Craig's Corner: What makes Gold Coast so tough, and what's at stake

This is the 11th exclusive Supercars.com column by Supercars Hall of Famer Craig Lowndes for the 2024 season. Seven-time Bathurst winner Lowndes will preview each round of the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship from his own perspective, continuing with this weekend’s Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.

We’re at the pointy end of the year, and there's a championship to play for.

So, what better setting than along the beaches of Surfers Paradise, to see what we’ll have in store for the title fight?

The Gold Coast is a fun event for fans, drivers and teams. Supercars brings a great feel to the city and to the paddock. I enjoy the atmosphere, which you can get a sense of as early as the track walk when you can hear and see parties in apartment buildings!

The Gold Coast track itself offers a unique challenge with its fast chicanes and big kerbs. Friday practice is super important, as you need to find the limit as quickly as possible. If you don’t, you go into qualifying running the risk of picking up kerb strikes, or worse.

No doubt, Gold Coast have some of the most important qualifying sessions of the year. You can’t make a mistake, otherwise you’ll start down the back, and you’ll set yourself up for a long day. Push too hard and you’re in the wall, or you pick up a kerb strike and lose your lap.

It’s a short circuit, but it’s busy. You’re constantly turning, braking and accelerating. That’s hard work on the tyre, and given you’ve got 85 laps ahead, you need to get as much life out of your tyres as possible.

To get speed out of the cars, you need to absorb the kerbs, recover when you land, and change direction through the quick chicanes. However, there’s a fine balance between getting through the chicanes and trying to get drive out of the Turn 4 hairpin and the final corner.

You almost feel cruel to the car when you bash them over the kerbs in such a long race. It’s usually hot and hard work around there, given the heat sticks between the walls. Any lapse in concentration in those two chicanes can prove costly, as we’ve seen over the years.

You just can’t sit back around this place. You have to attack the weekend. If you race with a defensive mindset, you will be off the pace.

So, when it comes to mental focus, I believe the Gold Coast is among the top three toughest circuits we go to. Because we’re towards the end of the championship, everyone can see the finish line, and there’s always plenty at stake.

We all want to win a surfboard, but you need a good car and real focus to get the job done. Desperation often creeps in, and that’s when you see mistakes.

This weekend is also a big test for teams, because of the quick turnaround after Bathurst. From race Sunday in Bathurst to practice Friday on the Gold Coast, teams will have had 12 days to get their cars back to base, knock over some repairs, and get some rest. Some teams, like Dick Johnson Racing and Team 18, have had to work harder than others after big crashes at the Mountain.

This is such an important round in the story of this year's championship. Will Brown is 204 points up the road, but at a place like the Gold Coast, you can win or lose so much.

However, it’s not just at the front of the field. Everyone is fighting over championship positions and pride, and the results of this round will play a big role in determining the pit lane order for the final round in Adelaide.

Everything happens quickly around this place, so make sure you don’t look away!