Hot Lap - Oran Park by Stone Borthers Racing

Marcos Ambrose, takes us on a hot lap of Sydney's Oran Park Raceway.

You cross the start-finish and hit top gear into the fast left-hand kink at the end of the straight. You are flat out through here on new tyres, but it is a pretty scary braking area at the end of it and it is quite easy to lock a wheel if the car is not loaded correctly.

You then roll into turn two which really is a bit of a nothing corner, but does provide some opportunity to pass as you drop to second gear - as a rule you usually loose more than you gain if you have a go at this point.

You then fire under the bridge and grab a couple of gears before heading into the next right hander. This section of the circuit is flat, but is quite technical. You jump out of the right hander up a short straight and then into another sweeping right hander which takes you up to the bridge.

You try and get the wheels into the curbs here to give yourself a bit of extra grip. This is one of the most unique things for the Australian V8 Supercar Championship, because it is the only section of circuit which loops over another.

You go into another right-hand sweeper off the bridge and the car goes very light and there is plenty of opposite lock. The car then drops into a fast right-left combination and it is very unbalanced and always sliding around. It is then into a sweeping left hander where you use all the track and then some - up to three quarters of the car is out on the grass, but it doesn't matter too much because you are usually on two wheels anyway.

You need to carry your momentum to up the blind "flip-flop" - through here you basically pick a line and just hang on! You drop down the other side into a big hole which leads you up to the final left hander on to the main straight. You brake late because you are heading up hill and try and get the car as close to the concrete wall as possible on the outside - sometimes you nick it.

The wall has been hit so many timers over the years that the bottom of it is actually further away from the car than the top. You can loose your side mirror here without any other section of the car being touched. You then need to get a smooth run on to the straight and keep an eye out for anyone exiting into pit lane on the right-hand side.

If you get it all right you should end up with a lap time around the one minute and eight-second bracket for the 2.7km journey.

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