Supercars: Five-time champion Mark Skaife shares his top performers, drives and those who need to lift from season 2024
Ahead of the final round of the season on the streets of Adelaide, Supercars great Mark Skaife shares his top performers, drives and those who didn’t live up to expectations in 2024.
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Supercars great Mark Skaife has hailed the consistency of championship frontrunner Will Brown as “extraordinary” this year as he anointed the Triple Eight star as his champion of season 2024.
As Supercars prepares to crown a new champion at this weekend’s season-ending Adelaide 500, Skaife said Brown had excelled after filling the “big shoes” of triple series champion turned NASCAR racer Shane van Gisbergen.
Brown is in pole position to claim his maiden championship, holding a 180-point lead over Triple Eight teammate Broc Feeney – the only other driver still in mathematical contention for the Supercars title.
Leading into the final round of the season on the streets of Adelaide, Skaife shared his top performers, drives and those who didn’t live up to expectations in 2024.
SEASON CHAMPION
Will Brown (Triple Eight)
Skaife said Brown, 26, had lived up to big expectations after signing with Triple Eight as van Gisbergen’s replacement in an unblemished campaign.
“You just can’t go away from Will Brown and what he has done over the course of the year,” Skaife said.
“There has obviously been the swings and roundabouts between the two teammates on either side of the (Triple Eight) garage throughout the course of the season, there has been some sliding door moments attached to both of their campaigns really.
“But in the main, Will’s consistency has just been extraordinary.
“(He had) big shoes to fill. I think we haven’t really covered that well enough that when you arrive at a new team, replacing one of the best drivers of all time, there is a big expectation.
“For all of Will’s larrikin smile and demeanour, behind all that there would have been a very hard core focused campaign that needed to deliver each weekend at all the various venues and in various conditions.
“There were races throughout the course of the year where we saw him not make a mistake.
“In the circumstances of him joining a new team and having to take up that mantle it has been a very, very impressive performance.
QUALIFYING MASTER
Cam Waters (Tickford Racing)
Skaife said Ford ace Waters had once again proven his status as Supercars’ one-lap master.
Waters, who won the Supercars pole award in 2022, leads the field with six pole positions so far this season, ahead of Broc Feeney on four.
Skaife said Waters had benefited from Tickford’s shift to from a four car to two-car program in 2024.
“I’m going to go with Cam Waters, he has obviously got the numbers,” the Fox Sports expert said.
“I think that they have actually found something across the year.
“When we put the whole helicopter view on top of these sorts of performances, it actually goes to the core of going back to two cars. Having a campaign running two cars instead of four and having a proper more business-like approach to their lead cars and therefore getting that car – as in the Cam Waters car – to be more consistent pretty much everywhere, I thought was really impressive.
“He is one of the superstars of our sport, there is no doubt about it, but that team has definitely lifted.”
TOP ROOKIE
Ryan Wood (Walkinshaw Andretti United)
Skaife said the young Kiwi, who was promoted at WAU to race alongside Chaz Mostert this year, had impressed him with his pace in his debut Supercars campaign.
“I think there has been glimpses of real pace from Ryan Wood,” Skaife said.
“I have been really impressed with his speed at certain points. As crazy as this sport is, at its core, it’s all about being fast. I know it sounds really simple, but that is actually fundamentally the thing that we look at mostly.
“If I was a race team owner, I would be looking all the time at kids with just genuine outright speed …. you’ve got to be fundamentally fast and he looks like he has got that.
“It’s a big assignment when you are parked alongside Chaz Mostert at the other side of the garage, but there have been times where he has been almost exactly the same sort of pace as Chaz, which is very impressive.
“There are a few in the field that have outperformed probably what was my expectation and Ryan Wood for pace is probably the one that stands out for me.”
BIG IMPROVER
James Golding (PremiAir Racing)
In his second full season with PremiAir Racing, Golding has jumped from a finish of 16th in the drivers championship in 2023 to now be sitting sixth leading into the Adelaide finale.
Skaife said Golding’s 2024 performance had reflected PremiAir as a team on the rise.
“I think James Golding has shown glimpses of brilliance as we have been sort of predicting for a little while and they (PremiAir) are getting better and better,” Skaife said.
“I can see week in week out that they are getting better. Building a really good team is bloody hard and it’s not just one thing, it is about 40 or 50 things that you have got to do each weekend really well.
“And I can just see with (team owner) Pete Xiberras … and there is a cast of people in the joint that just look like they’ve got a bit of momentum again.
“Golding, for him to be sixth … outside of Triple Eight, Tickford, Walkinshaw or DJR, no one has been anywhere near that position in the championship for a while outside those teams.
“So when you cast your mind back and think about it, would you say sixth position for him is a really good result? You’d say, ‘Absolutely’.”
TOP DRIVE OF THE YEAR
Andre Heimgartner (Brad Jones Racing)
Skaife hailed the drive from Heimgartner in treacherous conditions to win his home race in a rain-soaked opening leg in Taupo, New Zealand, as the best drive he had seen for the year.
In a wet and wild battle at the NZ circuit, Heimgartner delivered a masterclass in the slippery conditions to claim his first win in three years and the second of his Supercars career.
“I thought Heimgartner’s drive in the wet in New Zealand was absolutely outstanding,” Skaife said.
“I know there are a lot of Kiwis in the field that are very, very good in the wet, but I thought that was a really pressure filled race and through the course of that event there were lots of chances to make a mistake and slip off or whatever.
“For him to win that race in Taupo was outstanding with that level of pressure.”
DIDN’T DELIVER
Dick Johnson Racing
After a challenging season last year on track, Skaife said the famous Ford squad “hasn’t delivered” in 2024.
Leading into the season finale in Adelaide, DJR sits fifth in the team standings, while veteran Will Davison sits ninth and Team 18-bound Anton De Pasquale 11th in the drivers standings.
“As a team, DJR is one that we just expect more from and it hasn’t delivered,” Skaife said.
“Within that you say guys like Anton and Will, who we know are basically championship contenders, haven’t been able to show their wares for most of the season.
“As the quasi Ford factory team, the homologation team there was a lot of pressure on them to get into the first (Gen3) year, which …. would be a big part of what may have hurt their performance last year, but I really expected them to go better this year and they haven’t.
“On weekends when there has either been a Mostert car going well or a Cam Waters car going well, and sometimes one of the Grove cars going well …. it’s been demonstrated plenty of times that various Mustangs have basically been the fastest cars in the field, but really DJR hasn’t been there.”
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Originally published as Supercars: Five-time champion Mark Skaife shares his top performers, drives and those who need to lift from season 2024
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