The information that former Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric will race a Supercar within the championship finale on the streets of Adelaide in November is nice for followers of each NASCAR and Supercars.
However any expectations that Cindric, who will drive a Tickford Racing Ford Mustang within the twin 250km races, could possibly replicate what Shane Van Gisbergen did when he took a victory on his NASCAR debut in Chicago two years in the past ought to most likely be placed on maintain.
Racing in Adelaide is a tricky project, even for skilled Supercars pilots. Final yr, the opening qualifying session resulted in disarray when various drivers crashed at Flip 8, inflicting a number of delays and the session being declared due to the circuit’s curfew.
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His soon-to-be Tickford Racing team-mate Thomas Randle urged how onerous will probably be for the American.
“I feel it’ll be difficult for him as a result of he is being thrown within the deep finish,” Randle mentioned.
“Adelaide is much from the simplest monitor on the calendar. It is obtained some fairly brutal corners, clearly Flip 8. He is gonna find it irresistible, I feel it is gonna be nice for him and nice publicity for Supercars and NASCAR. It reveals the crossover is getting even stronger.
“For positive, it’s gonna be most likely a baptism of fireside for him, however it’s cool that he’s coming to do it.”
Cindric is an oval specialist and his kind on highway and road circuits is nice, however not up with the Cup Collection’ highway course specialists. This yr, he has not certified within the high 10 for any of the 4 highway course or road occasions, with a finest beginning place of thirteenth at Watkins Glen, the place he was 0.34s behind pole place. At Sonoma he was 1.14s from pole in twenty fourth place, at Chicago 1.86s away (in twenty seventh) and in Mexico the hole to pole was 0.54s, with Cindric beginning twentieth.
Austin Cindric, Group Penske Ford
Photograph by: Sean Gardner / Getty Photographs
Once you take that common hole to pole of 0.97s and undertaking it onto a Supercars qualifying session, that places Cindric in direction of the again of the grid. If we ignore the red-flag-shortened 2024 session that left half the sphere with no consultant instances, that 0.97s hole would put him twenty third on the grid for the ultimate race of the 2024 season and, a yr earlier, twenty third and twenty first for the 2 2023 races.
Coincidentally, that’s nearly precisely the hole that Supercars co-driver Jack Perkins discovered himself from pole in his second Xfinity NASCAR begin at Portland final week. Perkins drove a stable race from twelfth on the grid the next day and was difficult for third place when he crashed his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota late within the race.
Van Gisbergen’s successes and different performances do counsel that swapping a Supercar for a NASCAR is considerably doable, however doubt stays simply the way it will work out going the opposite means.
Cindric can clearly drive and with sound preparation and a few observe classes on Ford Efficiency’s race simulator, there are few causes to counsel that he’s not able to stepping up and elevating just a few eyebrows. However given the scale of the duty forward, his followers would do properly to not over-inflate their expectations.
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