Reigning Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen says he has "no idea" how the two season-opening Newcastle 500 races will unfold.
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The Triple Eight Racing driver's competitors have offered a similar view in the lead-up to the first round of 2023, and the first Newcastle event since 2019.
All pre-season, given the introduction of the Gen 3-era cars, all the talk has been about expecting the unexpected in the season's early races.
"I have no idea, and if anyone says they do - they're a liar," van Gisbergen told the Newcastle Herald.
"Nobody knows. And that's probably the exciting thing about this season. You've just got to be ready for anything."
Van Gisbergen and co might be playing their cards close to their chests.
But testing has produced some surprising results, and there's been a question of parity between the Chevrolet Camaro, which has replaced the iconic Holden Commodore, and the Ford Mustang. Early indications suggested the Ford was a touch slower.
The new vehicle regulations have been designed to improve competition. The cars also look fairly different to those raced in recent years. They are more closely aligned to the Camaros and Mustangs you see with number plates.
Whether there is a full-blown shake-up to the category that is usually dominated year after year by the same usual suspects remains to be seen.
But van Gisbergen, a three-time Supercars champion who has claimed back-to-back crowns the past two years, believes it will make his pursuit of a third-straight championship a greater challenge.
"It keeps it exciting," he said.
"New challenges are always good.
"It's not like it was getting stale last year, it was still difficult but it's always refreshing when there's evolution in sport, things are changing, the rules are moving - you've got to keep up with it and adapt the best you can.
"Those challenges keep me motivated."
Van Gisbergen's main challengers for the title are likely to be Tickford Racing's Cam Waters, who finished second in 2022 and 2020, and Chaz Mostert, who has run third the past two years.
Dick Johnson Racing's Anton de Pasquale and Will Davison will also be desperate to improve.
If van Gisbergen is to claim a third consecutive championship, it will follow the three-peat of his former long-time rival Scott McLaughlin through 2018-20.
McLaughlin left Supercars after the 2020 season, but at the 2018 Newcastle 500 he claimed his first championship in a nail-biting and controversial end to that season.
Van Gisbergen looked poised to take the crown himself after winning race one in Newcastle, but was hit with a 25-second time penalty for a pit-stop infringement, dropping him to fifth and allowing McLaughlin to scoop valuable points in the standings. McLaughlin finished second in race two the following day to be crowned champion.
The pit-stop penalty and subsequent drama is a famous moment in the Newcastle 500's short history but a memory van Gisbergen is likely happy to forget.
The Auckland product was somewhat able to put it behind him when he won the event's opening race the following year.
The Newcastle 500 has switched from the last round of the year to the first this season, a change van Gisbergen believes will make the round even harder.
"It's always a tough track, but the crowd and how well supported the event is on the race weekend, it's really cool to be a part of," he said.
"But it's a difficult race, it's near impossible to pass so qualifying is important and it's a tough 90-something laps, 250km.
"It's brutal, but everyone is the same and it's probably going to be even tougher this year because it's the first round not the last round, we're not going to be race fit. It's going to be a real shock to the system, those races."
A Kiwi who has been at the top-end of Supercars for the better part of a decade, van Gisbergen will become the most experienced New Zealand driver in the category's history this weekend.
Saturday's race will move the 33-year-old to 216 round starts, one ahead of countryman Fabian Coulthard.
"I had some guy come up to me the other day and say, 'I've been watching you since I was a kid', so that made me feel pretty old," van Gisbergen, who debuted in 2007, said.
"It's a big number and a cool number to be still racing and still competitive after so long, but I still feel like I've got a lot left in me to offer.
"I definitely joined in the series earlier than I thought I would, I had only just turned 18. It took a few years to learn, I was pretty young.
"But you see guys like Craig Lowndes retiring a couple of years ago, and he was mid-40s or something, so you can have a very long career in the sport."
There were reports last year that van Gisbergen was undecided about his future in the sport beyond this season and it potentially hinged on what the Gen 3 cars would be like.
The odds-on favourite for the 2023 drivers' championship said his position remained the same and he was no clearer on his direction long term.
For now, he is just focused on starting the year well and hopefully becoming only the fourth driver in the Supercars era to win a third-straight crown.
"Winning one, that was my life goal," he said.
"They're all as special as each other. I'm just as excited and motivated to get another one.
"It's pretty cool to be a champion of something you dreamt about doing."
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