Shane van Gisbergen. Photo / Photosport
Shane van Gisbergen will this weekend continue his quest for a first victory in Perth as Supercars returns to Western Australia for the first time in three years.
Wanneroo is a bit of a bogey track for the series leader, who has never won there, despite starting from pole in 2018.
He'll need to be on his game this weekend if he is to extend his 144-point championship lead over Anton De Pasquale.
The Western Australian circuit is small, tight, twisty and exciting, with high demands on the cars, and tyre degradation will be on the minds of both drivers and team crew.
"We don't really go that well at Perth, so we'll just have to see how we go," van Gisbergen told the Herald.
"Having said that, we haven't been to Perth for three years and our cars are very different now. The car has been developed a long way, so it'll be exciting to see how we go this weekend and I hope we'll be better."
Van Gisbergen has been the dominant driver this season but is not infallible. The rest of the field are quick to pounce if the Kiwi makes a mistake. Last time out at Albert Park, fans saw a rare error from the Red Bull Holden Racing driver which stopped him from clinching three wins.
"I locked the brakes early in the race and my lock-up light didn't give me any warning. So I ended up with a big flat spot on the tyre, and while I tried to manage it for the rest of the race [he was leading], it let go [blew] with two laps to go.
"Other than that, it's been a consistent year and the car's been very good. We didn't expect to be as fast as we were there [Albert Park], so we hope the speed carries into this weekend," said van Gisbergen.
Night races can lead to unpredictable racing. Having a great car working well during the day will not necessarily translate into a fast car at night and vice versa.
Factors such as air and track temperature, moisture and engine performance all contribute towards making it a bit of a head scratcher for the engineers and mechanics alike.
"Saturday's a long day, that's for sure. We practice and qualify all day and then race during the night. Very different conditions during the day to the night and we don't really know yet how it'll work out," said van Gisbergen.
"Sure, it's going to be a challenge, but you have to remember that it'll be the same for everyone. Certainly the balance of the car will change from qualifying in the afternoon to when we race in the evening, where it'll be completely different.
"We'll just have to see how we go and manage it better than other teams. The best thing about racing at night is that cars look awesome especially with the brake rotors glowing red hot coming down that last hill into the final corner."
He should go all right over the weekend, as the New Zealander is the consummate driver who intuitively adapts on the fly to suit the conditions. His new engineer Andrew Edwards is impressed with this ability and said as much to Speedcafe.
"He can analyse what's going on and try to countermove people. He's got capacity to think about things while he is driving at a high level, that's what makes him so good to me," he told the website.
Van Gisbergen himself was a little more circumspect when asked about Edwards' comments.
"I don't know really. It's probably down to experience and trying to keep improving. You can never learn enough about how things work. Maybe I'm doing it subconsciously."