Hamilton: Tony D'Alberto preview

D'ALBERTO CROSSES THE TASMAN FOR HAMILTON STREET RACE 18 April 2008

Tony D'Alberto will hit the track this afternoon for his first laps at New Zealand's Hamilton Street Circuit in preparation for Round 3 of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.

Hamilton is hosting a round of the Series for the very first time after building a street circuit in the heart of the city with a view to creating an event similar to Adelaide's Clipsal 500. The organizers have already sold over 100,000 tickets to the race.

As with every driver in the field, Tony has never driven on this circuit before which will somewhat level the playing field for the Rookie driver.

He was able to complete a track walk this morning to discuss the circuit with his engineers and plan a strategy for the weekend.

"It looks like it is going to be a very tight circuit," Tony said.

"There are some very fast sections and some varying surface which will make grip levels interesting.

"The fact that it is new to everyone is good for me but all the drivers are very professional and it will not take long for them to get up to speed."

After finishing 15th at the Australian Grand Prix non-championship round Tony is looking to build on the result as he and the Rod Nash Racing team gain momentum as the season continues.

"We have been progressing well, especially at this early stage, but there is still a lot of work to do and we will just keep plugging away and hopefully we can improve each time we race."

Being a 'fly-away' race means that all the race gear, except the transporter, were packed up and flown to New Zealand earlier this week. The crew arrived over the past few days.

"It is an amazing operation here," Tony said.

"To create a race track in the middle of a city and have all our gear flown thousands of kilometers is a huge effort."

TV Schedule (Melbourne time) @Saturday Channel 7 - 2pm -5.30pm @Sunday Channel 7 -- 12.00pm -- 3.00pm

-credit: tonyd.com.au