A new tyre and abolition of fuel drops are two quick fixes which could make the Gen3 Supercars so much more raceable, says Shane van Gisbergen.
Ahead of his imminent move to the United States to pursue a new career in NASCAR, van Gisbergen was asked to outline how he would fix Supercars on the Gypsy Tales Podcast.
Having admitted that his latest Bathurst 1000 win, two months ago, was a “boring” spectacle because drivers were conserving the soft compound tyres which were used in the Great Race for the first time, van Gisbergen nominated the rubber as one of the key issues.
Aside from that, and removing the fuel drop, he also called for ‘V8’ to be returned to the name of the category, while endorsing the off-season wind tunnel which will commence in the next 24 hours in the United States.
“First thing I’d do is rebrand it,” said the New Zealander.
“I’d rebrand it back to ‘V8 Supercars’.
“Then I’d do the wind tunnel testing for parity, which they’re doing.
“I’d put a different type of Dunlop on it. Dunlop has been a huge supporter of the series and they’ve kept the costs down but the tyres have fallen behind because of it.
“So, even if you had to spend a bit more money, you’d make a better tyre that could handle some heat, handle some pushing; then you’d just give people less of them to offset the cost of it.
“Or, just spend more money on tyres – they’re the most important part of the race car – and that would make the racing much better.”
While he declared that Gen3 is an “amazing concept,” van Gisbergen reiterated the comment which he made after the very first race of the season about the new, lower downforce Supercars being harder to follow because they are conducive to high tyre temperatures.
“The following is probably worse than last year,” he opined, after 28 Gen3 races now.
“When you catch someone, the car just cooks and you’re stuck doing whatever the guy’s pace is ahead.”
The three-time Supercars champion believes that the mandatory fuel drop should also go, given how close the Chevrolet and Ford engines are on consumption.
“They brag about how the engines are so much closer than ever, so why do they put us in a box with the fuel drop?” he mused.
“If you could change the start level or how much you had to put in, you could bring in fuel-saving, trying to have different levels of pit stops or how many pit stops.
“I think that would make the racing much better.
“That’s probably the four biggest things and those things instantly would make good change.”
Ironically, Supercars did remove the minimum pit stop count for the enduros, only to see a dull Bathurst 1000 which coincided with the introduction of the soft tyre to Mount Panorama.
A fuel drop remained for all of the 250km races on the calendar.
While formats for the 2024 season have been announced, finer details for the 14 refuelling races are yet to be revealed.
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