The Red Bull Holden Racing Team has enjoyed plenty of success over the years. Bathurst 1000 victories and Supercars championships have been plentiful, but just occasionally the team finds itself way off the pace.
Nowhere has this been more evident than at the Victorian circuit of Winton, where the team has traditionally struggled, certainly when judged against their achievements at pretty much every other track on the Supercars calendar.
In a sport where success or failure is measured in fractions of a second, and adjusting a setting on the car by half a millimetre isn't uncommon, it leaves engineers scratching their heads when the car is mysteriously off the pace.
Team manager Mark Dutton took Wide World of Sports behind the scenes at Triple Eight Engineering, explaining just how frustrating it can be when the car is just plain slow.
"They're not fun days, those ones," Dutton said.
"We've had those in the past, Winton is a classic, where you're nowhere and you're trying everything and it's just not responding.
"Normally we're doing small, minute changes to fine-tune the car, but when you're doing big, wholesale changes you know you're in trouble!
"And it's even worse when the car just doesn't respond."
According to Dutton, who prior to becoming team manager spent seven years as Jamie Whincup's engineer, there's usually an underlying issue to the lack of pace.
"Inevitably it's because you're outside what we call the window, which is the range where the car works. You've got something fundamentally wrong," he said.
"Often it's the tyre pressures, that's a classic. Sometimes they're just that far wrong the car won't respond, because the grip just isn't there.
"If you don't have the grip to begin with, it doesn't matter what else you do. You're nowhere."
When Dutton says the car is "nowhere" he really means it might be a second off the pace, or even less. It's a lifetime in motor racing, but to the average punter strapped in beside Whincup or Shane van Gisbergen for a hot lap, it wouldn't be noticeable.
And it's when a member of the public is given the experience of a ride alongside the best drivers in the sport that they really appreciate what the car can do.
"The thing that they always mention when they get out is the brakes," Dutton said.
"When the driver really stands on the brakes the car stops incredibly well, and the g-forces are a surprise to a lot of people.
"It's quite easy to have a high-horsepower road car, you can get big grunt in a street car, so people aren't as surprised by that.
"Because lots of horsepower is sexy, people will typically spend their money on that first, before they spend it on their brakes.
"But the thing with spending your money on brakes or the handling of the car, is they can be used legally all the time. It's legal to stop as quick as you can, but it's not legal to go as fast as you want.
"The better your brakes, the safer your car is, and the more chance you have of avoiding an emergency situation."
Apart from the brakes, Dutton says most people who experience a hot lap are shocked to discover how busy the drivers are.
"It's very easy for most people at home to watch on TV, and because pretty much everyone drives a road car, everyone sort of thinks it's just like a road car and it can't be that hard," he said.
"It's not until they feel the g-forces, see how busy the driver is, and notice how accurate and precise they are that you appreciate it, especially when the passenger is hanging on for dear life!
"Usually we don't have as much cooling in the car, because you have to take it out for the passenger seat, and with a fireproof race suit it gets hot very quickly.
"They really come away from the ride with a heightened respect for the driver."
COVID-19 has seen a surge in popularity in on-line racing, with Supercars organising an official series that's run each week during the lockdown.
It's prompted many to get behind the wheel of a virtual Commodore or Mustang, and try their hand at circuits like Mount Panorama.
But how would they go if they were strapped into the driver's seat of the real thing?
"If you're trying to be a hero, you'd most likely crash on pit exit. You wouldn't even get up Mountain Straight," Dutton said with a laugh.
"But actually, if you're a bit sensible then the car will drive beautifully. When you're not trying to get that last tenth of a second out of them, these cars drive so easily and so well.
"They've got more grip than any road car you'll ever drive, they've got better brakes, better power delivery.
"Everything is amazing if you're not wringing its neck. It's got power steering, but there's no air-conditioning and the radio is only the engineers or myself as team manager, so the tunes aren't as good."
But Dutton says the ability to push the car to the limit is what makes the likes of Whincup and van Gisbergen so good.
"They're actually a pleasure to drive if you're cruising around, but make no mistake, if you're trying to get a lap time out of them, they're really difficult to drive," he said.
"They behave so nicely up to a point, but when you push them to the limit, that's when they're challenging."
from WWOS http://wwos.nine.com.au/motorsport/supercars-red-bull-holden-racing-team-triple-eight-behind-the-scenes-mark-dutton/05c5b42a-06d5-4649-ae89-be7f545ca146
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