Round 2 of the Season saw the cars and drivers head into regional Victoria to "Australia's Action Track" Winton Raceway for 2 fast paced Sprint Races.

The racing was tough and the drivers had their elbows out from the get go as track position proved difficult to obtain from the outset. Qualifying proved to be vital and big movers up the field were hard to find across both races.

Pit strategy proved to be the talking point as drivers tried their hardest to find clean air and take adnavtage of different tyre strategies. For some it was fresth tyres to charge with late in the race, while others took advantage of the cool track conditions to take short fuel only stops and make their tyres last the full race distance.

Our photographer was on the scene to capture all the action and provide some fantastic shots of the cars throughout the days events. 

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Winton is a tight and technical track with one of the slowest average speeds on the calendar. Qualifying is imperative and passing will be at a premium so it will be full elbows out warfare when cars take to the track for Round 2. To find out what it takes to be succesful here we spoke to Blake Worboys from WK&P SimSports. 

1 - Overtaking

Passing at Winton is very hard with how narrow the track is and how short the straights are making track position king. To be able to complete a clean pass great drive off the preceding corner to along side the car you are trying to pass is critical. If only a small overlap is achieved the defending car will be able to hold position around the outside and keep the spot. Qualifying well will be a critical part of a successful race. Watch out for people also trying to undercut in the pits to get track position.

2 - Car Setup

A well-balanced setup that is able to handle the flowing nature of the track but also the start stop aspects will be key. Having a car that flows well through the faster sections of the track will help maintain gaps to cars behind but in turn one that stops well, rotates through the corner and accelerates well off the tight middle sector of the track will help pull a gap to the preceding car and close the gap and attack those in front.

3 - Technique

Driving flow will be very important to be consistent at Winton. With the short straights between some corners and others where corners are linked it is easy to make a mistake, get out of the flow of the track and loose valuable time. Once you run wide at one corner is hurts your entry to the next costing you time.

4 - Pit Entry

The pit entry at Winton is very narrow and easy to get wrong. The pit entry leaves very little room for error. As you make your way into pit entry you realize how narrow the run into the pits is. If you lock a brake into the first turn of the entry the tire barrier sneaks up on you very quick and you could have a face full of tire. The small chicane can also lead to an off track is cut to fine which may dig into those valuable incident points.

5 - Pit Exit

The pit exit is one that has seen some major incident in the real world V8’s and is sure to cause some drama in the sim as well. With the blend line of the exit finishing in the braking zone of turn 1 it compromises the run of the car exiting the pits in the turn 1 and 2 chicane which if timed correctly can give an opportunity to an opponent who is already at race pace to make a move into turn 3.

If a car exits the pits, side by side with an opponent already up to speed on the track, turn 1 can go one of two ways.

The two cars come together sending them both through the chicane or spinning. Or they give each other enough room to battle on side by side into turn 3, more times than not is results in contact.

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After the excitement of the opening round at Sebring the Logotech G Pro Invitational Series heads to Benalla in North Eastern Victoria where the teams will line up on the grid at Winton Raceway.

Winton has a rich history with Supercars, recently holding the latest round of the Recpo Supercars Series. The 12 turn, three kilometer layout will be the most difficult track of the season to make passes, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be action. A new track to the iRacing service, this will be the first major test of the circuit where the leading 40 drivers in Australia will tackle the challenge head on.

Round one race winner, Brady Meyers only led the Sebring race for about 100 metres, but it was the most important 100 metres of the series so far. From the 44-lap thriller at Sebring, we this time have two 32 lap sprint races ahead, both with a compulsory pitstop.

The shorter lap time and tighter layout makes the timing of the pitstop even more vital. The undercut is significant here for track position. Do it too early, and you will be held up in the pack, stop too late, and you could drop positions to those that may have stayed out of traffic. Tyre life is crucial. They should hang in there in weather that is expected to be a cool, but mostly sunny 18 degrees.

It is a track where qualifying is king, and who would be better prepared to qualify at the front than Boost Mobile Racings Jarrad Fillsell. Pole winner in race one, Jarrad and Jake Burton were the class of the field. However through their tight battling they allowed the TTR cars back into the fight where they were able to capitalise on the fuel drama of Burton and late mistake by the number 94.

But do you want to lead? Do you want to be the pioneer where the pack stays with you and pits first to get the undercut, does the leader take that risk or does he react to what the chasing pack are doing.

Also watch for Madison Down, a non starter in race one due to technical reasons, Madison will be keen to establish himself in the series by maxmising every race from here on to somehow get himself back into the championship.

There are so many drivers in this field that have raced here in their race cars, notably Madison, Jake and Jackson Sousin Harlow have had real life experience in a Supercar in testing whilst ERT’s Ethan Grigg Gault had recent success with a dominant win in his Hyundai Excel in a strong field last month. As recent as the past weekend, Josh Anderson was heavily involved in the Aussie Racing cars series.

And of course, Brodie Kosteki fresh of his run in the Erebus Motorsport ZB.

What about the local driver, Blake Worboys. Our driver of the day winner from Round one used to live just up the Hume Highway from the track where he has been many times.

Could there be a winner from elsewhere? Could there a surprise on the podium?

One thing we know, the pressure will be intense, and the action will come thick and fast.

A safety car will be a real chance here. Remarkably, after 44 laps of no safety car racing the top five finished within half a second of each other. Whilst it is unlikely to happen again, you can be sure that the winning margin will be close.

Who will come out on top, who will assert their dominance, who will be the winner of the Winton Super Sprints?

Be here from 7:40 AEST on the 1st of June to get front row seats in what is already the most exciting championship in the country.

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It’s round 1. The very first race of the Logitech G Pro Invitational Series. Everyone is sitting on the grid gathering their thoughts and thinking about getting a good start. A clean get away and a nice run through turn 1. You want to settle into the race and start the series on the front foot with a good bag of points...

Imagine with 30 seconds to go before the green light, and you go to start your engine on the grid. NO SOUND! Disaster!

No time to figure out what has gone wrong, straight into panic stations and as the starting lights begin to illuminate you just have to try and gather yourself together and attempt to make the best of this situation.

That is exactly what happened to TTR pilot Leigh Ellis at Sebring.

Leigh’s experience immediately kicked in as he calmed himself to make a clean getaway, relying purely on muscle memory to make his way around the track. A few excursions off track and incidents during the race is really a remarkable outcome considering the hurdle he had to overcome.

We challenge anyone out there to turn their sound off on their sim, and see how well they can rely on their own muscle memory to not only complete a lap, but to complete an entire race in a field of Australia’s best supercar drivers and come home 33rd, only just over a minute and a half off the lead.

During the race, Leigh’s spotter could hear Leigh, but in order to communicate, his spotter relied on text correspondence with Leigh over messenger. So not only was Leigh in the thick of it, racing amongst other drivers and battling to keep his TTR machine on track, he was also checking his messenger regularly.

It’s a remarkable testament to Leigh’s talent and experience to deal with this level of interruption just moments before the race started.

Help us wish Leigh a better race at round 2 next Wednesday. Go Leigh!

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