Snapshot
With the endurance season run and won for another year, the Holden Racing team is now focussed on the final three events on the V8 Supercars calendar and the next stop is New Zealand for the ITM 500 Auckland.

The team bids farewell to our co-drivers, Warren Luff and Jack Perkins and thanks them for their hard work and outstanding results over the last three events. In particular congratulations to Warren Luff on being the only driver to have won the PIRTEK Enduro Cup twice and to Jack Perkins on his first ever V8 Supercars win!

HRT now heads to its first and only international event for 2015 and will race at the famous Pukekohe Park Raceway, located 40 kilometres south of Auckland City. The Raceway was opened in 1963 as a permanent track, replacing
Ardmore (an aerodrome) as the host circuit of the New Zealand Grand Prix. Although the track is better known internationally as a motor racing circuit, it is primarily a horse racing circuit.

In 2013 V8 Supercars returned to Pukekohe after a $6.6 million upgrade which included new chicane on the back straight, more pedestrian bridges and a makeover of the circuit's appearance. This will be the 10th time the V8 Supercars championship has competed at this location.

With no pre-marked tyres allowed, strategy around tyre usage will be key, as the team will have only the green race tyre allocation to work with over the weekend. The circuit is also renowned for its bumpiness, fast flowing corners and high average speed meaning car set up will be critical for fast lap times.

Pukekohe Park Raceway has been good to the Holden Racing Team with James Courtney scoring a pole position and podium place last year. Garth Tander has also achieved three race wins and a pole position at the circuit in the past.

Words of Wisdom:

Garth Tander, #2 Holden Commodore VF:
“It’s a very different type of weekend coming up given there are no co-drivers, we are back to 60 minute practice sessions on Friday and the sprint race format. It’s a more traditional race weekend and it’s a very different type of circuit.”

“Pukekohe is very fast, there are a lot of bumps and the car needs everything. There is a fast first sector, heavy braking in the second sector, then a fast third sector. It’s a really enjoyable track, it really is, and you need to now go back into that sprint format mind set.”

“Qualifying in New Zealand is going to be important. At Sandown we were reasonably solid, but at Bathurst we definitely got it wrong, but we understand what we got wrong, then at the Gold Coast we were pretty solid again. We need to continue that momentum now. We will be qualifying on the hard tyre which is the same tyre we’ve been qualifying on for the last couple of events where we have had that improvement, and we hope to continue that.”

“The lack of pre-marked tyres for this event, being a flyaway, will affect us because there is quite a bit of track time for practice. There are two 60 minute sessions on Friday then another practice Saturday and Sunday, so by the time you get to Sunday morning you almost don’t need that practice session. It’s not that we don’t want track time but we don’t have tyres to utilise that time on Sunday morning, so we will have to be a bit smart about how we use our tyres for practice. This will be a challenge but it’s a challenge for everyone and we are all in the same boat.”

“We’ve taken a lot of positives out of the Gold Coast event for sure, but we now go into a new event which has a very different type of track. Of course we would like to continue the momentum and in the last three events we have gone from 9th in the Championship to 4th, and won the Enduro Cup. For me, my goal between now and the end of the year is to be inside the top three in the driver’s championship and that is what we want to achieve.”

James Courtney, #22 Holden Commodore VF:
“I had quite an unusual endurance season so to come back to the normal sprint races is not going to be as big a change for me as it is for the other guys. New Zealand was pretty good to us last year, we had pole position and a podium. As a team we did really well with Sladey qualifying second, so the car speed was pretty good.”

“Pukekohe is quite ‘street circuit like’ in that it is really, really bumpy and the first and last sectors are really quite quick so you have to make sure you are on top of things with the dampening. You need to make sure the car is really quite stable through those sectors if you want to get a good lap time out of it.”

“Strategy is also pretty interesting at this event and I think last year a lot of guys pitted on the first lap then made good in-roads, so we’ll see what happens this year. I’m really looking forward to getting over there, it’s our only international event this year.”

“Going into New Zealand there won’t be that question of whether or not I will make it because I just got through one of the hardest races of the year while carrying the injuries, but it’s all good. I felt pretty sore the next day, but there is no question over the fitness side of things now.”

“As a team I think the Gold Coast was quite an encouraging event and getting a first, a third and taking out the Endruo Cup was a really strong showing for the team and hopefully we can carry that momentum into the rest of the season.”

“We are currently second in the teams’ championship which is great for us and with me not having to worry about the driver championship now I can afford to put a little more heat on the other blokes. I am also conscious of where Garth is in the championship and I will concentrate on helping to get him as high as we can.”