Preview: Perth 2015

Jamie Whincup – Car #1

“We’ve had mixed results in Perth over the years. We’ve had some great results there, but we’ve struggled at times as well. It’s an unbelievably different circuit to the ones we’ve raced at so far, so we’re not exactly sure where we’ll be in the pecking order, but all I know is that a lot of hard work’s been done over the last five weeks to ensure we improve on our weaknesses that reared their heads at the start of the year. Perth will be a good test to see where we’re at. We call it a break, but we didn’t really have a break. We just weren’t going round in circles! There’s been quite a bit of work done between myself and the engineers to try to improve on where we’re lacking. Socially, I had a great Easter down on the river with the Malibu, so I had a good four or five days off there to recharge the batteries and I’ve been cracking on since then.”

Craig Lowndes – Car #888

“I’m looking forward to heading over to Perth. I think that Barbagallo is a circuit that, like Tassie, has a very quick lap time with a small duration of the track, but it’s very important to get the car balance right. It’s not necessarily a driver or a braking track, it’s all about getting the flow of the car right and looking after the tyres. We know that the bitumen surface wears into the tyres very quickly. Qualifying is also obviously going to be very important like Tassie and having the three races, especially with the soft tyre option on Sunday again, will make it important to get the strategy and the balance of the car right.”

 

 

It’s no secret – Craig is poised to become the sport’s first ever centurion after clocking up his 98th and 99th race wins in Tasmania. And if you’re a numbers kinda guy (or gal), your money would be on him hitting the tonne in Perth. With 15 race wins at Barbagallo Raceway, Lowndesy can not only claim this as his most successful track, he also boasts the most race wins at a single circuit of any driver in ATCC/V8 Supercars history.

Commonly likened to a sandpit due to the wind blowing sand across the track, Barbagallo is already difficult enough to contend with due to the high tyre degradation. As the only other circuit besides Tasmania at which we lap under one minute, qualifying can be tighter than Jamie’s race suit after the Easter bunny’s visit.

Last year marked the first time that every single car finished every single V8 Supercars race across the weekend and was also the first time since 2001 that all the races went uninterrupted by a safety car period or red flag.

 

 

Perth SuperSprint – Barbagallo Raceway

Circuit length: 2.42km

Circuit direction: Clockwise

Average speed: 157km/h

Maximum speed: 252km/h

 

 

2014

JW CL
Qualifying Race 1 11th 2nd
Race 1 17th 6th
Qualifying Race 2 4th 1st
Race 2 3rd 1st
Qualifying Race 3 6th 1st
Race 3 4th 2nd

 

 

Championship standings

1st – Jamie Whincup, 483 points

2nd – James Courtney, 464 points

3rd – Craig Lowndes, 460 points

4th – Garth Tander, 457 points

5th – Shane van Gisbergen, 456 points

 

1st – RBRA, 943 points

2nd – HRT, 921 points

3rd – Pepsi Max Crew, 729 points

4th – BJR, 687 points

5th – Jack Daniel’s Racing, 559 points

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