Photo: HSV

Tander sets the pace for HRT at Winton

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Defending Champion Garth Tander made an imposing start to his fulltime debut with the Toll Holden Racing Team in the V8 Supercar official testing at Winton Raceway in Victoria.
Tander set the pace as the 2007 Champion made the switch from sister outfit the HSV Dealer Team. Team mate Skaife was also impressive today with the fourth fastest time.

While the power teams spent the day around the top of the timesheets it was Holdsworth that continued his great run with the Valvoline Cummins Team.

Holdsworth won his first V8 Supercar event at Oran Park last year and is the real emerging talent for Garry Rogers – a stable that nurtured Tander and Jamie Whincup in their formative years.

Holdsworth is set for a great year and is working well with new engineer Anthony Petherbridge.

“A day like this is all about testing and Anthony needs to understand what changes to do to the car and also understand my feedback,” Holdsworth said. “We have been testing at Winton for five years or more so we have a good setup for this track. The good bit about that is the setup for here usually works well at Clipsal so we shouldn’t be too far off the pace.”

Tander would have been slightly nervous today but the confidence of his maiden Championship last year should see him as the clear favourite ahead of next week’s Clipsal 500 opener in Adelaide. With he and Skaife in tandem a return to the HRT glory days may well be on the cards.

“Today’s been great preparation for Clipsal; we’ve been ticking all of the boxes with the new car and doing long runs to get miles on it and test all its components,” Tander said.

“Clipsal is the toughest race of the year on drivers, cars and teams and although it’s hard to replicate the conditions our preparations have gone well. Adelaide is Holden’s home and it’s important to Holden and HRT that we perform well there.

“I believe we’re in very good shape and our preparation is even better than last year, so I’m confident of a good result.”

The first official test day attracted a crowd of approximately 4000 and raised just as much for V8 Supercars official charity the Variety Club of Australia through gold coin donations.

The Queensland leg of the official V8 Supercar test days will be held at Queensland Raceway on Thursday for those based in the north of the country.