SUN’S out, guns out – that will be the case for Bathurst driver Michael Anderson when he lines up at the Queensland Raceway for the penultimate round of the Australian V8 Touring Car series.
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Having had to contend with variable weather during rounds two and three at Winton then Sydney, Anderson is hoping a good forecast for Queensland this weekend will help improve his chances.
It means he and his Kenwood Homes team will have less work to do on getting their Ford Falcon set up right for the three races they tackle as part of the round.
They have already put a good amount of hours into the ex-Ford Performance Racing car as well.
“The problem has been for the last two rounds, it has been wet and then dry. It’s been like that right up to the race, so it depended on how big of a gamble you were willing to take as to whether you were going to change your wets back to a dry set up and hope it would stop raining,” Anderson said.
“Those last two rounds it’s been rainy then sunny, so you don’t really know what it’s going to do right up until you go to hop into the car. You couldn’t set up your car, you could take a gamble and hope it paid off, but the problem was it was a big gamble – you can go from first to last pretty quick from having the wrong set up.
“For Friday practice, they were all wet but the two races ended up being dry. It meant we couldn’t get much testing done.
“But this weekend with the weather, on the Friday we will be able to get the car set up right for the Saturday.
“We’ve had a little bit more extra time to spend on the car too with a three-week turnaround between races – a bit longer this time – so we’ve actually got the car prepped 100 percent for this race.”
With only the Tailem Bend round to come after this weekend, Anderson has 164 points to make up on currently third placed John McCorkindale if he wishes to finish on the outright series podium for the second consecutive year.
So while the predicted sunshine means less time getting his Falcon dialled in, Anderson will still need to look after his tyres and stay out of trouble given the possibility of having their session time reduced.
“Queensland is usually pretty hard on tyres, it’s a pretty aggressive dry surface, but I’d rather drive on a 27 degrees day when the track is dry and sort of sticky as opposed to it being dewy and wet,” he said.
“It makes a big difference, especially when you are racing as part of a Supercars round – it’s great for the exposure but it means everything is very timed. If something happens it is our time which gets lost, naturally not the Supercars’ time.”
The opening practice session will get underway at 11.35am on Friday.
