By Chris Cubbage, Editor
In his role as Chief Executive Officer, Bruce Stewart proudly heads up an annual $15 million Supercar race team for Walkinshaw Andretti United (WAU). Though when it comes to putting the rubber on the road, winning or losing is down to crunching the numbers.
“We’re here to win”, says Stewart, speaking at the Sydney Motorsport Park on day one of the three day Panasonic Air Conditioning Sydney SuperNight.
“We’re into our second year of development on these cars. We’re in the space now where the brainpower and the ways you manage your cars at each track is hugely important.”
Stewart explains, “We’re coming here to Sydney Motorsport Park on a soft tyre compound. There are three tyre compounds, but they mandate one tyre. We have hard soft and super soft. Previously we’ve raced on hard soft at Perth and we’ve raced the super soft at Townsville, and for each, our team’s been very strong. So, we have an idea of how our car is set up.”
“But this is a very different circuit,” Stewart explains in Sydney. “Temperature will be cool, maybe seven to nine degrees when we’re racing, and on a very ‘high deg’ surface. So huge tyre degradation and considerable time loss every lap you go. There is a reward for being the fastest car in qualifying. But there’s also a huge reward in being the fastest ‘race’ car. What we mean by that is, a car that has less tyre degradation over a 20 or 25 lap period versus other cars. When you’re qualifying, you might be a 10th or two tenths quicker and be second or third in the grid, but if you’re losing a tenth over your competitors every lap, you soon find yourself 15th or 20th.
The car is fitted with a MoTeC engine management and data acquisition system, with around 700 MoTec sensors and the ECU (engine control unit) fitted under the dashboard, recording temperature, pressures, velocity, G-Force acceleration and host of other data sets. The data is gathered during the practice sessions, then downloaded and analysed overnight by the data and mechanical engineers to guide the best race strategy. It is worth noting the Victorian based MoTec Group was acquired by Bosch in 2022 to become an integral part of Bosch Motorsport, a 100 per cent Bosch-owned subsidiary based in Abstatt, Germany.
Stewart emphasises the critical insights provided by the data. “The more important data set is our race degradation and understanding the tyre and car setup to race degradation. We will have two or three long runs in the session, with two or three very different setups. Looking at the way the car and the geometry enables the tyre to retain grip through the corner, and we’ll be looking at drivability and the way the driver drives it to try and find the best way to mathematically create a race car that will be very, very strong.”
Supporting and protecting this data, like any business-critical system, is fundamental. Acronis and Think Technology Australia announced their partnership with the eight-time Bathurst 1000 winner WAU Supercars team earlier in 2024. The partnership provides the necessary racing team’s cyber protection posture, delivered by Think Technology Australia. Protecting over 40 major sports teams worldwide, Acronis brings its #TeamUp partner program to Australia, offering managed service providers (MSPs) an opportunity to join forces with leading sports teams, helping them identify cybersecurity risks, block cyberattacks and keep their data safe.
Through the #TeamUp partnership, Think Technology Australia supports WAU with Acronis’ cyber protection, including Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, Acronis Advanced Backup, and Acronis Advanced Management, along with co-managed support.
And as intended, it was reported that the WAU team, with Chaz Mostert at the wheel, claimed victory at Sydney Motorsport Park, with back-to-back wins on Saturday and Sunday at the 2024 Panasonic Air Conditioning Sydney SuperNight.
Stewart highlights the partners contribution to the team. “With partners like Acronis and Think Technology, as well Mobile One and Optus, it’s all about what technical advantage and performance advantage they can assist you with. Our owners have one objective, championships. This is about doing everything we can, using every competitive ounce that we have and using support from our partners to take this thing forward. And it’s really cool, because we know the best is yet to come.”
MySecurity Media attended the Panasonic Air Conditioning Sydney SuperNight courtesy of Acronis.
Track side in the WAU garage at Sydney Motorsport Park
