Erebus Penrite Racing's Supercars entrant, David Reynolds loves the Phillip Island Circuit in Melbourne, home to this weekend's third round of the 2017 Supercars Championship where hopefully there will be a little more sunshine than there was last time out in Tasmania.
One other thing he is hoping to avoid is red flags, but while there have been a few at this venue, the last one was back in 2003, so chances are this coming weekend should all run according to plan…fingers crossed!
The 4.45-kilometre circuit requires engineers to rethink set-up – demanding a stable car under brakes and a good amount of front grip to be able to wash away as little speed as possible through each corner while the high average speed here is 174km/h and is the second highest out of any circuit the championship visits.
“Phillip Island is a track I love driving, it's a cool place to do a lap around. It's also a challenging place because of the nature of the track and it's difficult to get the car set-up perfectly,” David said. “You spend a lot of time in each corner and probably only spend about 20% of an entire lap going straight, so the other 80% is spent turning, which means you need a good car. It's a high-speed track so a good car needs really good aero and aero-stability as well.”
“Wind direction is also a big factor; if the wind is blowing down the straight the car will handle differently to how it would if it was blowing down the straight and vice versa, so that's something that needs to be taken into consideration.”
