An invasion of Supercar drivers is giving a strong Australian flavour to this weekend’s BNT V8 SuperTourers endurance races at Hampton Downs.
Seven of the field in the Waikato 400, feature class in the Hankook Super Series, are current full-time V8 Supercar drivers and another eight are taking part in this year’s Supercar endurance races, including the 1000km Bathurst classic next month.
The two top entries look like the Kiwi-Aussie pairings of Shane Van Gisbergen-Alex Davison and Scott McLaughlin-Jonathon Webb – all four drivers are full-time Supercar racers and indeed all except Davison have won races this year.
Of the other full-timers, new sensation Chaz Mostert crosses the Tasman to join Hamilton’s Ant Pedersen, Lee Holdsworth partners Aucklander Tim Edgell and Tim Slade drives with Cantabrian Richard Moore.
Holdsworth, who drives for the Erebus Mercedes team, says the top Australian drivers are well aware of the status of the Kiwi SuperTourers championship.
“There’s been plenty of talk about it over here,” he said. “Everyone’s pretty excited about going over there and having a bit of fun. I’ve never driven one but I’ve heard they’re similar to the V8 Supercar.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do since the series started. There’s been a lot of interest from the V8 [Supercar] drivers.”
Davison, who has also partnered Van Gisbergen in Supercars, expects the pace to be frantic, with no need to nurse the cars through the long races.
“These days whether it’s V8 SuperTourers or V8 Supercars or GTs or whatever, the cars are so reliable and strong the old discipline of having to look after the car isn’t really an issue and more and it’s just balls-out every lap,” he said.
Kiwi hero Greg Murphy is no longer a regular Supercar driver but he leads the SuperTourer championship and is driving with the Holden Racing Team in the Australian Supercar endurance races. Aussie Jack Perkins rejoins Murphy after their successful partnership last year, when they won the Pukekohe 500 together.
Among the other Kiwi drivers, John McIntyre, Craig Baird, Daniel Gaunt and Jonny Reid all have co-driving roles in the V8 Supercar long-distance races.
Angus Fogg has recruited rising Aussie star Dale Wood, a leader in the Dunlop V8 Supercar Development Series, and Andre Heimgartner again races with Paul Morris, a long-time Supercar driver now also in the Development Series.
This weekend’s programme for the SuperTourers consists of qualifying and one 100km race on Saturday and two 150km races on Sunday. In each race each car must make a pit stop to change drivers.
Strategy comes into these longer races, including decisions on the timing of pit stops and whether or not to change tyres at the stops. Last year teams found the durable Hankook tyres could last a whole race, but fitting new tyres would make the car faster over the second part of the race. Each car is allocated 10 new tyres for the weekend.
Auckland driver Andy Booth says a good driver change can take about 13 seconds but changing wheels – with five studs for each wheel – can take 19 seconds, and a mistake such as dropping a nut could make the stop much longer.
Teams try to choose drivers of similar physiques, as pit stops take longer when the driving position has to be changes.
The endurance series, which carries its own title and prizes, is the concluding section of the overall 2013 BNT V8 SuperTourers championship, led by Murphy from Pedersen and Van Gisbergen.
The final two rounds are at Hampton Downs again on October 19-20 and Pukekohe on November 29-December 1.
