Motorsport: Fuel looms as Bathurst's big wildcard

Mark Skaife's race=taped Commodore at Bathurst last year. Photo / Getty Images

BATHURST - Five-time champion Mark Skaife says environmentally friendly fuel being used at the Bathurst 1000 for the first time will give Australia's most famous motor race its biggest shake-up in years.

The new ethanol-blend fuel adopted in the V8 Supercar championship makes its Bathurst debut when practice gets underway at Mt Panorama on Thursday.

Skaife, who is coming out of retirement to race at Bathurst, says ethanol is looming as a bigger wildcard than high speed or predicted wet weather around Australia's most testing track during Sunday's race.

He believes strategy will play a far bigger role than ever as teams attempt to nurse engines made more unpredictable by using ethanol to cope with a 1000km race where speeds reach in excess of 300km/h.

"Engine reliability this year would be the worst it's been in 10 years and there'll be more pit stops, about six or seven, and driver stints will be shorter," Skaife said.

"It's just a matter of teams being able to tune to it (ethanol) and making the cars reliable. It's a bit more volatile mix of fuel which happens with humidity and other things.

"Clearly there'll be a big concession of economy versus power here."

Current champion Jamie Whincup, who is aiming to win a fourth successive Bathurst 1000 with Ford teammate Craig Lowndes, said teams would not have a firm idea of how many pit stops and how much fuel they would use until at least Friday's qualifying.

"We've had the same fuel and economy for a long time now - with ethanol it's going to change the strategy," Whincup said.

"We still don't know how many laps we're going to do yet, we're going to have to wait until Friday to find out how far we can go.

"At the moment we don't know what's going to happen."

Whincup and Lowndes' Team Vodafone go into the race warm favourites to become the first drivers to ever win four successive Bathursts.

Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander and Will Davison, who beat Whincup and Lowndes at the Phillip Island lead-up race, will be the hardest to beat.

But the decorated Skaife, who retired from fulltime V8 driving at the end of last year, is likely to be the most watched driver at Bathurst as he makes a return to the sport with Greg Murphy in the Sprint Gas Racing Holden.

Skaife said the experienced duo, who have won nine Bathurst 1000s between them, could test their more fancied rivals.

"I wouldn't do it if we weren't going to be competitive, and I wouldn't do it if I wasn't going to enjoy it," Skaife said of his return to Bathurst.

"It's a lot more open a race than people think.

"Sure, the top couple are dead-set the top couple, but there's three or four that aren't far away from them and another two or three that aren't far away again.

"There's eight or nine really good quality combinations."

- AAP