Motorsport: Tyres still an issue for Supercars

Shane van Gisbergen had a tyre blow at Hidden Valley Raceway. Photo / Getty Images

Tyre blow-outs remain a talking point in Supercars with problems surfacing at last weekend's round at Hidden Valley Raceway in Darwin.

Defending series champion Shane van Gisbergen suffered a crucial blow-out on Saturday, which sent him to the back of the field. He subsequently got involved in an incident involving Garth Tander and Jason Bright that resulted in a DNF.

James Moffat also suffered a similar problem on Sunday, curtailing a strong showing from the Garry Rogers Motorsport driver.

Teams were caught out earlier in the year at Phillip Island on the soft tyre where half the field suffered the same problem.

The 2017 Dunlop tyre seems to work best with substantial camber applied to the car's set-up but the risk with that is the tyre taking so much stress it blows.

Appearing on Inside Supercars last night van Gisbergen was at a loss to explain the blow-out as he said they weren't really pushing the boundaries.

"[There was] no warning. It seems to be a bit of an issue with this tyre," the 27-year-old said. "It asks for the camber and you want to keep pushing it and I wasn't really sliding and it just went. I wasn't really abusing it at that stage.

"It is a bit of a scary thing with this tyre this year."

The issue was particularly costly for Red Bull Holden Racing driver, who went from being in a fight for a podium spot to being at the back of the field. He dropped over 100 points to his championship rivals as a result.

"[It was especially costly because going into that race we were so tight," van Gisbergen said.

"It was a tough one for us, having that tyre failure getting put at the back and then having contact. A DNF really kills you."

Dunlop are continuing to work on improvements to the tyre and hope to have some answers before the next rounds where the soft tyre will be used - Bathurst and Pukekohe in October and November respectively.