News: Supercheap Auto Racing's Russell Ingall plans to step up on home turf in City of Ipswich 400
Russell Ingall is closing in on his first round podium since joining the Holden-based Supercheap Auto Racing squad this season and says the advantage of racing at his team's home track, Queensland Raceway, this weekend could provide the impetus he needs to step up.
"It's just the ability to read the track, and racing there a lot and doing a lot of laps there, so you know a few little secrets about where you might be able to find an opportunity to pass," he said. "Hopefully that won't be our problem, we'll be so far in front that we'll leave that up to everyone else!"
Ingall has finished fifth in the past two rounds at Darwin and Sandown and sits 12th in championship standings, and along with teammate Paul Morris forms the only Holden-based squad to be based at the south-east Queensland track known as "the paperclip" for its long straights and tight radius corners.
Qualifying would be crucial to set up a successful weekend, said Ingall, who has called the track home since his defection from Holden at the beginning of the 2003 season.
"It'll be pretty tight - I think qualifying will be the most important thing out of the whole weekend because the track has deteriorated a little bit over the last 12 months, she's a little bit bumpier so it's harder to pass," he said.
"They've coated the track with some substance that is supposed to bring the bitumen back again, but I don't think it did a hell of a lot.
"Qualifying will be a major, major part of how your weekend is going to turn out. Going on that, at least we've been consistently in the top half of the ten so we're looking alright in that respect and then we'll just use a bit of home ground advantage whenever we can."
In spite of his and Morris's extensive local knowledge, Ingall said he expected several Victorian-based teams to be on the pace, with Melbourne-based Garth Tander having won the past two rounds at the track.
"It's a 'local' round, but in saying that, most of the time the southerners come up and blow everyone away!" he said. "I think it's not only the local teams that are going to be quick, but a couple of the teams from down south will go ok too.
"We have only tested there once this year, we call it our local track but we've only tested once, so we probably won't have that much more of an advantage than anyone else."
But he said temperature changes in the track surface over the course of a day made it notoriously difficult to set up a car and often prompted engineers and race crews to spend all day chasing a workable set-up.
"I think that's where the home ground advantage is going to come into it a bit, in being able to read the track condition because it does alter so much from morning to midday to afternoon," he said.
"That's where I think people that know the track pretty well will be able to judge it pretty well, especially for tuning on Friday. We'll just take all that into account and see what happens."
Morris said he was looking forward to racing at home, and expected the team's recent good run to continue.
"Our goal for Supercheap Auto Racing is for it to become one of the leading V8 teams and I think the decisions we've made and all the hard work are starting to show in the team's results," Morris said.
"This weekend is important for our team; not only is it our home race, but Supercheap Auto's head office, Sirromet and the Holden Performance Driving Centre are all nearby and we'd like to reward them with another strong effort."
