The Tasmanian rain couldn’t hold Lowndesy back today as he overcame a tough second practice session to finish third fastest.
The heavens were open for the entirety of the first hour-long session, giving the Red Bull drivers a chance to test their VF Holdens in the wet, but dry running in Practice Two saw the field running on a mixture of tyres.
“There’s not really anything major to report from today, we just went round and round trying to find a balance. We don’t know what tyres people are on,” said Jamie, who finished the two sessions fifth and 16th respectively.
“We assume we’re better than 16th, but there’s no stress at all. Everything’s under control, we’re just trying to find a balance.
“They’re predicting the weather is going to be dry for the weekend, so hopefully we don’t have to use the wet knowledge we got in first practice, but it was good to run the car in the wet as we haven’t done much wet weather driving.”
Craig, who finished the first session in 11th, looked to have the toughest time on track of anyone in Practice Two, struggling to keep the No.888 Commodore out of the grass and gravel as the surface resembled an ice rink more closely than a race track. Despite these troubles, however, Lowndesy’s wings came out on his final run and he finished third.
“We were just trying some things today,” he said. “The car wasn’t pretty into turns one and six, which is where we went off at both ends, plus the oil into four made things tricky.
“We weren’t too stressed as the car’s good and fast when you put the sectors together. The bad thing is that we didn’t put soft tyres on, so we’ll see what Sunday brings. The tyres for the last run were used, but in good nick, so it’s encouraging being the fastest car on hard tryes today.
“The car was nice, but when you’re pushing the limits round here it’s very easy to go over the line and luckily we didn’t beach it. It was frustrating, hitting oil wasn’t where I wanted to be, but it’s the way it is sometimes when you’re pushing the limits.”
Tomorrow’s action gets underway at 11:20am local time with another practice session, followed by two 60km races from 3:15pm. Check your local telecast schedules here.
