Motorsport: Coulthard upbeat about his chances

Kiwi V8 driver Fabian Coulthard believes things are looking up leading into this weekend's Australian Supercar race at Queensland Raceway.

No New Zealanders are in the top 10 at just over halfway in the series, with Coulthard the best placed in 11th.

Holden racer Garth Tander won the inaugural event in 1999 and has shown a resurgence of form lately, winning last time out in Sandown and has climbed the table to sit in fourth.

When he won 10 years ago he set the lap record, which still stands, but as the sprint tyres will be used this weekend, that will no doubt change.

After a great start to the season, Coulthard has been making heavy weather of it but is upbeat.

"It should be good this weekend. It's another race and we'll get through it," said Coulthard.

"We've had the speed in the last two rounds but just not the luck. We've been able to qualify well but the race pace is not there."

Coulthard's car has been suffering from a lot of understeer of late, once the new tyres had started to wear. The Paul Cruickshank-run team were able to test last week at the Queensland track and appear to have sorted the problem with Coulthard's car.

"What we learned from the test day we should be able to bring to the weekend's races and we'll be on the money," said Coulthard.

On paper the track looks to be one of the easiest circuits in the series but there are a few anomalies that'll catch the unwary, or unprepared, driver out. There are only six turns and they're split into two groups. Turn one and two are very fast and bumpy requiring the car setup to be just right to get through them. The other option is to avoid the bumps totally to log a super quick lap.

The rest of the turns are quite slow, so teams will have to be able to tweak the car so it'll hook up quickly and get plenty of drive out of the corners.

Series leader in the Triple Eight Ford, Jamie Whincup, has been the man to beat all season and although the gap has closed somewhat, he still has a commanding 117-point lead over the Holden of Will Davison.

Whincup's teammate Craig Lowndes reckons he has had all his bad rounds this season and is ready to pull up to the leaders' bumpers this weekend. "I had my bad round in New Zealand so I'm ready for it," said Lowndes. "This is the last chance for individual drivers to gain maximum points before the endurance rounds start. An important weekend really."

The other Kiwis in the field with any chance in the championship, Jason Richards (13th), Shane van Gisbergen (16th) and Steve Richards (17th), will have to up their game if they want to stay in touch with the leaders. Greg Murphy is back in 22nd.

STANDINGS

Jamie Whincup - 1791pts
Will Davison - 1674
Garth Tander - 1416
Craig Lowndes - 1350
Steven Johnson - 1194
Lee Holdsworth - 1116
Mark Winterbottom - 1083