Sydney 500 – Official Test Day
“Good start to the season ending up first for the end of the day, especially with number one on for the first time, but it wasn’t that easy of a day to be honest. It’s quite hard around here. We don’t have a lot of tyres. We seemed out of sync to a few cars, so felt pretty stressed throughout the day with our pace. But, we seemed to be fast at the end.“It’s very hard because there’s not a lot to take from three quarters of today. It was literally running on last year’s tyres that are old and at Sydney Motorsport Park, there’s a lot of degradation so you’re never sure where you’re at. But at the end of the day, everyone seemed to put the new spec tyre on, and did some race runs. So tonight, it’ll be about looking into that data, finding out, who did good race runs, who was fast on a green tyre, which luckily, we were, but the biggest thing is the race runs. We’ve got to look into them, see where we’re at and then go from there.
“Obviously, it was disappointing to hear about Aaron Love losing his brakes. That was a big impact for him. I was also out the car and saw everyone run down with fire extinguishers, so not sure what happened to the PremiAir car, but none of that really affected our day. Luckily, we were out of the car at that time doing changes.
“I’m feeling positive after that last session. I think we’ve got good green tyre pace. It’s just working out what the new tyre’s going to do over a race run. Biggest thing is about qualifying well always. So hopefully we can do that. But there’s going to be a lot of fast guys this weekend, and I’m looking forward to racing at night, looking forward to getting into the season. Hopefully there’s a big crowd and hopefully it’s an exciting weekend”
“It’s good to be back in the car and do some laps. It’s always hard testing here at Sydney just due to the nature of the track and the degradation and not knowing what everyone else is on. But I felt like the morning was really good. I think we got through a fair bit of our plan in the morning before the track heated up a lot. And then the middle part of the day is probably more procedures. We got Jamie in to do a few laps. We did some practice starts and pit stops, which was good. And then, focused on working on the new tyre and, and race run this afternoon.
“So, all good. It was changing so much with the sun and the clouds and the track temperature up and down so much. It was so hard to know where you’re at today. But look, we got through a bit of our program and plenty of learning for the weekend. There are always learnings to take away, but we’re going to be racing in very different conditions to what we’ve tested in today. We got a day and a half to look at what we need to improve on and, but we’ve got a base for sure. We’ll rock up with something fine-tuned on Friday.”
“It was just good to be back with the team again and spend the day as a, a fly on the wall and see what I can learn while they’re doing their thing. But for me it was a great opportunity. I still got five laps in the car so that was good. It’s one of those days though, where middle of the day, the track’s hot and the tyres are always the talking factor, but I think the crew did an amazing job for Will to finish up quickest by the margin he did. It wasn’t an easy day; they didn’t stop working. So, I’m stoked. It just impresses me every time I’m in this pit, how they work and operate.
Well, we didn’t win Bathurst in 2024. I’d love to achieve that this year (winning Bathurst), but I think that expectations haven’t changed for sure. I think this team, when you join here, there’s an expectation and everyone knows what that is and, that doesn’t change. And then on yourself, you always put the most amount of pressure on yourself every time you’re in the car. So that’s all the same. My approach hasn’t changed – my job’s just to contribute, do the best job I can and prepare as well as I can as well. Days like today are really important for that. Just do my job and hopefully contribute what I can to a win at the end of the day would be lovely.”
“Great to get in the car and just get a feel for it. It’s my first laps in a race car this year and it just reminds me of how cool these cars are. Grateful for the few laps, but today was all about making sure Broc and Will were comfortable in the car and learning the new tyre.”
“But we had a good solid day team-wise. We ran through our program, so it was a solid day with great weather conditions, which is never taken for granted. Certainly the boys are on track, it’s hard to tell the pace of everybody because you don’t know what tyre everyone’s on, which is always the case for this first test day.”
