FORMER SERIES Champion Shane van Gisbergen has said ‘it is a shame’ key changes to the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship technical package will be implemented this year.

WORDS: Richard Craill / mypodcasthouse.com IMAGES: Supercars

Speaking to the latest On the Grid powered by theracetorque.com podcast, now live on mypodcasthouse.com, the Red Bull Holden Racing team driver says changes to the spring regulations in particular ‘dumbs down the cars’.

Supercars banned use of twin-spring dampers this season in the first of several technical tweaks designed to save cash.

The system basically allowed cars to run two springs on each damper on each corner of the car, allowing for different spring rates to be used for areas like corner entry and exit.

Teams will be forced to revert to a ‘linear’ single spring system this year, presenting a major engineering challenge for teams this year.

Speaking at the official Virgin Australia Supercars Championship launch in Melbourne on Wednesday, Van Gisbergen admitted to On the Grid host Tony Schibeci that the change will have positive and negative effects.

“Unfortunately they’ve dumbed down the cars, taken the suspension out and everything which is a bit average for the engineers and stuff… but it will make everyone so much closer,” he said.

“It’s a shame in some ways the cars are more equal. It’s taken away the biggest turning tool everyone had – I don’t’ know how it’s going to shape out but should be interesting.

“The car will be really different driving with just four springs in the car, you cant do anything tricky, which is cool, they’ve simplified everything but it will be tough to get right.”

The pair of Red Bull HRT Commodores finished 14th (van Gisbergen) and 19th (Whincup) respectively during yesterday’s Phillip Island test.

In a wide-ranging chat, van Gisbergen also expanded on how he found out Garth Tander would be his co-driver in this year’s Pirtek Endurance Cup.

The Kiwi said having the three-time Bathurst champion in his corner would be a massive advantage come October.

“For me having Garth that’s going to be a big strength with Bathurst as the first race (of the Enduro Cup).

“He’s won it three times, fresh out of a main driver role and I haven’t won Bathurst – I don’t know how. That experience is really going to help me and I’ll try and learn all I can. It’s the last thing I need to tick off in my career, I guess.”

Van Gisbergen also discussed how his lack of ‘influence’ with the Supercars media saw the rivalry with friend Scott McLaughlin ‘blow up’ in the latter part of the 2018 season.

To hear the full chat with the 2016 Supercars champion and others at the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship launch, click the link below to listen to ‘On the Grid powered by TheRaceTorque.com’.

ON THE GRID: Supercars Launch + Test day reactions