Broc Feeney/Jamie Whincup – Car #88
Practice 1 – Seventh (2:05.3484)
Practice 2 (co-drivers only) – Third (2:04.4477)
Shane van Gisbergen/Garth Tander – Car #97
Practice 1 – Sixth (2:05.3245)
Practice 2 (co-drivers only) – First (2:04.1359)
Broc Feeney – Car #88
“It’s been a pretty good day. I think we’re all surprised that we got some dry running in both sessions, but I hate talking about the weather because that’s all that everyone’s taking about at the moment. In saying that, it’s possibly our last dry running before the race, but overall it was a pretty decent day. I managed to get P7 for myself in Practice 1 and JDub (Jamie Whincup) was P3 in the co-driver session, so the car is almost where we need it to be. Our biggest focus is trying to get as many laps in as possible and try to get an understanding of the track as well. The times were very fast for a Thursday, so there’s some super quick times, but we have some stuff to work on. The co-driver times today were seriously impressive. Garth (Tander) rolled out with a 2:04.1 on one of his first laps, so it seems the track is really quick but also everyone has improved so much and the cars are getting better.”
Jamie Whincup – Car #88
“It was an up-and-down session for us. I don’t think we’re as quick as the other car in our garage, and also our sister car at PremiAir Racing (Subway Racing) was very fast this morning as well. I think there’s a bit of learning for us to do to get the #88 car a bit quicker. It’s the same car as what I had last year, but Broc (Feeney) has changed the ergonomics quite a lot and I’ve had to consume myself in co-driver life where everything isn’t perfect and you can’t have the car exactly the way you like it, but that’s the way it goes. I just have to do my role this week and hand the car over to Broc to come home strong. The further up the grid I can hand the car over then the better, but it’s my job to support Broc.”
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
“We’ve had a good first day. It was nice to have some dry running because we didn’t expect it when we had our briefings yesterday. The forecast early this week said it would be raining for all four days, so to get those laps in the dry conditions was nice. Overall, it was a good positive day, but we have to remember it’s only Thursday. It was a strange thing that our car never saw a wet tyre all day though. As I said, early signs are looking good, but it’s never good to be happy on Thursday. There’s still a long way to go before Sunday’s race, and we have no idea what weather will be thrown our way.”
Garth Tander – Car #97
“The car has been really nice today, and the track is really fast. There’s a bit of epoxy on the track that’s being spread around and it’s quite inconsistent. We still have a few things we want to improve with the car to make it better. We ran a few different set ups during Practice 2, and tomorrow will be about fine-tuning our ideal set up. I feel very comfortable in the car, especially up the top of the mountain, and overall, I’m really happy with the start we’ve had. There’s some slow-speed areas of the car we want to improve without hurting the high-speed areas, and there’s some high-speed things we want to improve without hurting the low-speed. We managed to collect a heap of information tonight so we’ll make some changes overnight and hopefully roll out fast tomorrow.”
