Jamie Whincup – Car #88
Qualifying, Race 30 – Seventh (1:44.7127)
Race 30 – Race abandoned
Championship standings – Second (2479 points)
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
Qualifying, Race 30 – Second (1:44.2694)
Race 30 – Race abandoned
Championship standings – First (2828 points)
Jamie Whincup – Car #88
“It was a hectic day today. We were quick in the wet, but I locked a wheel in qualifying in treacherous conditions and ended up flying off at turn one and collecting the fence. Luckily, I hit side on, even though it was a big impact inside the car, but the impact distributed to the whole side of the car so the damage wasn’t so bad. The boys and girls at Red Bull Ampol Racing did a good job to replace the side of the car and got me out for the shootout. I’ve got to go back to racing go karts in Ballarat to think of worse conditions then today – it hasn’t stopped raining all day. I feel for our fan base as well. We’re not used to abandoned races here in Australia. NASCAR or drag racing or speedway fans are used to it because it happens all the time, but not in Supercars. I feel for the fans but at the end of the day it was the right call to make. We’ve all been away for so long, and we have the biggest race of the year in two weeks’ time so the last thing we needed was a couple of binned cars and make life harder for the crew. Congratulations to SVG (Shane van Gisbergen) as well. I think we were one-three in the Sydney Cup which was fantastic, and we couldn’t have asked for anything more over the last four weeks. Now we go into Bathurst and do what we can to finish the year off.”
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
“It’s still pretty fresh and the feeling of it all hasn’t really sunk in, but it’s been an awesome year. We’ve had some challenges, some ups and downs, but we’ve come here to Sydney with a plan with and we’ve pretty much executed that plan at every race. We’ve been super consistent and did what we needed to do, and overall, it’s been an awesome year. I obviously had some challenges earlier in the year breaking myself, but the car has been fantastic, the team has been fantastic, and I’m super stoked with everything. Although Sydney Motorsport Park isn’t my favourite track, it’s been cool that we’ve been able to come here and we’ve been well accommodated here. The facilities are awesome, and it’s been a great home base for the guys prepping the cars every week, so I appreciate what the staff have done for us over the last four weeks. Our race pace was always good, but we could never qualify well, but we executed our plans and ended up with the most points over the last four weeks which is awesome. We can now look forward to Bathurst with a weight off our shoulders and give it a red-hot crack to win the biggest race of the year.”
