Teams eager for crucial test days

Teams will be hoping to find answers at test days this week with the first season of the Gen3 era a third of the way complete.

Several teams will test at Queensland Raceway and Winton Motor Raceway this week ahead of next month’s betr Darwin Triple Crown.

Teams have completed four rounds since pre-season testing ended, with some also turning in test days, ride days and rookie days along the way.

Notably, Team 18 snuck in a test day prior to the last-start NED Whisky Tasmania SuperSprint.

First cab off the rank is Tickford Racing, which will run a rookie day for Thomas Randle and Declan Fraser at Winton on Tuesday.

Tickford returns on Wednesday with all full-time drivers and enduro co-drivers for a full test day.

Walkinshaw Andretti United and Brad Jones Racing will also join Tickford at Winton on Wednesday, as will Penrite Racing for a Matt Payne rookie test.

All BJR drivers bar Jaxon Evans will take part in the test, having announced its full line-up last week.

Lee Holdsworth and Fabian Coulthard will join WAU and drivers Chaz Mostert and Nick Percat.

Erebus, meanwhile, will undertake an evaluation day at Winton on Wednesday with Erebus Academy driver Jay Hanson and fellow Super2 racer Cooper Murray.

Hanson and Murray will be joined by Will Brown, and will drive the #9 Coca-Cola Camaro that has won three of the last five races.

North of the border on Thursday, Red Bull Ampol Racing, Shell V-Power Racing Team and Matt Stone Racing will complete test days at Queensland Raceway.

Triple Eight and Dick Johnson Racing will field its full enduro line-ups, with the former also testing its Craig Lowndes/Zane Goddard wildcard.

Shane van Gisbergen is one driver desperate to test, with Erebus Motorsport enjoying leads in the drivers’ and teams’ championships.

“We need the test probably more than ever,” van Gisbergen said.

“At a race weekend, it’s pretty hard to go outside your circle with set-up and get too adventurous.

“We don’t need to find that much, but we really want to try some things and we’ll look at different avenues of set-up that we probably don’t have the time to do at a race weekend, so it’s very important.”

WAU Ford star Mostert added: “There are a lot of things we want to keep trying. We’re trying to work out things.

"The cars are running without fault now, we really need to hammer down at the test day and see if we can learn something."

Tickford’s James Courtney added: “Hopefully we go to Darwin and we’ll both have a clean weekend, and get some good results.

“We have a test day until now and then, which will be really good.

“It’s a good way to roll into that and try some new things.”

The 2023 season will resume at the betr Darwin Triple Crown on June 16-18.

Mid-season testing schedule

Tuesday May 30 (Winton)

Wednesday May 31 (Winton)

Thursday June 1 (Ipswich)