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Crap but spectacular: Van Gisbergen on new Supercars

Shane van Gisbergen has offered a frank assessment of the 2020-spec Supercars package, saying the cars are "crap" to drive but conceding they'll look more spectacular to fans.

Shane van Gisbergen, Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden

Shane van Gisbergen, Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden

Bob Gloyn Photography

The Kiwi was left unsure about the new control damper package in testing on Tuesday, labelling them "subpar" when quizzed by Motorsport.com.

His assessment wasn't much better after today's opening official practice session of the season in Adelaide, joking in the press conference that he was "hating life" as he battled with the new dampers and the reduced aero package.

He did, however, concede that the dampers becoming a control part means the entire field will be facing the same struggles – and noted that less grip will make the racing more spectacular.

“I don’t mean hating life, I mean the cars are crap but it probably looks better,” he explained.

“The cars are moving and everyone’s sliding and everyone’s got the same issue, so hopefully it makes it look a bit better.

“We’re all battling a bit more. We’ve been pretty lucky in previous years having nice shocks and stuff. Now we’ve got these things, we’re battling.

“We were trying a lot of stuff and trying to match the shock absorbers to each set and try different things. [There is] still a lot to figure out, so we’ve got some big sessions tomorrow.

“We didn’t get a new tyre run at the end there, most people wouldn’t have, so that would have been interesting.”

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Van Gisbergen finished the shortened session second, just 0.009s behind David Reynolds.

The pacesetter agreed that the cars were difficult to drive, but had a more positive take on the lack of grip.

"It’s very, very wild. Extremely wild. It feels like I’m out of control," he said.

"But I love it, it’s good fun.

"The aero is slightly different, the shock is slightly different, and I'm probably trying to hard, to be fair.

“Obviously I think everyone’s struggling out there, just watching all the replays, everyone’s battling with a bit of balance.

“It’s just who can do a good job to make their car balanced and go fast.”

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