Lap records set to fall

...and I'm confident I'll be the one to set them. Both tracks have had major circuit upgrades which will make them faster.

I was at Eastern Creek on Monday and Tuesday doing promotional ride days with VIP guests and sponsors. Several parts of the track have been resurfaced and the kink at turns six and seven have been straightened making it faster.

Besides, we have never used the soft tyre before at the Creek so that will also bring lap times down. I'm confident I can set the new lap records at both circuits because I was fastest at Eastern Creek in testing on the soft tyre last year and I had a clean sweep at Ipswich last year with pole and three race wins.

We did the promo rides on the old Eastern Creek circuit which we will use next month, but I also had an opportunity to drive the new extension. V8 Supercars won't be racing on it this year for safety reasons and to allow the new track to "cure", but hopefully we will get on it next year.

The new extension is challenging and technical which is great for drivers. It will also allow more passing opportunities which is great for the fans. It has big changes of elevation and terrific spectator vantage points.

The initial part of the extension will be a one-lane set of chicanes that go over a blind crest and into a downhill hairpin where we will see some brave late braking and overtaking. You come out of the hairpin and start going uphill with a cambered right hander with more passing opportunities and then you rejoin the original track at the old turn nine at the back of the pits which we will approach faster than we have ever done, so that will be interesting.

Ride days are not test days. We use a special two-seater car, not our race car and we are not allowed to log any data. The only thing we can do to the car is change tyres and add fuel, no set-up adjustments.

It's not cheating. A lot of teams do it and the only advantage is that it gives the driver a bit more time behind the wheel and allows them to familiarise themselves with a track. We go to Queensland Raceway this Friday for an official test day in preparation for the following weekend's round.

Our engineers will go through the normal testing program, focusing on car set-up combinations. We will also have to get our heads around the smoother track surface which has taken out the series of bumps in the braking areas of turns one and three.

That means better car control, tyres on the ground all the time and higher corner speeds. As a result, we'll have faster lap times so our fuel consumption figures from last year will be useless and we'll have to establish a new strategy.

Former F1 driver and all-round racing legend Jacques Villenueve has announced he will race in the next two rounds and I'm sure he will do much better than he did at Townsville. The Canadian driver has driven QR in testing and raced at Surfers Paradise in V8s before, so that will give him an advantage.

Also, QR is not as technical as Townsville, so I'm sure he will be somewhere in the middle of the pack this time rather than racing at the
back as he was last round.