Why Tasmania Super440 is a big test for Triple Eight

It’s perhaps the biggest of many burning questions at the Tasmania Super440 as the Supercars Championship returns from a five-week break.

Tassie is traditionally Triple Eight territory, with the Brisbane-based team having won over half the races held at the venue since 2007.

While the strike rate has eased to three from eight in the Gen3 era, Broc Feeney was only denied a clean sweep last year by 0.05s.

Feeney enters this weekend as the championship leader and won the Jason Richards Trophy for scoring the most points across the two New Zealand events.

However, neither Feeney nor teammate Will Brown won across that six-race stretch as the team continues to adapt to the Mustang package.

“I don’t want to say the championship starts now, but we’re certainly heading to tracks that are a lot more familiar for the rest of the year,” said Feeney.

“Sydney and Grand Prix are a little bit different to what we usually go to. They’re fast, flowing tracks, maybe a little bit Tailem Bend and Bathurst like.

“But now we’re back at Tassie, I feel like once you find your set up in these next few rounds, you can really carry that through for a lot of the year.

“So it is important for us, no doubt.”

Feeney classes Symmons Plains as one of his own best tracks, noting he scored his first podium at the venue during his rookie 2022 season.

Despite the manufacturer switch, he said the team has “leant a lot on last year’s notes” in its preparation for this weekend’s three races.

“We want to be the fastest car here this weekend, we want to go and win races, and they’ll give us a lot of confidence for the next few rounds coming up,” he added.

“We’ve been learning, we’ve made inroads, we’ve been competitive in some, races, some other races not.

“We just want to get back to our consistent way and just really understand the package.

“We’re not the fastest car, so we’re gonna do what we can to make sure that we are, and hopefully this weekend’s that turning point.”

Practice 1 at the Tasmania Super440 gets underway at 2:05pm AEST.