Drivers coming unstuck on new surface, kerbs

Drivers are being caught out on the newly-resurfaced Adelaide circuit as they continue to push the limits.

The first two days of the VALO Adelaide 500 have been headlined by record lap times and high-profile mistakes.

Notably, the two leading drivers in the championship have all had moments.

Cam Waters bowled a wide at Turn 11 in Practice 2 and scraped the concrete wall.

Later, Shane van Gisbergen locked a brake and ran off at Turn 14 in qualifying.

It cost the champion-elect a Shootout berth, and he will start 25th — and last — for Saturday’s race.

Thursday’s action also saw Macauley Jones become the first victim of Adelaide’s notorious Turn 8.

Most of the 3.2km track — from Turn 9 back to Turn 7 — was resurfaced ahead of the event.

Grip is higher than ever, and drivers are pushing hard — Brodie Kostecki calling the new surfaced a “whole new challenge”.

For provisional pole man Chaz Mostert, the increased grip is seeing drivers push too hard, notably at Turn 13 where van Gisbergen made his mistake.

“The grip level is up so much... we’re going probably faster through there than what we normally have,” said Mostert.

"I’ve noticed that sometimes you get a bit greedy with the kerb, and you can get a real bad double bounce out of there.

"By the time it recovers, because there is so much [more] grip than other years, you’re almost too late.

“By the time the car settles, you’re already in the grass.

"You can be aggressive, but by turning in too early, it seems like that for me.

"I thought I had a couple of moments there earlier [in Practice 2], so maybe that could be a thing.”

On van Gisbergen’s error, Scott Pye said: "I just saw what happened before — it’s obviously happened to a lot of people.

"It’s a tricky place to get right, and the main thing is, you want to be there at the end.

"When you make a mistake like that, I’m sure he’d be kicking himself.

"That lap probably would have been eclipsed the next lap… it’s high-risk, high-reward and in qualifying.

“When everyone’s so fast, even the very last lap you did, you don’t know if it’s going to be good enough.

“You’re pushing, there’s nothing left on the table… that’s why on this track, we see some mistakes like that.”

Van Gisbergen admitted his car was hard to drive, but was left to rue his mistake.

Anton De Pasquale, who was second between Mostert and Pye, said previous knowledge of the track had been thrown away.

"With the new surface and knowing what we know from previous years we sorta know, we throw a fair bit of that out the window,” he said.

"We're trying to find things and unlock that grip, because there is heaps of grip out there, it just comes and goes pretty quickly."

The Turn 9 hairpin is also proving a bugbear, given the change in surface.

The old surface meets the new surface heading into the right-hander, with many drivers locking up.

"Even Turn 9 is tricky, because we’re all getting pretty greedy on the brakes,” Pye said.

"But 13… I think that double bounce is pretty evil.

“A car that generally has a lot of turn is struggling here more than one that maybe has less at other places.

"Just because the track has so much grip, you’re picking up a lot of front end and the car’s turning really well, which makes it nervous.

"Off the kerb there as well, I think some cars are struggling with a bit of braking instability.

“Which means you carry the brake a little bit too far into the corner.

“Once you lock that inside front, there’s just no forgiveness in that corner.”

Cars will hit the track on Saturday for Practice 3 at 11:00am local time, followed by the ARMOR ALL Top Ten Shootout at 12:35pm.

The first 78-lap race, Race 33 of the 2022 season, will commence at 3:15pm.