Engineer preview: Castrol EDGE Townsville 400
Having won at the Townsville street circuit three times and earned 10 podium finishes, Garth Tander has a stellar record at the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400.
Leading home a Holden Racing Team one-two the last two years, Tander is looking to get his Championship back on track this round and keep it clean after being involved in incidents across the last two events.
Race engineer for car #2 Blake Smith - who moved to HRT from TEKNO Autosports for the 2014 season, to run Tander - believes the 2007 Champion's car will be well suited to the hybrid circuit.
"Typically Garth has a car that is strong on the brakes and has good drive - take that to Townsville and two of the important sectors are ticked off the list," Smith told v8supercars.com.au.
"As long as you can fine-tune to be fast over the kerbs in the middle of the lap, you should have a competitive weekend."
Tander noted qualifying as an important area to improve - despite winning from 11th place on the grid last year - and running a striking Peter Brock tribute livery and number #02 this weekend, plenty of eyes will be on the HRT star.
Smith explained the ins and outs of the Townsville weekend to v8supercars.com.au.
The circuit
The Reid Park Townsville track is often described as 'hybrid' because the combination of elements traditionally associated with street circuits and permanent circuits.
"The first sector is more traditional street circuit with bumps, and road camber across a traffic intersection," Smith explained.
"The second sector is medium speed with fast flowing corners and some large kerbs, and the third sector is characterised by the long loaded drive from turns 8-9-10, and then a moment's rest for the left rear tyre before it gets more punishment through turns 11 and 12."
The track was introduced onto the calendar in 2009 with Jamie Whincup winning the inaugural race and while 13 races have been staged over the years, only five drivers have recorded wins. The only other to have achieved more than Tander's three victories at the circuit is defending and six-time Champion Whincup, who has seven wins to his name.
The cars
Setting up the V8 Supercars for the Townsville track is tricky given the combination of elements.
"Sector one is dominated by a requirement for good braking stability; sector two, ride the curbs to straighten the track as much as possible; and for sector three it's all about putting the power to the ground," Smithsaid.
"So to top the times you need a good all-round car that can put all three sectors together."
It's common to see drivers struggle for rear tyre life at the circuit, locking brakes into turn two and damaging the suspension on the kerbs.
"Townsville is tough on brakes, the left rear tyre gets a serious workout, and the suspension cops a pounding on the kerbs," Smith explained.
Practice
The practice format is slightly different to what teams and fans are used to from the recent SuperSprint events.
Friday has three 30-minute sessions and Saturday a 20-minute session and teams will have specific programs to run through each day.
"For Friday this may include validating new items and making sure they give performance/reliability gains," Smith said.
"They then will work through optimising setup for race day, trying various settings such as springs, ride heights, cambers."
There are a few things Smith suggests fans watching at home can look out for to get an idea of who may perform well across the races.
"Cars that ride turn 6 kerbs well - let's hope there are some awesome slow motion shots," he said.
"Cars that are hooked up through the long 8-9-10 complex will be fast on race day.
"We will see some cars doing long runs in the middle of the day to get ready for racing. Then switching to shorter runs on fresh tyres towards the end of P3 to see the true car pace."
Most teams run a qualifying setup in Saturday morning's quick session, with a last minute check of the balance before the race.
Qualifying
On Saturday, the V8 Supercars qualify with one 20-minute session, but on Sunday the best cars go on to contest the Top 10 Shootout, with one lap to top the timesheets.
Tander recently told v8supercars.com.au qualifying was an area he needed to improve, with his last ARMOR ALL Pole Position back in 2012.
"We haven't fired on all cylinders in qualifying at the last two events, the statistics show that," Smith said.
"Recently our focus has required a shift to work together to make our car a little more rewarding and easier to drive at the limit.
"If we can both do that then hopefully GT can turn it on for everyone at home and push and stretch those limits and set some blistering times."
The tyre plan comes into play for qualifying, with teams having to decide how to manage green rubber.
"Factoring in the Top 10 Shootout means that we have three sets of hard tyres to try and get through two qualifying sessions and one solo flier," Smith explained.
"You can try for one run in each session and save greens for the shootout, or you can use all your tyres during the sessions and then re-use tyres in the shootout."
Race format
After hosting two half-distance races on Saturday and a 250km race on Sunday last year, Townsville has reverted back to its traditional format of one 200km race each day.
This means strategy is a key element both days, as teams manage tyres and a 120L minimum fuel drop.
Smith believes the longer races add another level of intrigue and make it a team sport, with the "highly drilled pit stop crews and number crunching engineers" playing crucial roles.
"We will have a pit lane full of people looking to second guess the opposition and get the slightest advantage -but one wrong move and you could end up losing a pile of positions," Smith said.
"It's a high-speed game of risk versus reward."
Tyres
Both 200km races this weekend use the soft and hard Dunlop tyres, with one set of the speedy but less durable soft tyres to use in each.
Smith outlined three options for using the tyres: "Some teams will start of softs to try and move forwards early; others will save them to the end hoping to capitalise on a late race safety car to come charging through the pack.
"We may see some teams try to reuse the tyres but the rears take a lot of damage here so they may drop off the cliff at the end."
Similarly to Darwin, the temperature is something teams will be keeping an eye on.
"Townsville is a medium degradation circuit, it can be hot and that makes matters worse," Smith said.
"Due to the traction required for the last sector we are expecting a drop off in performance over the stint, a car that looks after its rear tyres will be able to over run its competitors at the end of the race."
Pit stops
The V8 Supercar must complete two pit stops to meet the required 120L fuel drop, and while teams have gambled with strategy before, Smith thinks it's unlikely anyone will do more than two stops in the races.
"We expect most cars to pit for their first stop before lap 30 to optimise their tyre usage," he said.
"There are three sets of hards to use over both days and one set of softs per race - which means the default would be to do two stints on the hard tyre changing rears only in a pit stop and one stint on the softs."
Safety Cars
A safety car was called on lap one last year on Sunday, and there's a reasonable chance it could happen again this time around.
"There is a high danger of safety cars early in the race as everyone funnels into turn 2 and 3 on the first lap," Smith said.
"Usually after that everyone settles down but it's not uncommon for someone to make a small mistake and get stuck in the turn three tyre wall."
Click here for details on the TV broadcast across the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400, which begins on Friday.
_The Castrol EDGE Townsville 400 will be shown on Saturday and Sunday on Channel TEN, with coverage beginning at 12pm and races LIVE from 4.15pm EST each day._FOX SPORTS 506 will show the weekend in full kicking off on Friday and including all three practice sessions from 7am, as well as the weekend's qualifying and racing LIVE, starting at 7.30am on Saturday and 7.55am on Sunday.
