Supercars temperature through roof in Darwin
The inside of a Supercar on race day is an intolerably hot place at the best of times.
The latest round of Supercars action takes place this weekend at Darwin’s Hidden Valley, where the temperatures can go through the roof.
The temperature in Darwin this weekend is tipped to top 33 degrees Celsius. In-car temperatures normally reach 20 to 30 degrees above ambient, but in Darwin, it’s more likely to be upwards of 60 degrees, possibly more. Drivers can lose up to
3kg of sweat in a race. Supercars drivers sometimes take an ice bath at the end of a standard race to reduce body temperature. At Hidden Valley, the drivers pre-cool before even getting in the car.
Overheating can often cause competitors the greatest problems in Darwin, particularly if their cool suits malfunction during a race.
As well as excessive heat, Hidden Valley is also famed for close, hard racing, and never fails to put on a spectacle with the inevitable crash or two.
Shane van Gisbergen starts the weekend on 1376 points, a healthy 281 and 333 ahead of Anton De Pasquale and Cameron Waters in second and third.
Back from his Le Mans 24 Hour jaunt in France, van Gisbergen will be keen to get back to winning ways after Waters’ hard charging saw him take two wins at Winton in the most recent round four weeks ago.
Van Gisbergen has nine wins in 15 races this season and is the driver to beat. Last year at Darwin, he was in fine form, overcoming a rocky Saturday, when he could manage only a
13th, to storm to two wins on the Sunday.
The Kiwi has the most podium finishes at Hidden Valley among current Supercars drivers.
New Zealanders in general have dominated the winners’ list in the recent past, having won 12 of the last 16 races. Van Gisbergen has three victories in that time, while Scott McLaughlin won eight races and then teammate Fabian Coulthard, one.
Van Gisbergen likes the circuit with its fast and flowing sections and horsepower-dominant long front straight.
De Pasquale was unusually off the pace at Winton and didn’t make the podium in any of the three races.
The Ryan Story-led team have a good record at Darwin, with nine wins and 10 poles, and seem likely to bounce back this weekend.
Waters arrives in good form, having held off the hard-charging van Gisbergen to take his only two race wins of the season at Winton last time out.
He’s increasingly looking like the driver best able to take the fight to van Gisbergen over the rest of the season.
The circuit hasn’t been kind to his Tickford Racing team, having not managed a win at Darwin since 2015. Waters, though, is in a resurgent phase and could break the drought on either day.
Chaz Mostert will be happy being back in Darwin where he won in 2021. He and the Walkinshaw Andretti team will be looking to get their tilt at a championship back on track after a dismal Winton round left him sixth on the points table.
An outlier to watch this weekend could be David Reynolds. He appears to have regained his mojo after a couple of lacklustre seasons, possibly due to being in a new environment at Grove Racing. He’s had a slew of good results — six podiums this season — and sits nicely placed in fifth position in the standings.
There are three 30-lap races at Hidden Valley, one today and two tomorrow.