Engineer preview: Clipsal 500

"It's a street circuit, so there's very little margin for error," David Cauchi begins. "The walls are nice and close - the smallest of mistakes can put you straight in the wall."

Having won the 2014 Championship teamed with Jamie Whincup - as well as the opening race of the Clipsal 500 - Cauchi saw the highs and lows with the six-time champ last year.

While winning that first race in Adelaide was a solid start, Sunday's 250km run was ultimately a disaster for the often flawless team, with errors for the crew and from Whincup pushing on the road.

"We had a bad run Sunday for various reasons and it really put us on the back foot for our championship - it wasn't until mid-season where we really got that back," Cauchi explained.

"It is the first race of many but it really can determine whether you're going to have a difficult run for a while - you don't want to be leaving Adelaide with a big points gap, it's not a nice feeling."

Cauchi explained the strategy options for the weekend, as he and Red Bull Racing Australia look to improve on last year's Clipsal 500 results.

The circuit

The Adelaide Parklands circuit is a traditional street track - bumpy with lots of kerbs and tyre bundles to look out for, not to mention the close concrete walls.

"There's some big braking zones and obviously it's high speed," Cauchi explained.

"You need a car that works well over the kerbs and bumps - particularly places like turn four, where it's particularly bumpy into the braking zone."

The turn eight sweeper - which has claimed plenty of V8 Supercars over the years - is also a pressure point.

"You need good high speed aero balance through there, and it leads into turn nine, which is a second gear corner, so it's a big stop from around 245km down to 60km, one of the slowest corners on the track - so braking is key there as well."

Turns one and two are important to drive well; and overuse of track limits will be monitored at turn two.

"To be quick around there you have to ride the kerbs," Cauchi said.

"Turn one, a lot of cars hit the tyre bundle there on the left side and then they launch over the turn two kerb and sometimes get all four wheels off the ground, so you can damage suspension quite easily."

The cars

Another typical factor at Adelaide is the heat. And not just for the drivers.

"Engine and brakes - you need to have all those working well to make sure you're not running at a high temperature, particularly when following other cars," he said.

"So [mechanically] it's generally those things, kerbing and temperature issues, at Adelaide."

PracticeTeams will need to use today's three sessions well, as the cars qualify in the afternoon.

"The main focus is going to be setup for qualifying," Cauchi said.

"So we'll be cycling through a lot of changes, trying to get the most performance out of the car - so you'll see cars doing three to four lap runs, then coming into the garage, making a change and then going back out in the session to assess that change, and hopefully gain some performance."

Teams will also ensure the driver is comfortable in the car, given this is the first race meeting of the year.

"Certainly Jamie is good at adapting quickly, so we can get on with our testing program straight away."

Tyres

Teams have one less set of green (new) tyres to use over the weekend than they had last year, so don't expect green tyre runs until qualifying. "I think everyone will be saving those up for qualifying and racing," Cauchi said.

"The only tyres we'd generally use in practice will be our pre-marked tyres, which we have two sets of.

"Those are available for practice one to four, and once we go into qualifying, you start using your allocated sets."

The x-factor is how good the quality of a team's pre-marked tyres are, which depends on what rubber they have carried over from last season - Whincup had a 100 per cent finishing rate last year.

"It might be a bit hard to gauge where everyone's at, at the end of practice this year, but that's all part of it," Cauchi said. "Who's got the best stash of pre-marked tyres will determine practice, but we'll quickly work out in qualifying on Friday who's fastest."

Pit stops

One pit stop for two tyres must be completed in each of the 125km Saturday races, once the leader commences lap five of 39.

And Cauchi believes we'll see plenty of cars - particularly second cars which may be at the risk of double stacking under safety car - head for the pit lane on that first available lap.

"Stacking is always a factor for the two Red Bull cars," he said. "If you're both running up the front - which hopefully we will be - and both very close to each other, we have to factor that in as well. You can get around a 4-5sec stop there on Saturday."

Sunday's race has a mandatory 140L fuel drop.

"That basically needs to be done over two stops to fulfill that rule and make it through to the end, and then you'll pretty much end up using three sets of tyres for the Sunday race as well."

Safety Cars

Safety Cars - which have a high probability of appearing in Adelaide - mean there could be plenty of strategy options, similarly to the Sunday race at Townsville last year (which Whincup won).

"Most of the field elected to stop and car #1 didn't stop and had to make up that time on the track. We had full fuel and spread the race over our tyres a bit more evenly, so we could get a bit more lap time. It eventually led to us winning, but that won't necessarily be as easy at Adelaide - not that it was easy at Townsville!"

Danger periods occur if the car is in its fuel window and the safety car comes out.

"Whether it's your first or second, you pretty much have to stop if you haven't done your stop for that particular fuel window ... so sometimes that means bringing it in early in terms of the opening of it's fuel window which is sometimes not ideal for tyre life, which means you spend longer on a set of tyres which compromises you a little bit more there. But it's a lot better than having to queue behind your teammate if the Safety Car does come."