Will Davison: SMP Gen3 Supercars test ‘critical’

Will Davison has highlighted tomorrow’s official Supercars pre-season test at Sydney Motorsport Park as a “critical day” to learn more about his Gen3 Ford Mustang.

The two-time Repco Bathurst 1000 winner has had two partial days of running in Shell V-Power Racing Team entries, having driven his own #17 Mustang in shakedown mode at Queensland Raceway on February 7 and then team-mate Anton De Pasquale’s #11 machine in the following week.

Tomorrow is thus not only technically the first test day for both Cars #11 and #17, but also a chance for Dick Johnson Racing, as well as its rivals, to get mileage somewhere other than their specified test tracks.

“It’s a critical day to test on Wednesday,” said Davison.

“We’ve all sort of shaken our cars down at our test tracks in Victoria [Winton] and Queensland [Queensland Raceway] but the opportunity to go to another circuit at Sydney Motorsport Park, and really try and start to understand what this car is all about, is important.

“So, you’re excited at the enormity of the task; [it] has been certainly impressive. From my point of view, obviously, I speak for the Shell V-Power Racing Team; couldn’t be just more proud and thankful of the massive hours that the guys and girls have put in at the workshop. But that speaks volumes for the whole category itself that we’re here.

“There’s still a lot of unknowns, there’s still a huge amount of uncertainty, but the cars look absolutely sensational and we have so much to learn that we just we just want to get into it now.”

Live timing will be switched on for the test, although how much of a form guide tomorrow’s eight hours of action represents for the season ahead is debatable.

Aside from the probability of rain, teams will most likely be working to different programmes, and could conceivably run to alternate timing beacons so as to minimise the time lost on in and out laps.

Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen is keen to test, but playing it low-key nevertheless.

“There’s been a lot of work gone in, and a huge thanks to my team and all the guys there,” said the winner of the last two drivers’ championships.

“They’ve had some long days, but when we rolled out for our test [shakedown] last week, the cars ran faultlessly.

“[I am] looking forward to doing a test and racing in two weeks.”

Van Gisbergen added, “Having [the race cars] all on the same track at once will be a pretty cool thing for the sport, but the real test will be Newcastle.”

Pit lane opens tomorrow at 08:30 local time/AEDT.