The Holden Racing Team heads to Symmons Plains Raceway, Tasmania, this weekend for the second championship event on the V8 Supercars calendar.

Garth Tander places well on the stats board and is equal second with Craig Lowndes and Peter Brock on seven for the greatest number of race wins. James is yet to win a race at the Symmons Plains circuit but placed on the podium in two races in 2014.

The shortest on the calendar, Symmons Plains Raceway certainly isn’t the most complex circuit but it can be tricky to set up the car.

This year’s Saturday sprint races are the shortest races V8 Supercars have seen here since 1999, each race just 25 laps in length.

21 of the last 26 race winners have started in either pole position or on the outside of the front row.

Garth Tander, #2 Holden Commodore VF:
“As we head to Symmons Plains we now focus on heavy braking and power-down. Obviously the first circuit, Clipsal, was very bumpy and all about curbs whereas Symmons Plains is now all about brakes."

“It’s an interesting format this weekend. The two 60km races on Saturday is what we’ve been use to but the 200km race on Sunday - with the one set of soft tyres, which we don’t qualify on, we can only use them for the first time in the races - will be interesting.”

“Strategy will be a bit different, the soft tyre is probably the preferred tyre at Symmons Plains but trying to make that one set of tyres live for as long as possible is going to be tough. We’ll see quite a bit of difference with the strategies that will play out over the course of the 200kms. So what is usually an interesting weekend will now be even more interesting given that we’ve got that wild card set of soft tyres.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing how we go, we’ve had pretty good success in the past and I'm certainly looking to add to the winner’s tally over the course of the weekend and bolster our top 3 championship position.”

James Courtney, #22 Holden Commodore VF:
“The track doesn’t look that exciting when you look at it on paper, it looks like two drag strips with a hairpin at one end and a fast flowing corner at the other. It’s really pretty technical, into turn 1 and 2 that little complex is really quite tricky and it’s hard to get the car to settle nicely through that section.”

“It’s difficult to control the front inside wheel from locking through the first part of turn 1 and then as you change direction and go through 2 and turn to the left it wants lock a left front wheel after wanting to lock the front right.”

“We use a lot of curb there on the exit and then you need to try and get the rear of the car to settle so you have good drive-off as that is key to getting a good time around there. Then braking is really important because it’s a really heavy brake down into the hairpin, and it’s the slowest corner of any circuit in the championship.”

“It’s a fun event, I got a couple of podiums there last year and I’m looking forward to getting there after the great start to the season we’ve had.”