TYREPOWER TASMANIA SUPERSPRINT PREVIEW

April 3, 2018
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Supercars
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The 2.4km Tasmanian circuit at Symmons Plains circuit is characterised by its hairpin and long back straight and is uniquely suited to the Supercars, engine performance has a high importance at this venue, especially pulling out of the hairpin. Also a feature this weekend is the new qualifying format, read more below.

In the past few years the weather has played a big part in the results and running at this round, and its likely to this coming weekend for round 3 of the championship with races 7 & 8 for 2018. Overcast and cooler temperatures are expected with rain forecast for Sunday.

Once again Velocity Motorsport Magazine (thats us 🙂 ) will be there all weekend, both reporting and photographing, we’ll have updates on our website and Facebook page, drivers and teams are welcomed to pre-order photography if required from our Pro-Team. Use the contact us page. There is a sample of our photography at the bottom of this post.

Supercars have posted about a new qualifying format for the shorter circuits like Symmons Plains and Perth’s Baskerville Raceway;

“A radical new qualifying format will be introduced at Supercars’ two shortest circuits next season in a bid to avoid traffic-related incidents. The 2.4km Symmons Plains and Barbagallo circuits will feature the new format, in which the field will be split into groups based on practice times before a three-part ARMOR ALL Qualifying session”.

How it works

For Saturday, the top 10 in the combined Friday practice times go straight to Q2.

For Sunday, a 20-minute practice session will take place on Sunday morning. The Top 10 in that session go straight to Q2.

The following applies to both Saturday and Sunday ARMOR ALL Qualifying sessions:
– Q1 is a 10-minute session with the bottom 16 cars from practice. The top six in Q1 advance to Q2.  
– Q2 is a 10-minute session with the top 10 from practice and the top six in Q1 (total 16 cars). The top 10 in Q2 go to Q3.
– Q3 is a 10-minute session that decides the first five rows for the race.
– A five-minute break will take place between sessions, creating a total qualifying session time of 40 minutes.

An extra set of tyres will be added to the initial Tasmanian and Western Australian tyre allocations.

The set allocated for handback will be returned on Saturday prior to qualifying. (info from www.supercars.com)

This weekend also sees the Dunlop Super2’s in action along with supporting classes Touring Car Masters, CAMS Jayco Formula 4 Championship, their first round for 2018 and the local class of Sports GT which are always a crowd pleaser too.

Race goers have the chance to walk onto the track, view the Supercars and get to know some of their favourite Championship drivers during the Super Track Walk. The track will be open for fans to take part in this unique experience and show their support to their favourite team. With the cars on the grid and the drivers coming out to meet their fans on Saturday meeting at 8.45am for a 9.00am start.

We also hear that there will be a Tasmania Warbirds Display – The sights and sounds of World War II will be soaring above the track with low level aerobatics displays by the Tasmanian Warbird Adventures and their 1943 Harvard warbird, flown by ex-Royal Air Force fighter pilot Jethro Nelson. The Harvard’s 22-litre 600hp supercharged radial engine will roar as the historic fighter trainer aircraft is put through its paces at speeds of up to 350km/h and pulling up to 4 times the force of gravity.

Supercars posted 10 Fast fact on their website we thought you’d like to see them:

1. This year marks the 46th time the Australian Touring Car Championship/Virgin Australia Supercars Championship has competed at Symmons Plains in Tasmania, making it one of the most historic venues on the calendar. Only Sandown has hosted more rounds in ATCC/VASC history (48 rounds).

2. This year is the fifth year in a row that Tyrepower has backed the Tasmanian round of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship. The event was known as the Tyrepower Tasmania 400 in 2014 but since 2015 has been known as the Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint.

3. A total of 11 cars were eliminated from the Saturday race last year in a huge multi-car accident. No championship points were awarded for the race – won by Shane van Gisbergen – that ended due to the time certain finish being reached and only four laps completed in the available window of time.

Four cars involved in the accident were too badly damaged to be repaired in time to compete on Sunday.

4. Scott Pye’s breakthrough Supercars Championship race win at Albert Park for Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing came in his 165th championship race and in doing so he became the 77th different driver to win a race in ATCC/VASC history.

It also ended a 39-race drought for his team, which had last claimed victory in September 2016 at Sandown with Garth Tander and Warren Luff under the Holden Racing Team banner.

5. The closest race-winning margin at Symmons Plains in championship history remains 0.1038s when Jamie Whincup led home TeamVodafone teammate Craig Lowndes in Race 3 in 2008.

6. Shell V-Power Racing Team’s Fabian Coulthard broke a Holden winning streak at Symmons Plains last year. His Sunday victory stopped a run of 13 straight race wins in Tasmania for Commodore drivers since 2012.

7. The last time a Symmons Plains Supercars round was completed without the Safety Car being called on all weekend was way back in 1998 when the round was made up of three short sprint races.

8. Jamie Whincup holds both the qualifying and race lap records for Supercars at Symmons Plains. He set the 50.9676s qualifying record back in 2014 and broke the race lap record with a 51.4370s lap last year.

9. Mark Winterbottom (36 races), Fabian Coulthard (24 races), Michael Caruso (24 races) and Chaz Mostert (10 races) have 100 percent finishing records in their Supercars careers at Symmons Plains.

10. There are five Symmons Plains Supercars rookies in this year’s field – Jack Le Brocq, James Golding, Todd Hazelwood, Richie Stanaway and Anton de Pasquale.

Le Brocq, Hazelwood and de Pasquale all competed at the circuit last year in the Dunlop Super2 Series while Stanaway competed there – and won a race – in Formula Ford back in 2009.