Hi all,
Another average weekend for us as far as luck goes but a promising weekend for our car speed.
We had a few anti roll bar issues in practice and lost most of the sessions chasing the problem so we were fairly under prepared for qualifying.
We had a solid tire plan to suit the track and the conditions and it worked quite well for us.
In the end it was great to end up in the top ten for the second time in a row and for the second time this season. Its the best reward you can give to the guys for all the hard work they have done.
Although we are not content with 5th to 10th in qual its a big improvement from the start of the season.
The start of the first race was fairly clean until turn 3 on the first lap where I got turned around. I came back dead last but was very lucky not to have been hit from all the cars behind.
I drove as hard as I could and got back to 17th. Given the fact that we missed most of practice we learnt a lot about what the car needed for the next two races.
The 2nd race turned out to be wet which was a good thing for us as you can pass more cars faster when you are back in the field. It was the most fun I have had in a race for a long time. I found a few lines that had heaps of grip and not many people seemed to catch onto it which made my work a lot easier. From 17th I got back to 8th which was ok.
The last race the car was great, I got a good start and pushed as hard as I could for the whole race and the car looked after the tires really well. I was behind Shane Van Gisbergen for most of it. I had the pace on him but it was extremely hard to pass and he did a great job of making no mistakes. By the end of race 3 I had got back to 5th place. It would have been a great weekend for us and our championship points had we hadn’t been turned around in the first race, but sometimes it happens.
Between now and
Darwin we have more new stuff for the car so we will either have a test day at Winton or take it straight there and test it all in practice. Can’t wait to see where it puts us.
All the best,
