www.LucasOil.com.au (July 29, 2015) - Fresh off contesting the 24 Hours of Spa in a factory McLaren 650S GT3, Lucas Oil’s Shane van Gisbergen is ready to press on and make up lost ground in the V8 Supercars Championship at this weekend’s Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint.
Held at Queensland Raceway, the Ipswich round marks the half waypoint of the 2015 season.
Van Gisbergen is excited to get back into the Darrell Lea STIX Commodore after his Belgium jaunt.
“I just want to get back out there and give [the V8s] another good shot,” Van Gisbergen said.
“Last year we had a strong finish to the season, charging to series runner-up, so I want to get my campaign back on track this weekend.
“We’ve had a couple of challenging events and made some mistakes which we’ve learnt from, so now we need to get back up the front and stay there.”
Queensland Raceway is TEKNO Autosports’ test circuit, but Van Gisbergen is adamant that there’s no home ground benefit under the current regulations.
“I’ve done plenty of laps around Ipswich, but there’s no advantage to racing at your test track anymore,” he said.
“We haven’t tested here in almost a year, so everyone one will be on the same page.”
Located just 60km from Lucas Oil Products’ Australian headquarters, the controversial Queensland Raceway is dubbed ‘The Paperclip’ because of its flat layout and configuration comprised of four left hand and two right hand turns.
“It’s not Spa, but it’s still a challenging circuit,” Van Gisbergen said.
“The braking zones are quite bumpy, so you have to be careful not to lock up a wheel.
“There are passing opportunities at every turn, and you need to get a good run out of them because of the long straights.”
Saturday plays host to twin 20-lap 60km sprints – Race 18 on hard tyres and Race 19 on softs, while Sunday’s Race 20 takes place over 65-laps and 200km.
Catch all the Ipswich action live and in HD on Fox Sports, or highlights on Saturday and Sunday nights on Channel 10 and ONE HD.
