Supercars champ disqualified from R1

The protest lodged on Saturday night by Tickford Racing and Walkingshaw Andretti United has been upheld by the race stewards.Triple Eight now has 60 minutes to lodge an intent to appeal, which the team is expected to do.If the team does notify intent to appeal, it will then have 72 hours to formally lodge an appeal.For now, Cam Waters has been elevated into the race leader ahead of Chaz Mostert, with Brodie Kostecki moving onto the podium.MORE TO COME FANS FEAR SUPERCARS TITLE RACE OVER AFTER ONE RACE Fans are already abandoning hope of a genuine title challenger to Shane van Gisbergen and Triple Eight after the back-to-back Supercars champion romped home in record time at Newcastle on Saturday. Social media was flooded with fears of another SVG procession after van Gisbergen led teammate Broc Feeney to the checkered flag in the season opener, with Tickford’s Cam Waters conceding the Red Bulls were simply “too good”. Will Shane van Gisbergen win the 2023 Supercars title? Late last season van Gisbergen put the world on notice by declaring he would wait to re-sign with Triple Eight until after he had sampled the Gen3 supercars. Vocal in his desire to be properly challenged after a historically dominant 2022 campaign, the Kiwi superstar said it was too early to know whether that challenge would come this year. “It’s never easy – I don’t really know the answer to that yet,” he said. Asked if he was enjoying himself in the new car, van Gisbergen pleaded the fifth: “I’ll pass on that one”. His silence on the Gen3 topic is about the only headache for Triple Eight at the moment. The reigning champion team got its strategy absolutely right and van Gisbergen put on a clinic in tyre nursing and race pace.That despite the three-time Supercars champion conceding he still did not feel fully comfortable behind the wheel of his Gen3 Chevrolet Camaro. “All I can think about is understeer and oversteer today and trying to get better for tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t want to reflect yet because tomorrow could be completely different. I have to make my car better for tomorrow.” Another 95 laps and 250km will greet drivers on Sunday – but with a high chance of rain, the race plan could look drastically different to the one which Triple Eight rode to success in the season opener. “We’ve had zero (time) with the new wet (tyres) this year so it’s going to be a challenge for sure,” van Gisbergen said. Waters refused to entertain the possibility of another dominant Red Bull season after the opening race, promising a more potent Mustang for Sunday. “I don’t think the car was in its best window just because we’ve been chasing it so much,” he said. “It was great today to get it a bit nicer for sure, but we need to put our heads together overnight and massage it a bit more.” Via news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site https://www.news.com.au