Testing Times For Supercar Movers And Shakers

It's not a stretch to suggest this week's mid-season testing could win or lose the title for DJR Team Penske, Triple Eight and Prodrive Racing Australia.

The top three teams will hit the track from tomorrow hoping to unlock some extra speed for the next bag of rounds in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.

DJR and Triple Eight will test at Queensland Raceway while Prodrive will sort its Falcons around Winton, in Victoria.

Qualifying's a sore point for Triple Eight and Prodrive, with the Shell V-Power guys leading the way with their grid starts this season.

Defending champion Shane van Gisbergen is keen to get to grips with the new tyre in qualifying.

“I feel like we’re starting to understand it, but on a race weekend it’s a big risk to go outside your box, the set-up window that you know," he told Motorsport.com.

"At a test day, we’ve got three good cars, we’ve got a lot to try, so hopefully we can learn something and make a step in the right direction.”

The DJR Team Penske guys are already headed in the right direction, but that won't stop them searching for something extra.

“Our team has come on leaps and bounds this year, so hopefully we can take another step," said Fabian Coulthard.

2015 champion Mark Winterbottom says the test has come at just the right time.

“With my car in particular, we need it really badly,” he said.

“We’ve got this big list that we want to achieve, and we’ve got through about a quarter of it. Some things have worked and some haven’t."

By the completion of the test, the big three hope to have nutted out what works and what doesn't in time for the next round at Hidden Valley.

Garry Rogers Motorsport and Tekno Motorsport are also testing this week, but Nissan Motorsport will sit this one out.

Teams are only allowed 3 testing days per season, so Nissan have elected to save theirs until later in the year.

Manager Scott Sinclair says they'll spend the break hard at work back in the workshop.

“Instead of racing back to the track where we’ve just been, we wanted to take stock of all the data that we’ve got from the last couple of months and go through it piece-by-piece," he said.

“We’re quite clear on what we need to work on and that’s what we’re doing.”

Triple M's coverage of Supercars is presented with Mobil 1. Purchase any Mobil 1TM SuperTM product for the chance to win a share of three HSC vehicles and $15000 worth of VISA gift cards. Visit askformobil.com.au