Daniel Ricciardo, Rick Kelly, Calder Park, 2019

Pictures: Ricciardo drives an Australian Supercar

2019 F1 season

Posted on

| Written by

Daniel Ricciardo had his first run in an Australian Supercar at Calder Park ahead of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.

The new Renault F1 driver, who had never previously driven a tin-top, took the wheel of Rick Kelly’s Nissan Altima L33. The car has a V8 engine producing around 635bhp.

Ricciardo described his first experience of a Supercar as “Awesome.”

“I expected it to be good,” he said. “It’s not like I didn’t expect it, but I’ve never really driven any serious race car with a roof on it, it’s always been formula cars, so I didn’t really know what to expect either.”

The Supercars championship will support this weekend’s F1 race at Albert Park. For the second time, the round will count towards the championship.

“I’ve always loved Supercars for how close they race, the bit of bumping and just having that judgement at that speed is pretty cool,” added Ricciardo.

“With F1, obviously we race close but you don’t really get as much touching because just the way that the cars are built and they’re a bit more, I guess, fragile, but for these guys to still be doing well over 200 kays and be pushing bumpers, it’s good fun.”

Pictures: Daniel Ricciardo drives an Australian Supercar

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2019 F1 season

Browse all 2019 F1 season articles

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

21 comments on “Pictures: Ricciardo drives an Australian Supercar”

  1. I’ve been in the pax seat with a current top driver in one of these Supercars at Eastern creek and vouch for their awesomeness. They go harder than you might think and deceptively good mechanical grip and braking.

    1. @glennb – are you just a regular fan, or did you have some corporate ties that got you in that seat? I’d love to be driven in a car like that by a pro!

      1. @phylyp – A bit of both mate. Life long fan of touring cars, supercars etc. Also worked for a big Australian airline where I was responsible for purchasing (lots of) safety equipment etc from 3M. 3M were a major sponsor for Stone Brothers Racing at the time and I got an invite from 3M to attend the ride day. It was back when SVG drove for them. I think he was 20 at the time. I was lucky enough to get paired with Shane on the day.

        1. Cheers, Glenn!

  2. I must say it was good to see the drivers and team principals being introduced in Melbourne today. Mark Webber and some shiela spoke briefly to each one of them before they went on an autograph signing session. I was impressed by the size of Lewis’ arms in a tee-shirt. Looks like he could crush a coconut with those biceps ;) Seb had obviously been practicing his Australian and almost pulled it off. Always good value when Seb and Mark get together in public.
    For those who are interested (Dieter), I had a pie and peas for lunch, followed by 3 beers :)

  3. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    13th March 2019, 11:57

    I don’t know what classifies as a supercar. A large 4 door car with loads of power? Just strip out and give a people carrier even more power and could that be called a supercar?

    If it is the performance that gives it the name, then i guess it is. But a Nissan isn’t exactly Australian.

    So if the British took a pretty standard but large car from another country and striped it out and gave it loads of power, could it really be called a British supercar?

    I believe what Ricciardo is driving was turned into something that will perform like a super car. And it will have been made like this by Australians, but that wasn’t exactly it’s originality.

    I’ve always thought of a supercar as being designed to be very aerodynamic and powerful in the first place. This just looks like a heavily adapted standard car. But then it does take part in the Supercars championship. I just never thought of cars like this as being Supercars.

    1. No, these look like road saloons but are a 1100kg 650kg proper race car weapons. They are only a couple seconds a lap slower around bathurst than than those gt3 cars like audi r8, Mercedes slr, Bentley, mclaren, Nissan gtr that do the bathurst 12 hour race.

    2. @thegianthogweed
      Yeah I get where your coming from. I stopped watching back in the 90’s when Cochrane took over, he really killed the series in my opinion. They used to be called touring cars and originally they were mix of ordinary family sedans, European sports sedans and high performance Australian cars with multiple classes and some amazingly close racing, they made Bathurst famous., it truly was the great race.
      These ‘super cars’ (V8 supercars at first) are slower than a formula Ford around any given track. But lots of people like their stock car cross demolition derby style.

      1. Lap records Hidden Valley

        Formula Ford Australia Ryan Simpson Spectrum 011c Ford 1:12.9052
        Supercars Australia Nick Percat Holden ZB Commodore 1:06.5590

        eastern creek

        Formula Ford Cameron Hill Mygale SJ10A 1.34.5519
        V8 Supercars Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore ZB 1.29.8424

        just saying

        1. @greg-c
          Yes I’m wrong with the on any given track statement. But take into account that the F Ford engine is a practically a standard 1.6 liter 4 cylinder from the early 70’s with a single twin barrel carby. The 5 sec gap advantage the V8 has on power tracks is far from impressive.
          How would the V8’s fair on a tighter track?

          1. @johnrkh They’re not designed for tighter tracks…?

            That’s like saying an F1 car is slow because it’s slower than a go-kart around a go-kart track.

        2. @justrhysism

          They’re not designed for tighter tracks…?

          Haha I didn’t even come close to saying that. I do remember Craig Lowndes description of a commodore ‘race car’ after coming back from Europe…like driving a block of flats.
          Would a current F1 car fit on a go-cart track?

          1. @johnrkh probably with a Monaco steering rack. Would be difficult to overtake though.

            Those early V8s were pretty heavy. They’re a lot lighter these days.

            The change Cochrane made was necessary because all the international manufacturers started beating the home grown cars and the Aussies didn’t like that. It would’ve fizzled out in one way or another.

            I mean, it’s almost a spec series, and it’s usually pretty close hard bumper car racing. Lots of drama. I like it – but don’t watch it because Foxtel.

    3. @thegianthogweed, they are called a “supercar”, but in reality the name is a misnomer because it is a silhouette racing series.

      The chassis, differential, rear suspension and brakes, amongst other parts, are all standardised parts designed for racing – I believe that there is even the option of buying a generic engine directly from the governing body. It is really more along the lines of the SuperGT series or DTM, where the cars are built around a standardised bespoke chassis and suspension components and the exterior bodywork is just shaped to roughly resemble a road car.

      In fact, the comparison with SuperGT and DTM is perhaps appropriate because the V8 Supercars series has considered introducing the option for teams to use turbocharged V6 or I4 engines. The option of introducing the latter format does sound rather similar to the standardised engine format that SuperGT and DTM agreed to as part of their joint development programme, and may even be intended to encourage manufacturers in SuperGT or DTM to branch out into the V8 Supercars series by offering an opportunity to reuse the same engine in their series.

    4. “Supercar” is just the name used for the series. It was formerly called, and is equivalent to what is still known elsewhere as, a Touring Car championship.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercars_Championship
      https://www.supercars.com/

  4. This is a very small summary of his interviews, he also talked about the precision needed to drive these and the noise, he said he should have bought ear plugs. Still they rev lower and have less horsepower and sheer noise than nascar, but much faster around a race track that isn’t an oval. Now that the series has abandoned other engine options like v6 turbo, they should call it V8 supercars again.

    1. Im pretty sure they renamed it as to to maybe attract different manufacturers that may want to run a different spec engine? Im sure it will be inevitable that holden will eventually bring in the V6 turbo

  5. Danny ric clearly not trying to lose half his home fan base by revealing if he’s a Ford man or a Holden man!!!

    1. Webber was the same, though i think he might be a Ford man

    2. Are you saying he’s Holden out on us?

Comments are closed.