Hopes are high, says Radisich.

Paul Radisich is heading into his sixth season in the V8 Supercar championship. With a wide range of motorsport experience behind him including a spell in the British Touring Car Championship during its heyday, Paul is piloting the Triple Eight Betta Electrical Ford Falcon BA this year.

On the unveiling on the dramatic new livery, we asked Paul what his thoughts were for the coming season.

Paul Radisich
Our hopes are high, if the car performs as well as it looks we're definitely a top contender. But looking at it realistically, with Triple Eight taking over the race team late last year, the amount of work that has gone in over the Christmas break to build two new cars, get an engine development programme in place, employ people - as you can appreciate with Triple Eight taking over there's a lot of expertise come out from the UK, which has been fantastic and we're at the point now that we've got everything on the floor and it's a matter of screwing all the cars together.

What we've got we'll just have to wait and see at its first round and the Grand Prix.

Crash.net
So, with Prodrive and now Triple Eight in the V8 Supercar series, were you a bit of a pioneer in leaving the UK scene for the V8 Supercars?

Paul Radisich
When I came over in '99 the BTCC was starting to drop away and there was an opportunity to come out and join Dick Johnson Racing team - so I did and I could see pretty much straight away that the championship was going to grow, to what extent it probably surprises even the organisers I'm sure now.

The Australian public first love these sort of cars because they love V8s - the noise, the sounds, the cars on two wheels, the flames. So they're very exciting to watch, and you can buy the cars on the showroom floor. It really is a national Ford versus Holden thing, when you're born you're either Ford or Holden, and it's shown by the amount of support that the category gets.

It's just grown from strength to strength. The commercial side of it is very strong, with Channel Ten running the races live at every event and, of course, around the world it's starting to pick up momentum with people watching the races. It's because it's very competitive, very strong and the cars look very spectacular out on the race track.

Crash.net
There's been rather a lot of media attention over here about some rough and tumble out on the track. How does that compare over here to somewhere like the BTCC where some rough and tumble out on the track is taken as being par for the course?

Paul Radisich
Yeah it was. The rough and tumble is there and that's what the crowd like to come along and see, and it will always happen, particularly when you've got a maximum of 34, 35 cars out on track and everybody's trying to fight for a similar corner, but here I think it's probably tamed down a little bit because of the length of the races.

We're talking 150 to up to a 1000 kilometres races so they're long races and a lot of strategy comes into play, so it's no good falling off on the first lap because you've got to get through 40 or 50 other laps. That tends to curtail quite a bit of panel accident damage shall we say...

But the racing is still panel to panel. Probably if you're comparing the BTCC to the V8 Supercars, the BTCC is such a smaller car - two litre, front wheel drive, half the weight, half the horsepower, so you could manoeuvre those cars round very easily, whereas the V8s once you're committed to the corner, you're committed and somebody cuts you off or whatever, then there's not a lot you can do to get out of the way.

Manoeuvrability is probably the big difference between the BTCC cars and the V8 Supercars - once you're committed in these big cars you really are committed.

Crash.net
What does an operation like Triple Eight bring to the party?

Paul Radisich
A lot of experience; championship winning experience. Contacts around the world, a great development programme, extra money to put into the programme to make it go, so pretty much all the ingredients that you need to be a leading contender.

Crash.net
How do you feel about the V8 Supercars branching out on the world stage, including racing in China?

Paul Radisich
It's still a domestic championship and we've got to be a little bit careful that, even though New Zealand is part of the calendar - and it would be great to see another race over there so at least there's two down in New Zealand - but do we need to go to China? Probably not, but from a drivers point of view it's something new, it's spectacular. The audience figures that it will introduce to the category are just phenomenal and hopefully there'll be commercial sponsorship too.

There are pluses and minuses and I think we've also got to be mindful that it is a domestic championship and if it does go outside Australia and we end up like the World Champcar series, with no American drivers in it and you can see where that's gone. There's a fine balance there and the inclusion of China - it's not 100% confirmed - it's a good thing.

Crash.net
What are your thoughts going into Albert Park, and then the big one, the Clipsal 500 at Adelaide?

Paul Radisich
From our own point of view, because of the time it's taken to get the Triple Eight cars built and a new team put together we're looking at the Grand Prix as a test run - there's no points involved, it's just a three-day test fest, if you want to look at it that way.

But, of course, it is hard to look at it just as a test because you've got a lot of corporate sponsors watching it and wanting to see how the cars go. We all want to do well, but realistically, if we can come away from Albert Park with two straight cars and all the races under our belt then the main focus for us is to be up and ready and challenging for the start of the championship come Adelaide.