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HOLDSWORTH PREDICTS UNPREDICTABLE RACING

By Dan McCarthy

Lee Holdsworth along with the rest of the Supercars Championship field expressed how much the Wanneroo Raceway track surface has deteriorated, but expects this to create three exciting races.

Wanneroo Raceway in Western Australia was famous for how harsh it was on tyres; however, the track was resurfaced three years ago.

Since Supercars last visited the venue with a fresh track surface in 2019, the track has reverted to the way it was, reigning Bathurst 1000 winner Holdsworth predicts we will witness a lot of action and differing strategies as a result.

“Hard to imagine it was only resurfaced three years ago,” Holdsworth said. “It was a surprise when we first got out there it had very little grip, similar to the old-style surface that we had.

“But in a way I sort of love that about this place and that was what was always so cool, you can have alternate strategy, you can have surprise winners in these races and it’s anyone’s game if the Safety Car comes at the right time.

“Everyone still needs to focus on having a quick qualifying car, ours is close to the window, but not quite there yet.”

Holdsworth explained that it is a step into the unknown tonight as the race will be the first and only Supercars Championship session of the weekend to take place at night.

“Unfortunately, with the short sessions you don’t get much time to do that (a long run),” he said. “We’re just tuning for qualifying.

“We’re going into a surprise package tonight to see what you’ve got, but we’re guessing it’s probably going to be half a tenth a lap in deg which mixes things up.

“It doesn’t sound like much but after 10 laps, there’s half a second, we’ll just tune it and worry about our own game and then see how we fare tonight.”

The Grove Racing driver is in search of a little more rear grip from his Ford Mustang heading into the second and final practice session.

“It’s just lacking a bit of that loaded drive in the lower throttle,” he said. “As soon as I crack the throttle, it has a bit of a rear slide.

“Just trying to get rid of that because the last thing you need around here is to have the rear sliding because it’ll degrade very quickly.”

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