Tyre management is going to be a key talking point when Supercars returns to Western Australia with the new Gen3 cars.
The 2023 Repco Supercars Championship resumes this weekend after a four-week break with the Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint.
The 2.4km Perth surface is regarded as the toughest on tyres on the calendar.
Given the single 90-minute practice session, and no night racing, drivers will spend much of the weekend on a knife’s edge regarding tyre wear.
As it was in 2022, Supercars will compete on Dunlop’s Soft compound tyre — but how the new cars wear the tyres, and the condition of the track surface, remains to be seen.
Shell V-Power Racing Team veteran Will Davison knows better than most the perils of Perth's tyre wear, famously hanging on in a classic race in 2012 despite nursing a major tyre deficit.
“It’s a very abrasive surface, with the sand over there, and the climate — the circuit degrades year on year,” Davison said.
“It’s a really unique challenge from a driving and engineering point of view, trying to manage the tyres better than everyone else.
“It can create great opportunities, and I’ve won a few races there in that fashion."
On the current state of the track surface, Davison said: “It went from the lowest grip circuit on the calendar, to the highest grip circuit, in 2019.
“Going back there last year, it had certainly deteriorated in the three years, but it was still high grip.
“Not the sort of degradation we expected, but getting worse. I think we’ll find 12 months on, it’ll have dropped another 10 per cent.
“I think we’ll see some high degradation numbers, and it’ll bring back that old school Perth racing, which meant strategy was critical, there were many ways to win the race.
“Particularly these Gen3 cars which are harder on tyres — I think that’ll play a big part next weekend.”
Tyre usage will be key not only in the races, but in Friday’s 90-minute practice session and the qualifying sessions.
The grid for Saturday’s race will be set by three-part knockout qualifying. Come Sunday, and drivers will complete back-to-back sessions to set the grids for the Sunday sprints.
Team 18 driver Mark Winterbottom, who celebrates 600 races on Saturday, suggested the format itself could also catch drivers out.
“The new car there is going to be different again,” Winterbottom said.
“It’s got some high speed, it’s got low speed, it’s a very high degradation track, different qualifying format.
“There are so many variables that are going to spice up the weekend, there’s so much going on.”
The mission starts on Friday afternoon, when drivers have the circuit all to themselves for 90 minutes.
Brad Jones Racing’s Macauley Jones was intrigued by how drivers and teams will approach the session as they come to grips — literally — with the track and their new cars.
"It's a lot of strategy in terms of when you run your tyres,” Jones said.
“Generally when you've got the two practice sessions of half an hour, kind of everyone tends to be on the same wavelength, whether you're on the tyres at the start, or at the end.
"Generally by the end of practice everyone in the last five minutes is putting greens on. So you have a very good reference.
"Where you might have a bit of a different strategy for different people doing race runs and then seeing where the evolution of the track goes.
“When you've only got that one session of 90 minutes, the evolution is going to be a little bit but it's not going to be as much as doing a 30 minute session."
Tickets for this weekend’s Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint are on sale on Supercars.com and Ticketek.com.