rear, on lap 8 Russell Ingall in the #22 SP Tools Holden pitted and dropped to the rear, followed a lap later by Dean Fiore in the #23 Nismo Nissan pitted, falling to the rear in the process.

On lap 12 disaster struck for Alex Buncombe in the #7 Carsales.com Nissan was forced to the garage with Fuel Pressure issues, dropping them to the rear on lap 16, 4 laps behind the leaders. Boncombe stayed in last until lap 21 when Oliver Gavin in the #222 Repair Management Australia Holden suffered a suspension failure heading into turn 1, carting the car off the road. The failure left car #222 in the garage, dropping to the rear, only returning to the track on lap 44, nearly 30 laps behind the leaders, however continuing suspension issues eventually knocked car #222 out of the race.

Alex Buncombe's horror race continued on lap 76 when he fired into the sand and got beached, triggering the first safety car of the race. The damage was bad enough that when Todd Kelly got in the car the team had lost another 10 laps. Rounding out the bottom five was Will Davison and Alex Davison in the #9 #stoptheviolence Mercedes, after losing 7 laps having to replace the Starter Motor, Jason Bright in the #8 BOC Holden and David Wall in the #34 Wilson Security/Payce/Valvoline Volvo.

The Bottom Five

Nick Percat/Oliver Gavin	18 Laps	Steering
Todd Kelly/Alex Buncombe	147 Laps	Running
Will Davison/Alex Davison	154 Laps	Running
Jason Bright/Andrew Jones	160 Laps	Running
David Wall/Chris Pither	160 Laps	Running

Driver's Championship

Scott McLaughlin: 5

Ashley Walsh, James Moffat, Nick Percat: 3

Andre Heimgartner, Todd Kelly: 2

Will Davison, David Wall, Garth Tander, Lee Holdsworth, Chazz Mostert, Fabian Coulthard, Jason Bright: 1

Team's Championship

Gary Rodgers Motorsports: 6

Erebus Motorsport: 4

Nissan Motorsports. Lucas Dumbrell Motorsports: 3

Super Black Racing, Brad Jones Racing, Jack Daniel's Racing: 2

Holden Racing Team, Charlie Schwerkolt Racing, Prodrive Racing Australia: 1

Manufacturer's Championship:

Holden: 7

Volvo: 6

Nissan: 5

Mercedes: 4

Ford: 3

The 2015 Pirtek Enduro Cup Entry List.

I am going to be covering the 2015 Pirtek Enduro Cup. Each of the next four races, at Sandown, Bathurst and Surfer's Paradise, will be a 2-driver endurance race. As a note, I will be referencing the driver that is currently in the car when a major event happens that puts them last at the time, so I have decided to supply the entry list for the Pirtek Enduro cup in order to help clear up any confusion.

Car No.	Primary Driver	Co-Driver
#1	Jamie Whincup	Paul Dumbrell
#888	Craig Lowndes	Steven Richards
#5	Mark Winterbottom	Steve Owen
#6	Chaz Mostert	Cameron Waters
#55	David Reynolds	Dean Canto
#111	Andre Heimgartner	Ant Pedersen
#2	Garth Tander	Warren Luff
#22	James Courtney/Jack Perkins	Jack Perkins/Russell Ingall
#47	Tim Slade	Tony D'Alberto
#18	Lee Holdsworth	Sébastien Bourdais
#14	Fabian Coulthard	Luke Youlden
#8	Jason Bright	Andrew Jones
#21	Dale Wood	Macauley Jones
#97	Shane Van Gisbergen	Johnathon Webb
#17	Scott Pye	Marcos Ambrose
#10	Michael Caruso	Dean Fiore
#99	James Moffat	Taz Douglas
#7	Rick Kelly	David Russell
#15	Todd Kelly	Alex Buncombe
#33	Scott McLaughlin	Alexandre Premat
#34	David Wall	Chris Pither
#4	Ashley Walsh	Jack Le Brocq
#9	Will Davison	Alex Davison
#222	Nick Percat	Oliver Gavin
#3	Tim Blanchard	Karl Reindler

Bathurst Wildcard

#???	Renee Gracie	Simona de Silvestro
#62	Aaren Russell	Drew Russell

How Juniorgeneric defines a Last-Place finisher

Australian V8 LASTCAR'S Official Definition of a "Last-Place Finisher" (LPF)

For the purposes of the Australian V8 LASTCAR championship rankings and statistics, a "Last-Place Finisher" (LPF) is a driver(s) who, after qualifying for a V8 Supercars Championship Points-Paying race, the result must be confirmed from official sources, or unofficial sources failing that. Only one driver (or two in a endurance race) can be classified as the LPF for that race.

Meeting those requirements, the LPF can be any driver classified as such for any reason, including, but not limited to.
1) A "did not start" although it should be noted that there is a difference between my definition of "did not start" and Brock Beard's definition of "Did not Start".
For example, in Bathurst 2015 Chazz Mostert and Cameron Waters' #6 Pepsi Max Ford had a huge accident during practice that injured Mostert and all but wrote off the car. Car #6 was withdrawn, and therefore I don't count Mostert and Waters as finishing last. Under Brock Beard's definition, however, Mostert and Waters would have finished last instead of David Wall and Chris Pither.
2) An entrant who encounters an event once the race has started which prevents the driver(s) from finishing ahead of any other qualified entrants, including both DNFs and drivers who finish under power but laps down*

*Only when all the cars in the race are running ahead of the LPF

3) A decision to “start and park” the driver’s entry (Extremely rare in V8 Supercars)
(4) a disqualification handed down by V8 Supercars and/or track officials that subsequently classifies the driver(s) in the final position behind the unofficial LPF.

Australian V8 LASTCAR shall not consider the LPF as anything else, including but not limited too
1) Any DNQ's
2) Any driver's who's car withdrew before the race start.
3)The lowest-ranked driver who finishes the race under power (unless all cars finished under power, actually quite common in V8 Supercars)
4) A driver(s) who finished last initially, however post-race disqualifications usurped the spot.
5) A driver(s) who may be catagorised as finishing last for exhibition events (I may bring these back at some point in the near future, I need more accurate numbers for the events before I start them up again)
6) Anything in non-V8 Supercar Main game (again, insufficent historical data)
7) A driver who was running last when the checkered flag fell, however because they greeted the checkered flag but a drive who was in front of them at the end of the race, however was not running at the end of the race. In that instance the driver who doesn't finish the race will fall behind the driver whom is still running at the end of the race.

In the rare event where official results or a preponderance of unofficial results are later updated with more accurate information about who was the LPF for that event, Australian V8 LASTCAR rankings and statistics shall be updated to reflect that change.