The Shell V-Power Racing Team’s Will Davison expects that the traits of the new Gen3 Supercars will make the Symmons Plains circuit “quite tricky”.
This weekend’s Ned Whisky Tasmania SuperSprint is the fourth event of the 2023 Repco Supercars Championship and hence the fourth event of the Gen3 era.
Symmons Plains International Raceway represents challenges the likes of which drivers are yet to tackle in their new race cars, including the first-gear Brambles Hairpin which is the slowest corner on the calendar.
“Tassie is going to be interesting,” said Davison.
“I love racing at Symmons Plains. It’s a really unique little circuit and I think the Gen3 cars are going to be quite interesting around there, and they’re going to be quite tricky.
“Getting down to first gear at the hairpin… power down’s much harder in these cars, so trying to get the power down out of the hairpin will be interesting.
“And the run down the back straight… they’re quite quick in a straight line, so, excited for that.”
The switch to a single throttle body and drive-by-wire has made acceleration more difficult and dampened feel, with the vast majority of left-foot brakers looking to change their habit if they have not done so already.
Acceleration will be a particularly interesting subject this weekend because of the switch to the taller back-up drop gear option, which applies to both the Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustangs such as Davison’s.
The new ratio, which was already the standard at Hidden Valley and Sandown, theoretically allows for greater top speed but will slow acceleration from the hairpin onto the back straight.
Speedcafe also understands that both a Camaro and a Mustang have been on a chassis dynamometer in recent days, although there are no changes to engine maps yet confirmed.
Davison’s comments about braking are also interesting in the context of the parity debate around engines.
As previously reported by Speedcafe, it has been hypothesised that the Ford engine accelerates slower than the Chevrolet’s due to greater inertia, which would also slow deceleration and hence diminish the effect of engine braking.
Additionally, with two relatively hard stops, Team 18’s Scott Pye has forecast that drivers will be challenged by brake fade.
Dick Johnson Racing struggled when the season began in Newcastle but has been creeping up the order since then, particularly Davison.
“We’re sort of into the swing of things now with the season,” he remarked.
“We’re starting to understand this car and just hanging to get to every new track, any new opportunity, to improve ourselves.”
Davison sits ninth in the championship while team-mate Anton De Pasquale is 19th.
Support categories are on-track from Friday, with Practice 1 for the Supercars Championship field on Saturday from 09:00 local time/AEST.
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