Van Gisbergen forecasts 'tough' Newcastle

Shane van Gisbergen is anticipating a “tough” Thrifty Newcastle 500 to open the Gen3 era.

The Newcastle streets will host their first Supercars races since November 2019, which will be the first of the brand-new cars.

All 25 cars will test at Sydney Motorsport Park at Wednesday, the only time all 25 cars will share the track before Newcastle.

The last two weeks have seen all 25 cars complete track running for the first time.

Van Gisbergen’s Red Bull Ampol Racing has completed one day of running, back at Queensland Raceway on Thursday February 9.

Nearly two weeks will have passed between running for Triple Eight, with nine others teams running since then.

The team completed a “faultless” shakedown — with van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney combining for approximately 650km — but for van Gisbergen, there’s still “a lot of uncertainty”.

“Very tough first round,” van Gisbergen said.

“There’s a lot of anticipation… I don’t know what it’s going to be like, no one does.

“There’s a lot going on but a lot of uncertainty still too with the cars and rules and all that stuff.

"I’m just focusing on my stuff and we’ll see... just take it as it comes.”

The new Gen3 Camaro is a big change for two-time defending champion — and three-time overall — for van Gisbergen.

The New Zealander won two of the last three Repco Bathurst 1000s and the last two drivers’ championship titles in the same Commodore chassis.

Van Gisbergen paid tribute to his team for its role in the Gen3 project, which Jamie Whincup described as Triple Eight’s “biggest achievement”.

“I think the new cars look cool, especially the shape of it,” he said.

“The design and engineering team at Triple Eight have done a huge amount of work for the category along with a couple of other teams.

“Our mechanics have also done some crazy hours the last couple of months. The whole team has done a great job to get these cars ready the last couple of years.

"When we rolled out at our first test day, the cars ran faultlessly, so that was awesome and a testament to their work."

The 2023 Repco Supercars Championship will commence at the Thrifty Newcastle 500 on March 10-12.

Tickets are on sale on Supercars.com and Ticketek.com.