The Supercars Championship and Dunlop Super2 fields make their long-awaited return to the west this weekend, providing recent Bathurst 6 Hour winner Cameron Hill his debut at Perth’s Wanneroo Raceway in the Supaglass Triple Eight Race Engineering VF Commodore.
Hill made a solid start in his maiden Super2 campaign at Sydney Motorsport Park on March 5-6 before contact during Race 2 dropped him from second to 11th. Despite the mishap, he’d already signalled himself as a contender for this year’s title.
During the near-two month break, Hill tested with his Triple Eight Race Engineering team and engineer Simon Hodge, completing a successful day of running prior to racing the Bathurst 6 Hour, which he won with protegee Tom Sargent in the CHE Racing team-built BMW M2 Competition.
Perth will not only provide challenges for Hill, but also the majority of his rivals as many have never raced at Wanneroo, which was resurfaced ahead of the 2019 event.
Also unique to the Perth event is the later running of the scheduling, adding another challenge as Super2 will run in optimum conditions due to the SuperNight format of the Supercars weekend.
Hill enters Perth full of confidence after his Mountain success and a promising test day as he aims to improve on his current seventh place in the points.
Hill will get his first taste of the Wanneroo layout with opening practice for Super2 commencing at 12:50pm local time, live on Fox Sports and Kayo.
QUOTES
Cameron Hill
#111 Supaglass Triple Eight Race Engineering VF Commodore
"It’s great to have had so much seat time so recently," said Hill.
"Sometimes you don’t get to drive race cars that often, so to have had a test and race the Bathurst 6 Hour, which was obviously a great weekend for us, has filled me with positive vibes.
"But now I’m ready to get stuck back into the Super2 program.
"In Sydney, the pace was pretty good and I was pretty happy with that side of things. Obviously, the racing didn’t go to plan, but you can only control what you can control.
"I’m keen for Perth because it’s a level playing field due to Super2 not racing there in recent times, most of the other drivers won’t have had experience at that track just like I haven’t. We’re all starting from zero and it’s all about who can hit the ground running, which is something I believe I’ve been pretty good at throughout my career so far.
"Generally, when the conditions are cooler, the track will be quicker. It presents scenarios that you don’t get that often. Normally it gets hotter throughout the day and you’re always accounting for that to happen. Going into the evening means the track cools off quite rapidly, and it's easy to be caught out by the change in conditions. Definitely something we will be paying attention to.
"With my engineer Simon Hodge – who is also new to the team as well – we have all sorts of ideas we’ve wanted to try. (At the test day) It’s great for him and I to get a deeper handle on what I need from the car, and what the car responds to.
"Where we finished the day wasn’t that far away from where we started, but the car was in a place that I was very happy with and we could punch times out consistently."
