OUTRIGHT victory – that is what will be on the mind of Bathurst driver Michael Anderson when he contests the third round of the Kumho V8 Touring Car series at Sydney Motorsport Park this long weekend.
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Over the past two years Anderson has notched up a class win and class second placing for the round, results which give him confidence ahead of his latest bid.
He is currently sitting in ninth place outright in the series after rounds at Phillip Island and Winton behind the wheel of his Ford Falcon.
“I think we should be on for a podium, if not one or two steps higher, that’s the game plan. We are going there to win and at worst we want to come away with a podium,” Anderson said.
“We’ve had some pretty good results coming into this round at Sydney where I’ve done a lot of laps around the track and I hope I can make the most of it.
“We’ve always been in the top two or three cars here at Eastern Creek, so I am hoping to stay there again.
“I’ve done thousands of laps around there in the past and this Friday, we get the most amount of testing on a Friday compared to any other round. That means we can dial the car in pretty good before qualifying on Saturday morning.”
Anderson is happy with how his Falcon is currently performing after making adjustments ahead of the Winton round late last month.
That is good news as car set up will be crucial to how the round plays out for Anderson given the competitive nature of the field. He knows he needs to qualify well to push for victory.
“I think we’ve got a good set up. We changed a bit in the car set up wise for the last round at Winton, but the problem was they didn’t forecast any rain there at all, but it rained on the Friday and basically half of Saturday. That meant the set up we went there with wasn’t perfect … but we come away with fourth in the end,” he said.
“To me, out of all the categories I’ve ran in, this is the most important to qualify well. The cars are that tune-able that if you’ve got your car set up in the window – you can have first to last covered by less than a second.
“So qualifying is every thing, it’s something you’ve got to make the most of.
“When you’re up front you’re in cleaner air, you’re not fighting with people who are a bit slower. More accidents can happen at the rear than up the front.
“With the cars split by say a thousandth of a second, every car is that close, you need to get away first, get a good jump and get away so you can maintain that for the rest of the race.”
The Kuhmo series will race as part of the annual Muscle Car Masters event. It consists of three 10-lap races - one Saturday and two Sunday.
