Nik Brown from The Morning Sound chatted to Redbull Racing's Shane Van Gisbergen and Brad Jones Racing's up & coming star Andre Heimgartener.
They dropped by the studio to talk about Supercar, using driving simulators and the future of the sport.
After a two year wait the Kiwi drivers are looking forward to finally putting the pedal to the metal this side of the ditch. Shane Van Gisbergen and Andre Heimgartener will be racing in the upcoming ITM Auckland SuperSprint which takes place at the Pukekohe Park Raceway September 9th -11th 2022.
It may be the last chance the drivers get to race at Pukekohe Park. Motorsport is set to cease at the raceway in 2023 to make way for horse racing at the South Auckland track. The decision brings an end to 60 years of motorsport history at Pukekohe Park.
Shane and Andre are eager to get back on the track and leave the racing simulators behind. They chatted to Nik about the pros and cons of the simulator tech motorsport fans have become all too familiar with.
Nik Brown:
Well we got the simulation thing.
How weird was that?
What sort of things did you get out of that?
Do you use simulator racing to actually sort of warm you up for when you're actually in the car?
Shane Van Gisbergen:
Well, I think everyone does it a bit different. Myself, I do sort of I tend to pick a track
that's sort of similar with similar traits. And then you go out, do sessions, look at the data,
get yourself in the right frame of mind. And I guess it helps you when you go around - to jump start you and all that sort of stuff.
But so much of our sport, because it's so close, is in the data and driving. So it's a really good tool to practise that and to sort of refine those adjusting your driving to what you need to achieve and just thinking of different lines that you wouldn't normally think you'd take but actually work on the simulator.
They sort of cross over to real life, so it can be useful tool, but it's probably not enjoyable as a whole, like to be used in that way because it's, you know, you have and you're doing everything you do on the track without the fun part of actually driving.
So you're doing all the work, all the mundane stuff, looking at the data, without actually driving it.
