Rookies benefit from virtual racing

Virgin Australia Supercars Championship rookies say there is plenty to gain from the BP All Stars Eseries where they are pushing veterans and former Champions on every lap.

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In 2020 there are four Supercars rookies; 2019 Dunlop Super2 Champion Bryce Fullwood, 2017 Australian V8 Touring Car & 2018 NZ NZV8 Touring Car Champion Jack Smith, 2019 Bathurst wildcard Jake Kostecki and his Matt Stone racing co-driver Zane Goddard.

The quartet have varied experience in sim-racing online; the Matt Stone Racing pair of Kostecki and Goddard are well-versed and use the iRacing platform for training as much as possible.

After the opening round Goddard sits 9th on the Coates Hire Leaderboard and Kostecki is in 12th position in the standings.

Kostecki had the best race result of any of the rookies with a 5th placing in the opening race at Phillip Island, while Goddard had a 6th place finish in the reverse grid race.

Holden drivers, Fullwood and Smith, are novices who had their first taste of online racing in the opening round last week.

All four say the fact they’re continuing to race against Supercars’ best is providing them with valuable training and experience they will use when on-track racing eventually restarts.

“It’s hard work out there - the driving aspect is one thing, but you’ve got to be alert to everything happening as well,” Fullwood said.

“That was a lot of fun. Absolutely crazy, but a lot of fun.

“There was stuff happening everywhere you looked, I nearly went to the moon at one stage it felt like, but overall we had good pace across the three races. If we can avoid the carnage, I think we will be right.

“Hopefully we put a good show on for the fans and allowed them to have a little fun in a tough time for everyone.”

Smith said while he is brand new to online racing, he has been putting in hours of practice per day, knowing now what to expect.

“Even though I was struggling to keep it in a straight line for every lap I had a lot of fun I found it extremely amusing,” the Brad Jones Racing rookie said.

“I had a rough strategy which the team helped me with prior to the round, but due to the amount of carnage, that all went out the window.

“I need to qualify better so I’ll be practising a lot more leading up to Round Two to improve my pace and result.”

Qualifying for the second round of racing at Silverstone (UK) and Barcelona (Spain) will begin on Wednesday night at 6:00pm AEST, broadcast exclusively on Fox Sports 506 before racing begins at 7:00pm.

From 7:00pm, the races will be broadcast live on Fox Sports 506, Kayo, Sky Sports (NZ) and 10 Play. Online, fans can watch races via the Supercars Facebook Page and Supercars’ Teams Facebook Pages.