Friday fast man SVG wary of 'huge' tyre wear

Shane van Gisbergen has acknowledged “huge" tyre wear will play a key role in the NTI Townsville 500 weekend’s dual 250km races.

The series leader clocked the quickest time in Friday practice ahead of Ford duo Will Davison and Cameron Waters.

It came after van Gisbergen was only good enough for ninth in Practice 1, which was topped by David Reynolds.

The Red Bull Ampol Racing driver arrived in Townsville with a 221-point series lead over teammate Jamie Whincup, who was sixth in both sessions on Friday.

Tyre degradation of the Dunlop Soft compound was a talking point on Friday; notably, Waters said it was “amazing” how much they were falling away.

That sentiment was echoed by van Gisbergen, who felt the biggest pinch when he rolled out on used tyres for Practice 2.

It bodes for a dramatic weekend of racing, with Townsville to stage two 88-lap marathons around the Reid Park Street Circuit this weekend.

“Certainly in racing, you’re going to have to think about tyre wear,” he said.

“Starting P2 on the old P1 tyres, the deg was huge here.

“Hopefully that makes for good racing for us.”

Despite setting the fastest time of the day, van Gisbergen was far from satisfied with his and his car’s performance.

It took applying Whincup’s Practice 1 set-up to the #97 to make the series leader a better proposition in the afternoon session.

While nonplussed about the impact of qualifying, having won from 12th last year, the New Zealander was pleased he was able to turn it around between sessions on Friday.

“My car wasn’t very good at all,” he said.

“Like Darwin, we tried some things and they still didn’t work.

“That’s the beauty of these three-day events; you can try some stuff, be methodical and apply the right thought process and take your time with it.

“We basically bolted Jamie’s P1 car on for that session, and the car felt great again.

“That’s part of racing; we’re always trying stuff and always trying to get better. It didn’t work, and we’ll try the next thing.”

Cars will roll out for ARMOR ALL Qualifying at 11:15am AEST on Saturday.