Broc Feeney – Car #88
Practice 1 – 20th (1:13.5803)
Practice 2 – Third (1:12.8722) Practice 3 – 16th (1:12.0274)
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
Practice 1 – 10th (1:13.0103)
Practice 2 – First (1:12.7555)
Practice 3 – Second (1:11.4625)
Broc Feeney – Car #88
“We had a mixed day today. It’s great to be back on the streets of Newcastle, and to finally see the cars on track after the mammoth effort the crews have put into building them is pretty cool. I felt like we built up throughout the day and we finished the second session well – in the top three. We then did a longer run in the third practice session, but we didn’t really get it right towards the end of the session, so we have a few things to work on overnight. Shane (van Gisbergen) is quick so we can obviously look at his data and see where we can improve for tomorrow. I think Marty (Short, #88 Race Engineer) and I are always working hard to make the car better, but we also have to work closely with Shane and Andrew (Edwards) and the rest of the team throughout the year to make sure we get these cars competitive. We’ve got no previous data on these cars, so we’re just trying to learn and make changes and figure out what works. I think we’ve all had to step up in ourselves a bit this year to make sure we get on top of everything nice and quick.”
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97
“Firstly, it’s so good to be back here in Newcastle – what a place! The track was quite difficult when we first got out there and I felt like a bit of a wobbler for the first few laps and having a few dramas which was really tough. Over the course of the day, I started to get a handle of everything. I had a longer run in the final practice session today and felt like we were getting better and better. I noticed that there were a few drivers struggling out there – there were some instances where drivers couldn’t see me and almost turned into me which was pretty difficult, but everyone has the same problems. It’s been awesome working with Andrew (Edwards, #97 Race Engineer) and coming up with plans for how we’ll approach each session. Last year he was sort of tuning a pretty finely-tuned race car at tracks when we got there, so this year is a real fresh challenge for both of us but it’s quite exciting. We’ll see how good the car really is and how good I am working with him, but it’s really cool so far.”
