1520 So this is how it played out today…
Jamie Whincup – Car #1
Practice 1 – Third (Fastest Time: 1:32.3588)
Practice 2 – 16th (Fastest Time: 1:20.1865)
“It was a semi-productive day today, we all lost practice one due to the weather and so we maximised as much as we could in practice two. The car was really good on old tyres and not very good on new tyres. There’s really no more to extract until we look at the data. It’s not ideal to be sitting sixteenth when we’re on new tyres so we’ve got some work to do unfortunately.“
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
Co-Driver Practice – 10th (Fastest Time: 1:39.1290) *Earl Bamber
Practice 1 – Eighth (Fastest Time: 1:32.7589)
Practice 2 – Fifth (Fastest Time: 1:19.7971)
“Today Earl (Bamber, Car #97 Co-Driver) did the first practice session which was awesome. It was great to have him here, all the way from his base in Kuala Lumpur and he did a stellar job which was good to see. The session I went out in was wet but drying, so we were quite competitive and everyone was just going faster as the track was drying. We weren’t learning too much with car setup so we put Earl back in and he ran that session and he did a good job again. It was good to let him maximise the amount of laps as it was a long trip here for him and he was eighth against the main drivers so he was pretty competitive. The last session was dry but only for a car-width wide, so it was crazy because the track was really fast but you couldn’t afford to make a mistake or you’d go on water. The times were good today, the car feels alright but it’s amazingly close across all of the cars so we need to find that small tenth of a second.”
1435 Practice 2 (final one for today) is underway and the sunshine has come out to play! And thaw out our frozen toes. Let’s see what happens as the track dries up…
1230 Practice 1 for the main drivers begins and about halfway through Earl gets the call-up to jump in the car – a quick outfit change and he’s back in the car.
Look who is back in the car… And who’s out 🧐😎 #VASC #RedBullHolden pic.twitter.com/UScRamcYl3
— Red Bull Holden (@redbullholden) May 18, 2018
1040 Nicely done Earl… Finishes P8 with a best lap time of 1:39.1290.
1015 SVG keeping a close eye on his car… Luckily Earl is doing very well!
SVG watching on as Earl takes his car for a spin. Earl has recorded a purple lap and P1. Good start 👊 #VASC #RedBullHolden pic.twitter.com/Z7llYeB67w
— Red Bull Holden (@redbullholden) May 18, 2018
1005 SVG hands over the keys to his love (car #97) to his newest co-driver Earl Bamber for the first session of the weekend. Earl has flown in from Europe just for the weekend (he’s chosen a good track for it), let’s see how he goes!
0830 We’ve landed in chilly Winton and boy is it chilly! The boys are going to have a tough slog warming up those tyres today…
