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One of the keys will be how many laps a team can run on one tank of juice.
There is a fine balance between bravado and conservativeness (yes, it is a real word): a slight miscalculation can outwardly manifest as stupidity. Do you chase that extra tenth or look for another kilowatt? Or do you try to work out just how close is close enough? Can I bluff with a pair of nines? Take the safe approach and can you leave yourself at risk of losing a lap, fast. Get it right and you are a hero, stuff it up and you'll spend your life backing away from it. I can bluff, but will I hold my nerve? This is what Bathurst is all about, it is not quite life and death but it isn't that far away from it either. Holden versus Ford - Australia's greatest sporting battle on the greatest motor racing track in the world. It is a race that makes Rugby League's State of Origin Series seem limp; the AFL is watered by too many teams and local cricket is no more interesting than local soccer. Bathurst raises the heart rate, and the sight of the town as you crest that last rise on the road from Sydney never fails to stir emotions. But that is just the start of what is always a dramatic week of motor racing. The sound of 40 V8 racers as they kick into life after the national anthem, the first crash and the first heartbreak are all guaranteed to sap our breath. This is it folks, take me to the casino, I want to play! As with everything in life though, Bathurst has changed. No longer do cars round blind corners at near full speed to meet a truck driving up the Mountain to collect a stricken car - although those on the track in Darwin may wonder. Safety is critical these days, not that it wasn't a concern in the past, it is just that we are more aware now. And this is one of the prime reasons why the race is now so different. The Safety Car breaks the event into a series of shorter sprints; it is no longer a 1000km sprint as it was in the late 1980s and early 90s, or a dead-set endurance race before that. The challenge is now clearly defined - don't lose a lap and you are in with a chance! 
Driving ability is a big factor but you also need the strategy if you want to win. Power to the computer geeks, we say.
Take Tomas Mezera last year, sitting in the sand in the #2 HRT car on lap 45 last year, he must have thought his chances for a decent finish were all over. But the Safety Car came out pretty quickly, his car was dragged from the sand at Murray's Corner in time to join the back of the lead train and he avoided the dreaded loss of a lap. Some drivers thought it was a bit unfair the car was released from its sand prison before dropping a lap, but with more than 6km to travel at Safety Car speeds there is plenty of time to extract a simple beaching. Mezera and Bright battled on to claim third in one of the more amazing comebacks we have seen, all because they didn't lose that lap. Race strategy will be defined by a couple of things, but the main concerns will be fuel consumption and when (or maybe even if) to stop for new brake pads. The minimum drinking rate is 33 laps if you want to win, this will give you four stops and a fair crack, but the key is how you mix it up. Most of the lead cars will be able to get up to 40 laps without a refill, and that means you have flexibility with the fuel window. Last year Mark Skaife and Jim Richards stopped on laps 31, 71, 96 and 133, the first and third stops under the Safety Car. The 40-lap second stint meant they could play the game as they needed. Today the top teams have computer programs worked out to help them with fuel windows, and some just have it all printed out and on paper with colours to indicate a fuel window that is deemed acceptable. Kim Jones sits with a lap chart and a bunch of coloured pens marking the progress of his cars, while SBR has a man dedicated to watching a screen that shows fuel consumption and how many laps until empty. No longer is it acceptable to drive until it splutters and then hit the reserve tank to get back the pits. So what do you do? Thirty-three is the critical number counting up from zero, and 40 is equally important, counting down from 161.You wouldn't want your first stop to be much short of 33, and anywhere from 121 you can fill it till the finish. Fuel is the, ahem, driver of all stops unless you are in strife, anything else can be done while the fuel tumbles into the tank. 
Dropping a lap is a big no-no if you want to be there for the sprint to the flag.
At the time of writing, the exact rules on the brake system for the endurance races had not been decided. If a brake bleed bypass system is allowed again, then pad changes are a possibility. If not, the change process is more of a gamble. Either system allows a pad change in less than 24 seconds if luck is in, and you'd probably only ever do the stop when the Safety Car is on the track to minimise the fallout if luck's out. Bathurst is all about balance. The balance between power and fuel economy, outright speed and reliability, and that of brains and brawn. And the team that gets the balance is the one with the best chance of victory. For a couple of teams it would be the icing on the cake, for others it could save a lost season. So let's set about winning this thing. We know we can get up to 40 laps on fuel, and our goal is not to drop a lap. We will need lots of grunt too; it is a big climb and a fast sprint down Conrod. We need two gun drivers - there's no such thing as a co-driver any more - and a pit crew so well drilled and trusting in each other that it can snap a set of tyres on and off in less than seven seconds. We need someone watching the race map itself out, working out what cars will be around you after a pitstop, how long until you have to pit and so forth. Sounds simple? It is for one team.
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