There is no doubt Jake Burton will be a championship contender! He is fast, un-compromising, smart and brutal.

The sim racing world knows Jake Burton, he is heavily featured at the front of the field in anything he races. He has been around for years, and has utilised his sim racing career to make it to real Supercar tests, and raced competitively in the Toyota 86 Series. Jake takes us through what will make him one of the ones to beat.

Jake, are you confident you can make your presence felt and possibly take some wins in the inaugural Logitech Pro Invitational Supercar series?

I’d like to hope so! I think everyone is pretty excited about the idea of a new Australian championship in the Supercar, so I am sure the competition will be tough, and wins won’t come easy. With that being said, I have been lucky enough to win in SCOPS and Supercars Eseries, so my expectation on myself will be to do the same here. I like to race aggressively, and that won’t change in this series, so I hope to have some hard racing and earn some results.

You are one of Australia’s top iRacing Supercar drivers, and your one of a few that has driven the real thing, what are some lessons you have learnt in the real Supercar you can apply in sim?

Driving the real Supercar for the first time was a really humbling experience. I am fortunate to have been really competitive in just about everything I’ve raced, real and virtual for the last 5-6 years at least. I was surprisingly fast in the Supercar, but still a second and a half off Nick Percat on my first test, and the whole experience taught me that there is still much to learn and my driving technique has plenty of room to grow. This has changed my mentality and encouraged me to keep searching for pace and improve, even when I think I’ve given it everything, I can still find more.

You are representing your own team, VRS, do you have any alliances to help you this season or will you be competing as a single car operation?

Unfortunately, I will likely be riding this one solo. That being said, I have some incredibly strong teammates at Vendaval Sim Racing who I am sure would be willing to lend a hand, and have been lucky to be teammates with Jarrad Filsell, Madison Down and Josh Rogers in the past. I feel like that experience, along with all the tools we have available to us in modern sim racing (VRS, MoTeC etc), will allow me to self-coach and identify where I can improve intrinsically.

You are one of the toughest competitors on track and you have pushed the limits racing your competitors right to the very edge, Watkins Glen 2018 SCOPS comes to mind, are we going to see this intensity this year from you?

I think over the years I have changed as a driver. 2018 Watkins Glen Is still one of my proudest victories, I felt mentally stronger at the time and honestly, I think I just wanted it more than Jarrad. With that being said, I feel like I was fast, but my aggression was fueled by emotion and that emotion didn’t always lend itself to good decision making. After 2020 Eseries, I saw a sports psychologist (and continue to see them), to try and work on my in-race decision making and ensure that I ‘race smart’ (a quoted I have permanently engraved on my steering wheel that was advice from my Supercars Eseries engineer, Andrew Edwards (He moved to Red Bull this year to be SVG’s lead engineer)). So to answer the question, yes I will bring the same intensity, I will still push the boundaries of how aggressive you can be and bend the rules, that’s how I race, but I think compared to 4 years ago, I’ll be a bit more selective with which fights I want to take.

Which drivers do you think will be ones to watch in this series and do you think we will see any surprise results? And do you have any messages for your rivals?

I think Jarrad and Madison are still the clear stand outs. Perhaps there might be races where they lack pace, but they’ll always be the top two on the leaderboard headed into the last race. With that being said there are some emerging drivers who have really found their feet recently, Brady Meyers comes to mind. My message simply though is that whoever I am racing I’ll race as hard as I can, and I look forward to some hard fights with you all.

What is it about the Supercar Pro Invitational that has you most excited this season? 

For me just the idea of a set of new faces and fresh ideas running a series was super exciting. I am part of the club that has raced V8SCOPS every season since it’s test season back in 2014, and I think most in my position felt like they had had enough of the same old people and same old problems. For me, I am just stoked to see someone new backing a series, with the same top level drivers competing, it should be epic.

Thanks to Jake for taking the time to talk with us about the upcoming season. We wish him all the best when drivers take to the track for Round 1 at Sebring. For all the information about the first round of the championship make sure to check out the Sebring Event Details page at the link below:

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Richard Hamstead is a huge name in Australian sim racing and has been racing and winning in Supercars on iRacing since 2011. We talk with Richard, the man that has done it all to find out how he stays competitive year after year.

He is a hardnosed competitor who scraps for every inch on the track. He is the guy you know will ‘lick the stamp and send it’, yet Richard is well respected as former manager of TTL, and now a key member of former arch rival Trans Tasman Racing. Richard is still a capable race winner and a legitimate championship contender in this years Logitech G Supercars Pro Invitational. Here’s what he had to say.

Richard, let's get straight to the point, can you win the inaugural Logitech Pro Invitational Super Series like you won the first ever V8SCOPS Championship? What is the secret to your approach?

I always believe in backing myself, so the answer is yes. But the competition is very, very strong and it will take a lot of hard work and a bit of luck to pull it off. To win I’ll need to race smart and play to my strengths, minimise errors and maximise the bad days. I don’t have too many secrets, though there’s a massive benefit to working in a team and I think TTR at the moment has a great atmosphere in everyone pushing each other to be better.

You have won 21 V8SCOPS races over the years, what goes into how you prepare for each race? What are the things you are looking for in your car to give you the confidence to go into battle?

It’s funny, some times I put lots of practice in and don’t go any good, and sometimes I put minimal practice and get podiums or even win. So it’s a hard one to call. But I think you’ve got to spend a bit of time focusing on your driving and a bit of time focusing on setup – but not overdoing it. VRS has been a revelation for me the last few years and it’s a great way to work as a team and learn off your teammates. I like a pretty neutral car, but I tend to struggle if the car is unstable under braking.

You have a reputation as one of the hardest racers on the grid, one of the hardest to get past, and one of the most intimidating for others to see in their mirror. Is this something that you embrace or does this ‘tag’ not sit well with you?

I like racing, and by that I mean the actual race craft side of things rather than just hotlapping. I feel my job as a driver is to make it as hard as possible for people to pass, and to pass as many cars as I can. Besides, Supercars is touring car racing which is all about rubbing doors and trading paint. So I’m comfortable with your description of me.

You spent years leading TTL against your arch rivals at TTR, you are now at TTR. Tell us how that came about and what sort of role you have assumed now at within the team?

Basically when TTL wound down I was unsure what the next step would be – if I was going to join a new team, stay as a privateer or even retire from sim racing. I pretty quickly worked out that I wanted to keep racing and that going it alone wasn’t going to be much fun. One day Madison Down floated the idea and I had a think about it, and pretty quickly came around to think it would be a great idea. When I first spoke with Madison about joining TTR we agreed that I could race as much or as little as I liked, and my only responsibilities would be around driving. This suits me perfectly and has really stopped sim racing feeling like a chore which it was feeling like towards the end of my days at TTL – and it goes to show that I actually race more now than I did before because I’m enjoying it more.

TTR is stacked with proven race winners and will undoubtedly prove hard to beat in this new series, who from outside of TTR are you looking at to be a championship threat? And which driver or drivers do you think might surprise everyone from the smaller teams?

Obviously the entry list hasn’t been released yet, so I’m not 100% sure who will be racing just yet. But any Supercar series Jarrad Filsell competes in he is the favourite, with very few exceptions. He has a 47% win percentage in SCOPS which is absolutely insane. Jackson Souslin Harlow proved to be extremely quick in the Supercars Eseries last year too. There’s a whole bunch of younger guys around too who are sure to be quick too.

What is it about the Supercar Pro Invitational that has you most excited this season? 

The competition. From what I know of the drivers who’ve entered the series is going to be right up there with the Supercars Eseries in terms of competition, but with race formats which are a little bit more interesting. It’s going to be awesome to be a part of the first season!

Thanks to Richard for taking the time to sit down and share his insights ahead of Round 1 of the Championship. We wish him all the best for the season which will be kicking off on May 11th. You can see the fill calendar by following the link below:

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At the very start, our simple thesis was to deliver a new way of showcasing, promoting and marketing Supercars competition in order to substantiate the level of professionalism at the top tier in the AUS/NZ Supercars community.

We believe the teams and drivers in AUS/NZ sim racing are at a level now where we can take that leap forward into the mainstream and shed that arcade/gamer ‘tag’, and showcase the talent, preparation, intense competition and professionalism already in our community.

To deliver a platform that springboards us all into the mainstream, we decided we needed to build a structured and future-proof organisation with specific roles and responsibilities.

We think the evidence is there over the past to validate our decision to run all supporting content such as website, marketing, podcast and broadcasting ourselves and also fund it all as part of a comprehensive package to achieve our vision.

A rising tide lifts all boats and our vision is to achieve strong growth and develop a wider reaching audience for Australian Sim Racing.

There is already a passionate and dedicated community that is invested in Sim Racing and the goal is to harness that energy and provide a platform and series that can vault that community into the spotlight it deserves.

The team behind the Logitech G Supercars Pro Invitational at our core are passionate Sim Racers ourselves. We have acumulated a team of the best suited personnel for the job and have full faith in our ability to asseble a platform worthy of the cause.

- End Release

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How it all stacks up leading into Round 1. Who is in the best form and who might be capable of a surprise upset result on the bumpy streets of Sebring.

Leading into the first round of a new championship there are always a lot of unknowns to contend with. But thankfully, the grid of drivers who are set to tackle the streets of Sebring in only a couple of weeks time have largely been active throughout various other leagues and competitions which allows us to get a pretty good form guide coming in.

Jarrad Filsell #94

Madison Down #77

Ethan Grigg Gault #177

Andrew Gilliam #201

Josh Anderson #36

Brodie Kostecki #99

Jackson Souslin-Harlow #15

Jake Burton #8

Richard Hamstead #28

Wayne Bourke #89

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