V8 Supercars Woodstock Winton SuperSprint Preview

The Winton V8 Supercars event has a history of throwing up surprise results. Who can forget Jason Bargwanna’s round win (from eighth on the grid) in 2000? Or Cameron McConville’s dramatic, last-lap pass on Rick Kelly for victory in the single 300km race of 2004?

Winton has also been the scene for a couple of manufacturers to break long-standing victory droughts; James Moffat scored a memorable win for Nissan in 2013, and Lee Holdsworth scored Erebus AMG’s first race victory in 2014.

All the signs are that the 2016 V8 Supercars Woodstock Winton V8 Supersprint will be equally epic, the season starting with a record eight different winners from the first nine races.

The season-opening Clipsal 500 began with Holden heroes James Courtney and Jamie Whincup each taking a win on the Saturday, but Sunday produced one of the most chaotic races in recent memory with torrentially wet weather creating an assortment of strategies which ultimately saw Nick Percat claiming an upset victory in his Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Commodore.

In the next event at Symmons Plains, reigning Champion Mark Winterbottom qualified on pole for both races but again it was Holden drivers prevailing in the races. On Saturday, Shane Van Gisbergen achieved his first win for the Triple Eight squad, while in the Sunday race it was Will Davison’s maiden victory for Tekno Autosports.

The venue for event number three was Phillip Island, and its high-speed layout worked to the advantage of Scott McLaughlin and his Volvo. The likeable Kiwi qualified fastest on Saturday and Sunday and converted both his poles into wins to become the season’s first repeat winner.

Tyre strategy played a critical role in the outcome of the eighth and ninth races of the season at Western Australia’s Barbagallo circuit.

In Race 8, frequent showers of rain saw the field starting on wet tyres and changing to slicks as the circuit dried out. Most runners elected to make just the single pit stop, but Craig Lowndes and his genius engineer, Ludo Lacroix, made the decision to stop for a second set of the soft compound tyres. Lowndes made the most of the fresh rubber, charging his way to the front of the field.

Two stops again proved the right decision in Race 9, only on this occasion the bulk of the field stopped three times, and the two-stopping Winterbottom was forced to hold out a bunch of cars on fresher tyres en route to his first win of the season.

Heading to Winton, the points scenario is tight with just 138 points – less than the 150 points awarded for a race victory – separating the top six drivers in the standings.

Out of the current drivers, Lowndes, Winterbottom, Garth Tander and Jason Bright are the most successful at the nation’s action track with four race wins each – they are only one behind Glenn Seton and John Bowe, each with five.

Winterbottom is the qualifying king at Winton with four pole positions, the most of any driver, while Mostert took a clean sweep of poles last year.

The Prodrive Racing Australia Ford squad has been particularly strong in recent events, winning the last four races in a row at the venue; last year, Mostert won the first race and Winterbottom was victorious in the other two, after Mostert’s now infamous crash in the Sunday race.

The new Winton surface will add an extra unknown factor into the equation. In the past, the Victorian-based teams have not had a significant advantage despite testing at the venue, because the track conditions and amount of rubber on the circuit are typically very different at a race meeting compared to a test day. However, this year could prove to be an exception, because knowledge of the new surface characteristics, degradation levels and re-profiled corners could indeed aid the local teams.

The re-profiled turns 10 and 12 will increase overtaking opportunities, with drivers now able to carry a lot more speed through turn 12, leading to a higher top speed on the main straight and a faster approach into turn 1.

Resurfaced tracks also have a history of producing exciting racing because of the increased grip levels and variation in racing lines that tend to be created. For example, the 2014 Bathurst 1000 and 2015 Hidden Valley V8 rounds were both conducted on freshly-resurfaced tracks, and both produced excitement in abundance.

This year’s V8 event will be conducted entirely on the soft-compound tyres. The degradation factor has already lended itself to a variety of strategies this year, especially at Barbagallo.

The Winton event will feature the same format as the Symmons Plains, Phillip Island and Barbagallo events, with a 120km race on Saturday with a compulsory pit stop to change four tyres, and a 200km race on Sunday with a minimum 120 Litre fuel drop necessitating at least two pit stops.

V8 Supercars Top 10 Championship Standings – After Race 9