Well that’s a wrap… Another Adelaide 500 complete and another season off to a good start for the team. We caught up with the drivers following the race to see how they felt:
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
Qualifying – Second (Fastest Lap: 1:19.8056)
Top Ten Shootout – First (Fastest Lap: 1:19.5831)
Race 2 – First
“First thing is that it’s been a pretty amazing couple of years, four wins in a row and four shootouts in a row. I’m not sure what it is about this place but I love driving it and we’ve had some pretty awesome races here. In the race itself, Jamie had the car to beat today and we went a bit far with our set-up and were no good compared to yesterday. It’s a real shame we couldn’t get the 1-2. In our car, we had pretty okay middle stint, it was a long one, and I knew it was going to be close with Davey (Reynolds). I put in a couple of laps earlier and struggled to get going, so that made it even closer, it was a pretty tight battle to the end. I missed the apex at Turn 7 and heard a big ‘twang’ and I ran over something metallic and then as I came through Turn 8 I saw big smoke, so Scotty must’ve run through the same thing. It was a real shame and of course I was paranoid for the next few laps hoping my thing would hang together. I hate getting points gaps like that but that’s part of racing and hopefully we can have a few more battles throughout the year.”
Jamie Whincup – Car #1
Qualifying – Third (Fastest Lap: 1:19.8269)
Top Ten Shootout – Second (Fastest Lap: 1:19.5915)
Race 2 – DNF
“Obviously it was a disappointing end to a bloody tough weekend. We came here to push hard and attack, and unfortunately we crashed on Friday, which set us behind so we had a 4am finish that night and then a 1am finish last night. A result of the crash today was a cracked transaxle oil cooler that had been with us throughout the day and was slowly leaking oil, before running out completely and then we had no gearbox in the end. Unfortunately, that’s motorsport but we’ll go away happy with the speed that we showed. We were as good a chance as anyone to win today’s race and now it’s just disappointing that we’ll be at least 200 points down in the championship, thankfully there’s still a long way to go. Our car just wasn’t really a qualifying car all weekend – it was a better car in the race. I felt like I got the most out of it but Shane was a little bit quicker and took a little more risk on the first chicane. Overall, it’s fantastic for the team to be 1-2 in qualifying and, unfortunately, if it wasn’t for the gearbox we were looking good for a 1-2 finish in the race.”
1810 There’s one happy man…
SVG – the @Adelaide_500 winner four times in a row 👏 #VASC #RedBullHolden pic.twitter.com/QJCRBRCmYg
— Red Bull Holden (@redbullholden) March 4, 2018
1715 Shane held on to the P1 and went two from two, two years in a row. Not only that, Holden secures a podium lockout with David Reynolds and Garth Tander taking P2 and P3.
1623 The focus is on SVG now as he makes his second pit stop…
1614 Oh them feels… 🙁
JW: That’s motorsport. You win some, you lose some #VASC #RedBullHolden
— Red Bull Holden (@redbullholden) March 4, 2018
1610 All was going well until we hear the bad news… Car #1 has transaxle issues and the gear box is no good – he heads back to pit lane but doesn’t make it. The crew push him back to the garage and it’s all over for J-Dub today 🙁
1520 Green flag! The starts sees the two bulls maintain position however they switch positions, J-Dub takes pole over SVG.
1345 Meanwhile, in the Super2 Series, J-Dub’s co-driver Paul “PD” Dumbrell wins and Triple Eight mechanic Kurt Kostecki comes in P3 – good work team!
1205 We had a sensational shootout and go 1-2 with SVG taking his 4th consecutive Adelaide 500 pole position and J-Dub in P2.
1145 The Top Ten Shootout begins in 5 mins… Jamie, then SVG. Good luck boys.
Waiting patiently… 😎 #VASC #RedBullHolden pic.twitter.com/m1GUb1YDXo
— Red Bull Holden (@redbullholden) March 4, 2018
1115 The clouds are starting to close over and the temperature is dropping. Could there be rain in sight? It would definitely spice things up!
1oo5 Our second qualy of the weekend is complete – SVG comes in P2 and J-Dub comes through P3. Bring on the Top Ten Shootout.
0700 Qualifying, Shootout, Race 2… We’ve got a big day on track lined up.
