The Holden Racing Team heads back to Queensland again this week for the Ipswich Super Sprint at Queensland Raceway. It’s a track which has proved kind to Garth Tander and James Courtney in the past with both drivers having recorded multiple wins.

The 3.21km track is affectionately known as the paperclip due to its six turn design and lack of elevation. Between 1999 and 2002, the Ipswich event was an endurance event and was the 500km precursor to the Bathurst 1000.

While it is one of the smaller events on the V8 Supercars calendar it does provide spectacular viewing with spectators able to see the whole track from their vantage point.

Words of Wisdom:

Garth Tander, #2 Holden Commodore VF:

“To look at the circuit on paper it’s not the most exciting layout, but what the circuit does do is create exciting racing; and the quality of racing is very high. One of the great things about the circuit is the fans can see the whole track from their vantage point, so it provides great entertainment and a great spectacle which is really important.”

“For us, its six corners but six very different corners, so you need a high level of braking stability because there are three really big stops. You also need a car with good drive traction because you are leaving from three really slow corners.”

“Turn one and two are quite fast, they are fourth gear corners so that’s quite high tyre degradation there. But then turn three, four and six are all slow second gear corners that require good drive traction.”

“So you need a car that is good in the first sector which is high speed and fast flowing but then you need a car that has good driver traction as well. Usually when you are setting the car up those two things don’t go together so you need to compromise.”

“It’s easy to overtake at Queensland Raceway but on the flip side it’s easy to re-pass. So you can dive up the inside of someone at turn six but if you are a little bit wide when you are passing them they can come straight back up the inside of you on the exit of turn six and they can have the inside run for turn one at the next corner. That’s where the racing aspect comes into it, it’s a great track for wheel to wheel combat and that’s what provides the good racing.”

James Courtney, #22 Holden Commodore VF:

“The track probably doesn’t look that exciting on paper, it looks just like paperclip. But it’s a unique place to drive, there are a lot of bumps and you have to position the car well to get around the bumps. So on paper, it look really boring but it’s pretty technical to get around.”

“I enjoy the technical side of the track, it constantly evolves and changes a lot throughout the weekend and throughout the race. I’ve had good success there, I enjoy it and I’ve spent a lot of time testing there in the past. It’s a track that I am really quite familiar with so I think that has a lot to do with past success.”

“It’s not really a tough track on tyres, I think a lot of it is strategy especially during the Sunday race, working out how to best manage the soft and hard tyre on that day. The biggest thing we have to work on to put us back in the championship hunt is qualifying.”

“Those 60/60 race are going to be super important too, so we will have to work on really getting a good
qualifying car so we can maximise that race on Saturday. We typically have been quite good in the long races so Sunday should be ok, it’s just more so managing the 60/60 on Saturday.”

“At the moment we seem to have either a good qualifying car or a good race car. Clipsal is the only place we have managed to nail both and we got a pole and a win. So between the races we have really been focusing on that.”

“We’ve been struggling to get a lot of feeling from the tyre on that one lap. I require a lot of feeling through the steering wheel when I’m pushing for a good qualifying lap and I need as much information coming back through the wheel as I can. We’ve been struggling with getting the amount of information for me to get the performance I want.”