Hard to believe it’s now been a week since JDub claimed provisional pole and we were staring down the barrel of the 2016 Bathurst 1000. What a difference a week makes. After Grant “Shippy” McPherson gave us his juicy bite into Bathurst, we turned our attention to Mr. David Cauchi, the Engineer behind car JDub and car #88.
Never one to shy away from a good chat, Cauchi gives us his views on a weekend of highest highs and lowest lows.
In 25 words or less, sum up your Bathurst for us.
I can’t do it in 25 words, sorry! My very first Bathurst pole as a race engineer and race that will no doubt go down in the Supercars history books, Bathurst once again produced a race you could not script. On Sunday I felt emotions I didn’t know existed, what an amazing race.
What was your Bathurst highlight?
My highlight would be crossing the line first on Sunday. I am extremely proud of the performance from the entire team. Paul and Jamie were fast, they were fast all weekend. The pit stop crew were flawless and the engineering group did a great job to manage fuel and strategy in what turned out to be a very challenging race. I am very grateful to have such a great crew around me.
It appeared that fuel was again a major player in this year’s race – is it just really difficult to get the numbers right?
Getting the numbers right can be difficult as there are a lot of little factors that come into play. Once you know accurately how much fuel you have to use, the hardest part can be working out how to use it in the right way. That can be tricky, but for us, the engineers and drivers got it right and we finished with a little to spare.
JDub is still well and truly in the fight for the Championship, is that what the team is working towards now?
As Bathurst is the Holy Grail, after it is all said and done the focus does shift towards the Supercars Championship. But, ultimately, we just take each race as it comes and try to win it. If we continue to win races, the Championship will sort itself out. You can never look too far into the future in this industry, you just have to take it race by race, because as we all know, things can change within seconds.
