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Live Diary: Ipswich

Century Batteries Ipswich SuperSprint Event 9 of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, Ipswich, Queensland. Australia.28th July 2019.

 

JAMIE WHINCUP – Car #88

Practice 4 – Third (Fastest Time: 01:08.6549)

Qualifying – Third (Fastest Time: 01:08.7632)

Race 2Fourth

 

ChampionshipFifth (1798)

“Today wasn’t a bad day at all. P4, we’ll certainly take that. The car wasn’t quite as good as yesterday and then everyone else made a really good step up from yesterday. I back our strategy because we were getting held up and it got me out in clean air, which I think was a good thing, so I think the strategy was right. The best strategy though is to have the fastest car and we didn’t have enough car pace today. That was the story of our day, not enough car pace, but I think we scored as many points as anyone else across the weekend. I think Queensland Raceway 2019 has a nice big tick next to it. We’ve made the cars faster; I think we should take that and be very grateful.”

 

SHANE VAN GISBERGEN – Car #97

 Practice 3 – Fourth (Fastest Time: 01:08.7449)

Qualifying – Fourth (Fastest Time: 01:08.8097)

Race 2Second

 

ChampionshipThird (1918 points)

“It was a good weekend of racing.  I didn’t know if Scottie was cruising or not, but I could see he was driving fairly straight.  I thought he would get going when I caught up to him but saw he had a couple of slides.  I got a little bit excited closing the gap but unfortunately, I used up all my stuff to actually catch up to him.  The car today was the best car I’ve had all year.  The team did a really good job.  Around here, you just loose so much in the first two corners with the aero and then you pull it back in the low speeds, so it was tough but a great battle until the end.”

 

1700:  Round 9 is over and what a weekend.  Let’s see what the drivers have to say with both of them being on the podium.

 

 

1530:  What an epic chase from SVG.  Didn’t catch up in the end but sure made up for the classic racing we all love!

1515:  SVG is charging!

 


1500:  Minor hiccup but seems to be all good to go.

 

 

1420:  Roaring start and seems mellow in comparison to some of the starts we have seen this year.  Let’s keep it up for the next 200km!

1410:  Race 2 is on now.

 

 

1355:  Ready to line up on the grid for the start of Race 2.

1200:  We have blocked out the second row ahead of Race 2 coming up soon!

JDub – P3 01:08.7632

SVG – P4 01:08.8097

 

1135:   Great driving from the bulls we are headed into Q3 in five minutes.

 

 

1120:  Qualifying is about to start.  We are sitting this one out but watching what is going on with all the cars.

0930:  Haven’t woken up and we are already at Practice.  Top 10 go straight through to the second part of qualifying.

0915:  Quick snap of the big thing that does all the kilometres around the country.

Century Batteries Ipswich SuperSprint Event 9 of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, Ipswich, Queensland. Australia.26th-28th July 2019.

 

0900:  Chilly and cloudy when we arrived on track this morning.  Let’s hope the sun shines through the crow and makes it yet another beautiful day to go racing!

 

Sunday 28 July

 

Century Batteries Ipswich SuperSprint Event 9 of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, Ipswich, Queensland. Australia.26th-28th July 2019.

 

JAMIE WHINCUP – Car #88

Practice 3 – 18th (Fastest Time: 01:09.9563)

Qualifying – Second (Fastest Time: 01:08.7481)

Race 1First

“It was a great day.  For us to be able to bounce back from yesterday where the car’s balance was far from par and be able to get it right today, and win is full credit to the engineers and crew. They all did a fantastic job to get the car fast.  I have always said you need a fast car to win races but the fact that we also reacted to an issue with car 17 during their pit spot showed great work from the team.  I still think there is a performance defect, but we are chipping away and getting much better at it.  Everyone has been giving me plenty of stick because I haven’t had a win for a while so it’s great to finally get one.”

 

SHANE VAN GISBERGEN – Car #97

Practice 3 – 14th (Fastest Time: 01:09.8663)

Qualifying – Fifth (Fastest Time: 01:08.9586)

Race 1Fifth

“Firstly, it’s awesome to get a team win. Jamie got a good start and showed proper pace. I had a pretty average start, I lost a bit in the first few laps, then I couldn’t catch the Tickford cars again. We’re just missing a little bit, but it’s still decent to be fifth. We’ll hopefully tune it up tomorrow. I think we compromised a bit much with the parc ferme rules, so we’ll try to get it right again tomorrow. We’ll try using some aspects of car 88’s setup, but we mainly need to try to get the balance between qualifying and the race better. It’s a longer race tomorrow so we need a better race car.”

 

 

1745:  After a whirlwind of media stops we caught up with the drivers and got their perspective on the day.

1710:  Awesome effort by the team to have a win at Queensland Raceway and SVG to finish fifth!

 

 

1615:  Seems like we have settled in and there is not much action up the front part of the pack.  Let’s keep it going – eyes forward and you know what to do (drivers of course).

 

 

1555:  What a start!  JDub showed some skill diving inside and missing all the action to take the lead.  Fingers crossed that the next 120 km remain unchanged!

 

1550:

 

1500: Just over an hour away until Race 1.  Drivers are in hiding getting focused.

1435:  Shout out to our Team Partner Holden and what a turn out for the autograph session – Thanks guys!

1400:  Real team effort to pull it all together and get both cars into the top five grid positions for the race.  Good job!

 

 

Both drivers sat in the garage until the last three minutes of Qualy – who does that?!? Talk about turning the crew and fans into nervous wrecks!

 

1350:  SAFE!  In the top 10 and heading straight out into Q3.  Let’s get those front row positions on the grid.

JDub – P2 — 01.08.7588

SVG – P5  — 01:09.0382

 

1340:  Here we go time to make it count!

1325:  Qualy 1 is under way as we sit out and wait for the second sessions

1230:  Is it just us or has Ipswich brought out the best winter weather?  After a  busy morning the drivers head into black out before the all important qualifying for Race 1 this afternoon.

1150:  We had the cutest visitors in our membership zone.  Think the votes are in and they were cuter than JDub!

 

 

1110:  Not quite what we were after but thank goodness it was only Practice!  There will no doubt be lots of strategy and planning ahead of qualifying.

JDub – P18 — 01:09.9563

SVG – P14 — 01:09.8663

 

1035:  Time to get those laps under our belts and see what the cars feel like today.

0920:  Ipswich has put on another  beautiful day and the fans are out in force.  Thank you for coming out to support the drivers!

0800:  It’s race day!

 

Saturday 27 July

 

JAMIE WHINCUP – Car #88

Practice 1Third (Fastest Time: 01:09.4594)

Practice 2Eighth (Fastest Time: 01:09.2783)

 “All in all it was a disappointing day.  We felt like we had a good test day last week and moved the car forward but today it felt like the car was completely different.  Unfortunately, it seems like we have taken a step back.  We will keep looking at the data and see where we can improve because at the moment, we are in struggle street.”

 

SHANE VAN GISBERGEN – Car #97

Practice 1Ninth (Fastest Time: 01:09.6178)

Practice 2 Fifth (Fastest Time: 01:09.1628)

 “We began the day with a senor issue which was a shame, but we didn’t lose too much time.  The crew did have to take the gearbox out to replace the sensor.  It’s a small thing which in fact is quite a big change within the car but it worked out not to bad in the end.  In the second practice we were okay with the last run being not too bad as we still ended in fifth.  It’s obviously good to be in the second part of qualifying tomorrow.  There’s another practice tomorrow where there are a few things to work on as the car didn’t feel that good despite being relatively fast.  It’s a good start to the weekend so hoping to improve from there.”

 

1545:  It almost seems a little too early to be off the track and catching up with the drivers but here’s what they had to say.

1525: Safe …  finishing top ten lets the bulls sit out on the first part of qualifying and move straight into the second part.

JDub – P8 – 01:09.2783

SVG – P5 – 01:09.1628

 

1525:  So far so good – looking like a smoother running practice session than earlier today.

 

 1510:  Seems like everyone is taking turns in the sand pit.  Now it’s SVG turns.

1455:   Time to get some more laps under the wheels?  Just because it’s considered our home track the drivers admit come race day it is slightly different.

1345:  Special visit to our T8M8s in the member zone at pit exit.  You guys rock!  Thank you for all your support and coming out to watch the team!

If you would like to join us and get insider access to the team, check out our memberships now!

 

1305:  So much signing today – another session just out front of the transporter.  Hope you have packed your sunscreen!

1205: That was a quick practice.

JDub – P3 – 01:09.4594

SVG – P9 – 01:09.6178

 

1140:  JDub is blazing around the track!

1135:  Practice session here we go.

940:  Awesome to see the fans out in force this morning.  Ipswich has brought out the sun and made it a beautiful start to the race weekend.

 

 

0800:  Hello Queensland Raceway!  Let’s get Round 9 started!