Event 3 of the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship is the inaugural ITM Taupo Super400, with the venue taking over from the now-closed Pukekohe as the Australian category’s home away from home on the other side of the Tasman.
The 3.32km International Circuit layout which the championship is using is arguably unlike anything else on the calendar, with the first half of the lap dominated by corners.
Reynolds, one of a handful of Supercars drivers who has already raced at Taupo, also highlighted the age of the surface as a task for drivers and engineers to get their heads around, as will be the strategy options opened up by the lack of a prescribed fuel drop.
“I raced there 15 years ago in Carrera Cup and I remember it being a very hard track to drive,” recalled the #20 Camaro pilot.
“[It is] very hard on tyres, quite Mickey Mouse in there’s a lot of corners that lead into other corners, so you’ve actually got to think about what you’re doing out there, but it’s going to be very hard in a Supercar because the surface is quite old.
“There are a few parts that have been resurfaced but, as a whole, it’s quite an old surface.
“I think it was built in the ‘50s or something and I don’t think they’ve resurfaced it once,” he quipped, “so it’s a very, very old surface.
“The tyre deg’s going to be extremely high, so it’s going to be a very hard track to set your car up for; one, for qualifying, for doing a fast lap, and then, two, for the longevity of the tyre over the race.
“We’ve got two, 200km races there, and it’s going to be flat-out.”
Brad Jones Racing’s Andre Heimgartner, who won races at Taupo on his way to taking out the New Zealand Touring Car Championship title in 2017-18, identified the track as a unique proposition while Craig Lowndes declared it will keep drivers “busy” after cutting laps again during January’s Historic GP.
Reynolds will be drawing this weekend on not only his Taupo Carrera Cup experience, but also that of 199 Supercars Championship event starts so far.
“So, it’s my 200th Supercars round, which just means… I’ve been around for a long time,” laughed the 2017 Bathurst 1000 winner.
“That means I’ve done 200 weekends in Supercars and many, many years and a lot of hard work and a lot of positive stories, a lot of negative stories, a lot of highs, a lot of lows…
“Motorsport’s a very, very hard sport to understand. It’s not like a normal game of football or cricket or tennis where you’ve got a 50 percent chance of winning, because you’re playing one other side.
“In our sport, there’s 24, 25 blokes – when I first started, there was 32 of us – vying for position, so the chances of winning, just based on those numbers, are quite low.
“But, I’ve had a really good journey so far and I’m going to continue on with these awesome guys at Team 18. Yeah, it’s going to be a fun 200th round.”
Meanwhile, the drop gear ratio for this weekend, which applies to both the Camaro and Mustang, has been amended to 1.074 (27/29) per the Further Supplementary Regulations, having initially been set at 1.130 (now a back-up ratio).
The 1.074 is also used at the following event of the season, at Perth’s Wanneroo, then at Townsville’s Reid Park, and Surfers Paradise, as well as being prescribed for Queensland Raceway.
Practice, which is a sole, 90-minute session at Taupo, takes place on Friday at 12:55 local time/10:55 AEST.
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