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TeamVodafone seeks Falken Tasmania Challenge success

TeamVodafone press release

Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden Commodore: Jamie Whincup, Andrew Thompson

Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden Commodore: Jamie Whincup, Andrew Thompson

Edge Photographics

Tasmania happy hunting ground for TeamVodafone

Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden Commodore: Jamie Whincup, Andrew Thompson
Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden Commodore: Jamie Whincup, Andrew Thompson

Photo by: Edge Photographics

While TeamVodafone duo Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes prepare to battle it out for the Championship lead, Tasmania proves to be the ideal backdrop with both drivers boasting strong odds at the Falken Tasmania Challenge.

Current V8 Supercar Championship Series points leader, Whincup has mixed emotions for Tasmania’s 2.4km circuit but looks to the positives, winning 5 races in the past 6 years.

“Symmons Plains, in particular, has always been a bit of a hit and miss circuit for most drivers with its short track and tricky nature, Whincup said.

“Even if you qualify on pole and are leading, you can still find yourself spending half the time driving around lapped traffic which is always a dangerous situation to be in.”

“We are also very aware that my teammate Craig (and main Championship rival) can be very dangerous on this circuit, this track has been around a long time and it is one he knows very well,” Whincup concluded.

Lowndes still has last year’s success at the Tasmanian track fresh in his mind, the TeamVodafone #888 pilot taking out Saturday’s race win and planning on a repeat for this year’s race weekend.

“I really enjoy driving at Tasmania as it’s been really kind to me in the past.” Lowndes said. “It’s a pretty important weekend to really get in there and close that point gap down for any chance at Championship contention.

“Tasmania has always had inclement weather, we never know what we will get so we have to take it for what it is and do what we can with what we have.”

This year’s Falken Tasmania Challenge will host an ‘all soft tyre’ race weekend with all teams only permitted to run the Dunlop soft tyre compound, this working in TeamVodafone’s favour with the 2010 Championship Series Team of the Year winning seven of the 13 soft tyre races this season.

“With this weekend being a soft tyre round, it always makes for an interesting race, everyone will trying to get the best out of their tyres and some people will do so better than others so there will be some great racing for spectators,” Lowndes concluded.

The V8 Supercars begin their on-track assault on Friday November 10 with practice. Saturday will see Qualifying starting the day off, followed by Race 23 of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.

Sunday will see another Qualifying session in the morning and have Race 24 of the V8 Supercar Championship Series round out the Falken Tasmania Challenge on November 13.

TeamVodafone’s live race day blog will run from the pit garage, coverage to kick off via the TeamVodafone website at 4.05pm (AEDST) on Saturday November 12 for Race 23 and from 3.35pm (AEDST) for Race 24 on Sunday November 13.

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