We’re two race meetings down and going into our third this weekend, our new supercar has done some pretty good work for us, three out of six wins – not too bad.
It’s all looking cheery from the outside but are we really cheering?
As a street circuit, the Adelaide 500 provided little in the way of showing the all-new Commodore’s aerodynamic capacity, aside from the clean sweep from Shane “SVG” van Gisbergen – and we’re not sure why he is so good there, but we like it!
From there, the crew looked ahead to the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, a track where the aero package has more of an influence on the overall performance of the car.
And as it seems, we must be doing something right considering Holden teams claimed two poles and three wins all up – although Ford is hot on our tails with two poles themselves.
READ MORE: Why Tassie is anyone’s race
Reflecting on the season so far, albeit only two race meetings down, car #1 Race Engineer, and the guy in charge of developing the shiny new aero package, David Cauchi is happy, but not completely happy.
“On the car #1 side of the garage, we’re happy with our qualifying setup but never really found the sweet spot in race trim,” said Cauchi.
“It’s important to be quick in qualifying but racing is what scores points, so we have some work to do.”
This year, the aero package has a large influence on the mechanical setup which adds a new realm to their normal role as a race engineer – because they don’t already do enough… 😉
“That is something the team is still getting their heads around,” continued Cauchi.
“The ZB package has helped us in working towards curing a few aspects of the car’s performance that were not ideal with the VF2.
“It’s allowing us to explore some new setup windows that we previously couldn’t make work for one reason or another, it’s very exciting for us.”
READ MORE: Why Dutto doesn’t think it’s perfect yet
So, two events in, are we set to blitz the field from now until Newcastle?
“There is a lot more to learn. You never stop learning in motorsport and this year we have a new aero package and tyre compared to last year, so we are on a very steep learning curve right now,” said Cauchi.
“It’s a good challenge for all of the engineers and drivers and it will push everyone to learn and develop quickly.
“We have only just begun.”
Yep, after months and months of work, we’re still just at the beginning but that’s motorsport, and that’s why we have such a good bunch of legends between us, they just don’t stop.
