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Simona de Silvestro and Renee Gracie are out to prove their critics wrong at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
The ‘Supergirls’ branded wildcard has drawn a mixed reaction from the industry and fans since being launched in August.
The first female pairing to tackle the Great Race in 17 years arrives at Mount Panorama without any V8 Supercar experience at the iconic track.
Sceptics of the program have included three-time race winner Dick Johnson, who has declared the duo “won’t even go close to finishing” Sunday’s race.
“It is not just him (Dick Johnson) we want to prove wrong, there are a lot of other people out there that have said worse things than him,” Gracie told Speedcafe.com.
“We can’t get too caught up in that stuff. I think if we do our job we will automatically prove people wrong anyway without even trying.
“I use it as motivation. I don’t know if that is the case with Simona as she is not around V8s as much and doesn’t understand there are some people out there that don’t want us to roll out on Thursday.
“It’s good motivation and I think we will prove a few people wrong.”
De Silvestro, who recently undertook a two day test alongside Gracie in their Prodrive prepared FG X, admitted she is unfazed by being under the spotlight throughout the weekend.
“It’s a long race for sure the attention is on us and if we don’t finish it will be a shame but there will be other cars that won’t finish. I think we will finish so we will just have to prove them wrong I guess,” said de Silvestro.
“We all know the first few seconds are easy to find but the last few are the trickiest. We are working on that right now and I think we will get there. We just have to be really patient in the race and we will be ok.”
The Swiss driver got her first glimpse of Mount Panorama this morning before undertaking a track walk this afternoon, which she says will be crucial ahead of her track debut in Thursday practice.
“It is going to be really important to do the track walk that is when you see all the details of the circuit and I really enjoy that,” added de Silvestro.
“Looking from the pit lane at the mountain it already looks steep and I didn’t know it was going to be that steep.
“The hard part for me is that I’m not used to this car so if I came here with an open-wheel car I would have better judgement on how to drive the corners.
“That is going to be a little bit more difficult but at the end of the day we will be alright.”
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