Broc Feeney – Car #88
Practice 1 – Ninth (1:50.4175)
Practice 2 – Fourth (1:48.0406)
Qualifying Race 3 – Eighth (1:49.6600)
Qualifying Race 4 – Third (1:47.3326)
Race 3 – Fourth
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
Practice 1 – Third (1:50.1749)
Practice 2 – DNS
Qualifying Race 3 – Third (1:49.3883)
Qualifying Race 4 – Pole (1:47.2537)
Race 3 – First
Broc Feeney – Car #88
“We realised early today that the cars were going to be pretty wild on the track. We obviously had a mixed tyre compound this weekend, but we’ve had two 30-minute sessions which have been super short, not to mention a couple of red flags in there as well. To see experienced guys like Sladey (Tim Slade) and Shane (van Gisbergen) have some errors makes you realise how tricky this place is. I think we got through both practice sessions really well, we leant quite a bit and we were competitive in both sessions but we certainly realised how challenging the track is. The first qualifying session wasn’t as good because we were struggling for outright pace on the hard tyre, but we were really competitive on the super soft tyres. The hard tyres are a bit more challenging. I had an issue in that session and had a run off, but we were both in the top ten so it was a good result. I managed to get P3 in the second qualifying session which was really good – it was a super close session and it kind of sucks to be on the back end of seven-hundredths, but it’s great to have both cars one-and-three. It was crazy to race on a Thursday on what’s been such a hectic day. At various points tiny showers would pass through and it would get a bit hectic out there, but track position is key. It wasn’t out best qualifying, so we had to try and make our way though and had some decent battles. The team did a great job to jump some spots at the end of the race with our pit stop, so a huge credit to them. We got the fastest lap as well, so an extra five points that’s really handy when you look at the overall result.”
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
My day was anything but straight forward. I made a mistake in the first practice session, and I didn’t know how significant the damage would be until it came back into our garage, but the guys did an amazing job to fix the car. I was helping pull the car apart and I learnt just how different this car is – there were so many little parts of the car that were just wrecked. We had a couple of good qualifying sessions, and then in the race we were really starting in the unknown. After last year’s debacle with the soft tyres, it was surprising that the super soft was such a good tyre – I didn’t think it would be. It was quite interesting how that played out and it was actually a good race tyre. I hope we have some great racing over the next three days. Everyone played the safe option today with the super soft tyres, and tomorrow hopefully there will be people with various strategies. I’m on pole for tomorrow’s race, and obviously the softs are the preferred tyre, but if the safety car comes out then you’re stuffed, but if you start on a hard tyre, the guy in 20th position could pass you within two laps. We have a hard decision to make tomorrow.”
