That’s right folks, we’re back! Supercars, in Sydney, under lights…what else would you want?
It’s been a longer than anticipated ‘unofficial off season’ for the Bulls, but spirits are high and the team and preparing for an eight-week stint on the road to complete our season.
Let’s check in with our drivers, shall we…
“We’ll be doing five rounds without coming back to base, so the preparation on the cars will be very intense before we go away, and then after the Sydney races, we’ll need all of the bits to refresh the cars for Bathurst,” said championship leader, Shane ‘SVG’ van Gisbergen.
“You know, the cars normally have a full rebuild before Bathurst and I’m sure this year will be no different, just that we’ll have to do it on the road. The stock take and the preparation of all our spare parts will be a lot to make sure we have everything we need while we’re away.
“We’ve struggled for pace in Sydney in the past because we didn’t do a good job of understanding the gimmick rules with the tyres last year. There was a whole bunch of other drivers winning and we didn’t do a very good job of picking the right race to get a good result in. We were better than what we showed, but we didn’t go a good job. In one race I had a bloody awesome race with Scotty (McLaughlin) which should have been for the lead, but we were 14th and 15th.”
“Night racing is great, from inside the car everything just feels faster. It’s nice to see how cool the cars look, but you only do a few little things different like highlighted colours inside the car so you can still see all of your switches, but when you’re racing there’s not much different, it’s just awesome.”
As for Jamie ‘JDub’ Whincup, although heading into the home stretch of full-time racing, it’s all systems go for his return to racing.
“We will attack each race meeting like any other – prepare well and treat them as individual events. Yes, there are a few extra challenges but motorsport is already full of them so a few more is all part of the challenge,” he said.
“We are aware that at times we haven’t been the most competitive cars around the flowing SMSP circuit. We have been working on a fix all year and will make sure we make the most of practice to do as much learning as possible.
“In reality it is as the engine and tyres are running cooler and therefore faster, but you just feel like you’re going so much faster. Provided we all don’t have the headlights blazing, the cars look good from the tele as well.”
