Winton reinvented

Expect record times from the V8 Supercars at Winton, with over 30 cars set to test at the Victorian circuit on Monday February 22.

Both main game V8 Supercars teams and their Dunlop Series counterparts are expected at the pre-season hit-out, the first opportunity for most to check out the newly resurfaced track that Winton Operations Manager Wayne Williams describes as “like a bowling green”.

The track was patched up before the new surface was laid, smoothing out the bumps at turns one and 11, with some changes to corners too.

“It’s so smooth compared to what it’s ever been before here at Winton,” Williams told v8supercars.com.au. 

“It’s going to be fantastic … I would expect lap times would come down about two seconds a lap.

“It will be a very raw track when the V8 Supercars get here, so they’ll have to put some rubber down to get good times out of it, but I think that will come as the day goes through.

“The curing process has well and truly happened and there have been no issues with it so far, so we’re expecting no issues when the V8s get here.”

The track was closed over Christmas last year and there was an on-site bitumen plant to ensure the surface was as close to perfect as possible. It took five days to lay the circuit, including pit lane.

The Victorian State Government invested $1 million of funding for the project, which also included major safety upgrades.

“We’ve done some realignments on turns 10 and 12 – we’ve changed the apex of the corners and put some banking on the corners,” Williams explained.  

“There are some new kerbs as well … because the track went higher. There’s nothing different about them, but they are new kerbs.

“All the track edges have been upgraded, there are no drop offs around the track at all, there’s no rocks on the track – it’s all just dead smooth on and off the track.”

Winton has been a staple on the V8 Supercars calendar for years, and Williams believes the new surface will spice up the racing at the rural circuit.

“It was all about trying to get it to be a racer’s track again, not go around follow the leader, [have] a couple of passing spots and that’s it,” he said.  

“If you want to have a real crack you can go two-by-two around 12 and then there’s a drag down the main straight and all that sort of stuff – so it’s more of a racer’s circuit.”

Live timing will be running on the day so teams and fans alike will have an indication of performance. The same will happen at the Queensland test day on Thursday February 18.

Both qualifying and race lap records were set at the circuit in 2014, when a sealant laid on the track created unusual grip. Brad Jones Racing’s drivers Fabian Coulthard and Jason Bright smashed the existing numbers, with Coulthard’s 1min19.6538 the fastest time recorded in a V8 Supercar at the 3km track.

Bright has the race lap record and has earned four victories at his home circuit – the equal highest number of wins for a current V8 Supercars driver, alongside Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander and Jamie Whincup.

He will be one of the first to sample the new surface, with a shakedown scheduled for his new chassis next week.

“We’ll probably spend a bit of time learning the new surface on the shakedown day because I think it’ll be quite a lot of change,” Bright told v8supercars.com.au.

The Team BOC driver hasn’t seen the new surface yet but expects it will change quite a bit at the test day and the race meeting later this year. 

“It’ll be interesting because I think there are certain things you’ll always work on at Winton that might not be as big an issue now with the extra grip.

“What they’ve done is remove all the knowledge we have of the old surface … what the car does will be very different, I’d imagine.”

Nissan driver and team boss Todd Kelly is looking forward to taking his carsales Altima out and was enthusiastic about an upgrade to the circuit.

“It’ll actually make Winton a little more enjoyable, I’m quite looking forward to it – it’ll be interesting for the race meeting too, which will be good,” he said.

“You’ll have to work in a bit of a different window with that change in surface, so it’ll be a good new learning experience.”