Hill buoyed by Perth Supercars experience

Cameron Hill is buoyed by the fact that he will finally race on a track at which he has existing Supercar experience – if only a little.

The Matt Stone Racing driver is one of three rookies in the 2023 Repco Supercars Championship field, the others being Matt Payne (Grove Racing) and Declan Fraser (Tickford Racing) each of whom have graduated directly from the Dunlop Super2 Series.

However, such is this year’s calendar and the nature of the previous three, pandemic-disrupted seasons none of those three had ever raced at Newcastle or Albert Park until the present campaign.

All have enduro starts to their name, but at Mount Panorama only, and have only tested Supercars at Winton, Queensland Raceway, The Bend, and/or Sydney Motorsport Park.

This weekend’s Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint therefore represents a little bit of the familiar, a point noted by Hill, even if his Truck Assist Camaro is a relatively far cry from the ZB Commodore which he has previously driven at Wanneroo Raceway.

“It’s a pretty gnarly little track, there’s a fair bit of elevation and it’s like a rollercoaster,” said the 2021 Carrera Cup Australia title winner, who is currently 23rd in the Supercars Championship.

“I scored my first Supercars podium there last year in Super2 and the pace was good. It will obviously be different in a Gen3 car, but at least I’ve been there before in a Supercar.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how the track evolves even since last year. We saw a pretty big drop between 2019 when it was new and last year.

“Whether it follows a similar trend, these Gen3s are pretty hungry on the rear tyres, so it will be really interesting to see how much it plays into it.

“It could make the strategy super important if there are opportunities to gain places by pitting early, but you can then pay for it later on.

“We have a bit more time to practice even though it’s just a 90-minute session; I should get more of a chance to get my eye in before qualifying.

“While I had a better result at the Australian Grand Prix, I felt it was a bit more of a struggle just in terms of the tyre format, short races and a lack of track time meant I was in the deep end.

“I thought the races were okay, but I feel now we’re at a SuperSprint weekend, it’s a bit more of the standard format.

“There’s heaps of racing, so for me I feel the more miles I get under my belt it increases how comfortable I am in the Truck Assist Racing Camaro.

“I think we’re pretty good pace wise, so we need to just put it all together.”

Team-mate Jack Le Brocq is ninth in the championship in the other Championship entry from MSR, which will field three Truck Assist-branded cars at Wanneroo thanks to a switch in livery for Super3 driver Chris Smerdon’s VF Commodore.

Practice for the top tier takes place on Friday from 14:25 local time/16:25 AEST.