He might be the new kid on the block, but it didn’t take Supercars champion, Shane van Gisbergen long to get his head around Australian rallying.
Driving a Red Bull sponsored Skoda Fabia R5, the Kiwi favourite began his preparations for the first round of the Australian Rally Championship at an official test day outside Canberra.
This was van Gisbergen’s first drive of the Skoda, which is being prepared and run by the RaceTorque team based in Western Australia.
Having previously run the MRF Rally Team in the APRC for drivers such as Gaurav Gill, Ole Christian Veiby, Chris Atkinson and Esapekka Lappi, RaceTorque are able to provide van Gisbergen with the tools needed to hit the ground running.
His main rivals at the opening round of the championship, the National Capital Rally, will be brothers Harry and Lewis Bates, driving for the factory Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia team.
The test stage, while short and relatively high speed, may have taken less than two and a half minutes to complete, but van Gisbergen was quickly up to speed to prove that he wasn’t just there to make up the numbers.
Although official times were not recorded, team personnel were keeping a close eye on the clock and SVG’s times were more than competitive.
While he did more runs than any of his major rivals, mostly to get to grips with the new car, he finished the day a couple of tenths faster than Harry Bates.
This won’t necessarily translate to rally wins, but it gives the tarmac specialist plenty of reasons to be optimistic.
The National Capital Rally is the only event locked in for van Gisbergen at this stage, but it is believed that he will contest at least two further rounds before the end of a busy year.
Looking ahead to Rally New Zealand, he told Talk Motorsport that he’d be very keen to contest September’s WRC round, however, those plans are still in their infancy.
The official test day for the Australian Rally Championship comes three weeks ahead of the season opener, after the last two championships were cancelled because of COVID-19.
This year’s series will feature seven events, all on gravel, starting in Canberra before moving on to Western Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.
The final round of the championship, will also be the Grand Final of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship in Coffs Harbour, at which van Gisbergen is expected to compete.
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