Townsville Hard Tyre Form Not Indicative For Enduros

While some teams had difficulty finding pace on the hard tyre at the last event – Red Bull Racing Australia’s Jamie Whincup one to admit it after Race 20 – Dunlop Motorsport V8 Supercars Operations Manager Kevin Fitzsimons believes that is not a form guide for the endurance races.

The Sucrogen Townsville 400 was the last event teams would race on hard tyres prior to the first enduro at Sandown Raceway.

The next two events, the Coates Hire Ipswich 360 and Winton 360, run the Super Sprint 60/60 format and V8 Supercars teams will be allocated all soft tyres. Teams can use pre-marked hard tyres during practice, though.

However, given the races in Townsville were ‘mixed tyre’ events – meaning each car had to use each compound for at least one lap in each race – troubles teams had on one compound was not indicative of how they would perform when only one compound was allocated.

“In a nutshell, in the old cars, when they came in for pit stops they were able to come in and change the rear roll centre, which would change the amount of weight on the front of the car,” Fitzsimons explained.

“With the Car of the Future independent rear end, that’s not an adjustment that can be made – it’s now a two to three minute change.

“So in a mixed tyre race, they have to compromise.”

The options are to run a set-up more suited to the soft tyre, the hard tyre, or compromise speed on both.

“To make the car turn on the hard tyre, you need a fair bit of negative camber on the front, but that can give the car so much drive it creates issues in the rear as well,” Fitzsimons said.

“You either set up the car to be fastest on softs and have speed on the hard tyre severely compromised; come up with a package for both where speed on both is compromised; or set up the car so it’s fastest on the hard tyre… it’s a very fine line.”

From here on in, there are no more mixed tyre events – Sandown, Bathurst, Phillip Island and Sydney (Homebush) are all run on hards, while Ipswich, Winton and Surfer’s Paradise will be on the soft tyre.

“The next two event are all softs and cars will be set up accordingly, so we won’t see that issue,” Fitzsimons said.

“Sandown and Bathurst the cars will be set up for hard tyres, so the teams won’t have to compromise on set up.

“The soft tyre has so much drive, it’s really important to keep the car pointing in the right direction. But with the amount of negative camber – which is a lot more on the hard, than the soft – it could make the car turn too fast as you go into the corner and you’ll end up cooking the rear tyres.

“It creates an imbalance … the front is too good and the rear can’t keep up.

“You have to be smart and make some adjustments to take some of the drive out of the car on the hard tyre or it will be suffering massively. It’s a real grey area.”

This also affects tyre life, because if the front tyre has too much negative camber or too much point, if the car turns in too quickly it can hurt the rear tyre and you can’t flow the car.

“It’s a very fine line with these cars at the moment,” Fitzsimons said. “Six months into the season and everyone is still learning about these cars.”

While Whincup expressed difficulty on the hard tyre at the last event, the team has since had a test day and pinpointed that as a problem to solve.

The Coates Hire Ipswich 360 is the fourth event to run the 60/60 Super Sprint format for 2013 and Saturday’s race will be run in two halves, the second beginning with a double file rolling restart.

Tickets are still available through Ticketek and the action can be followed on live, uninterrupted streaming V8 SuperView.