Motorsport: Three Kiwis in Aussie top 10

Shane van Gisbergen, 20, says he is chomping at the bit to get back into action. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Of the five Kiwis contesting this year's Australian V8 Supercar championship, three are in the top 10 after four rounds, with Steve Richards 11th and Greg Murphy 21st.

Shane van Gisbergen is the best placed New Zealand driver in eighth, with Jason Richards and Fabian Coulthard breathing down his neck in ninth and 10th respectively.

For the Kiwi drivers, battling it out in the Tasmanian round of the series should be like racing on home turf.

Twenty-year-old van Gisbergen is chomping at the bit to get back into action. "Seriously, I can't wait to get down there. I know it isn't, but it feels like weeks since I've been in the car," said van Gisbergen.

This will be his third visit to the Symmons Plains Raceway circuit and he's happy heading there as it reminds him of New Zealand."Though there's really only three sections to it [the circuit], a good lap is all about brakes and getting the power down," he said.

"Get it right and you're away, get it wrong and everyone's so close that even a 10th [of a second] can be the difference between something like fifth or sixth and 15th."

The softer compound sprint tyre will be used again this weekend, as it was at the last round at Winton. Drivers are split on how much of an effect the sticky rubber will have in Tasmania, compared to the crash and bash at the Victorian circuit.

Another Kiwi, Coulthard, is looking to make amends after a less than auspicious outing at the last round where he finished with a 15th and a DNF, dropping him from fifth to ninth on the table.

"I'm looking forward to it as it'll be my second time here [Tasmania]," said Coulthard. "Although we didn't qualify as I would have liked, we still came away with a top-10 finish, so it wasn't all that bad.

"Everyone knows this year qualifying is crucial and if you can qualify up the front, you can run up the front. I like the softer compound tyres because it allows you to drive the car how we should be able to drive the car."

As much as a difference it makes to the drivers, picking the right time to fit the softer, yet faster-wearing rubber to the race car also causes dilemmas for the pit crew. And it takes only the smallest of errors on the track or in the pits for a car to finish down the field.

"It's not about how you do in each round, but how consistent you are over the 26 races in a season that says how good you are," said Coulthard. "It's not easy out there as there's 26-odd drivers all with the same idea - to win races. Everyone's beatable, I used to beat Jamie [Whincup] in Formula Ford so there's no reason why I can't beat him in a V8 Supercar."

Championship leader Whincup has his sights set on another good result over the two days. "We head to Symmons Plains with good confidence after winning here for the past two years," Whincup told Bigpond. "It's the first real high-speed track of the year and we've been working hard to set up the car accordingly."

Tomorrow's mini-endurance 200km race will have the added twist of being a two-stop event. Teams, though, will have the option of how much fuel they put into the car at each pit stop.

Rick Kelly, at 26, enters the record books this weekend as the youngest driver to reach 100 V8 starts in the various guises of the category over the past 50 years.

After this weekend's round there's a three-week break before the sixth round at Darwin's Hidden Valley Raceway.

STANDINGS

1. Jamie Whincup 804pts
2. Will Davison 690
3. Steven Johnson 573
4. Lee Holdsworth 534
5. Rick Kelly 531
6. Garth Tander 504
7. Craig Lowndes 501
8. Shane van Gisbergen (NZ) 453
9. Jason Richards (NZ) 417
10. Fabian Coulthard (NZ) 414
11. Steven Richards (NZ) 399