BJR completes four car shakedown at Winton
Brad Jones Racing has wrapped up a faultless four car shakedown at Winton Motor Raceway and is ready to jump into its first full test day tomorrow (Wednesday 15).
The Albury-based squad has worked tirelessly in an effort to get its four new Camaros to the stage where they can make their track debut and it has gone off without a hitch.
Drivers Andre Heimgartner, Macauley Jones, Bryce Fullwood and Jack Smith all turned valuable laps at Winton, gathering data and insight into the Gen3 cars.
While Heimgartner has recent experience in the Camaro from a development session at Queensland Raceway, it had been nearly a year since the other three sat in one of the Gen3 machines.
The earlier part of the day saw each of the drivers venture to the track for the first time for installation runs and systems checks.
As the day wore on drivers undertook longer runs and race simulations as they tuned their Camaros to their own liking, including making ergonomic tweaks.
The focus for tomorrow's test day now turns to refining setups, pit stop practices, and practice starts with the confidence of today’s running behind the team.
The R&J Batteries, SCT Logistics, Pizza Hut and Middy’s Electrical Camaros will be on track at Winton tomorrow from 08:30.
What they had to say…
Andre Heimgartner
Supercars Driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
“A good solid day I guess on our side. So mechanically everything was pretty good and just tuning ergonomics of the car. I struggled generally with a bit of dead leg stuff and discomfort. So first, we're struggling a bit of that, but we've managed to change some things up and make it a lot more comfortable. So that was good. And then at the end of the day, I put some slightly better tyres on and had a bit of a play with setup and stuff. So I think we've got a good direction going into tomorrow. So we'll just have to try and review everything tonight and come up with some ideas.”
Bryce Fullwood
Supercars Driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"Today for us we didn’t get a whole lot of tuning in, it was more about getting the ergonomics right. Just trying to do some sorta general running with the car. We did a lot of changes but they weren’t exactly just performance changes, just sorta learning the car I guess. Tomorrow that will be the goal, try to learn the car a bit better."
Jack Smith
Supercars Driver, #14 SCT Logistics Camaro
“The car looks cool. It felt pretty foreign when we first got in this morning. And you know I was a bit rusty myself, but after half a day of running and getting back into the groove, I think everybody came to grips with the car and obviously a lot more work to do. But as far as the first day goes, it's not too bad.
“I think just trying to work on more performance-related stuff tomorrow. You know, a lot of the day was checking over everything they’re brand new, so it's making sure everything works properly and tomorrow hopefully can be more performance related, focused on going faster.”
Macauley Jones
Supercars Driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
“The day was pretty interesting. Out of the gate I thought - it was a bit daunting, I was the first one out of the fleet which was pretty cool to be the first BJR car out. My initial impression was a bit of a shock to be honest, it wasn’t the nicest feeling thing at the start because it is so different. It’s virtually almost completely different to the ZB that we had been running. It took a little bit to get your head around - event the master cylinders to the throttle throw to seating position was all a bit awkward
Throughout the day we changed a lot of stuff. We did a lot of stuff, we did a race run in the end there as well which was exciting and yeah, I think we learned a lot.
It’s hard to know, when you’ve only got four cars out of the 26 here that we have data from anyway, so competitive-wise we’re not sure where we are. But I felt pretty comfortable in the car, the thing slides around a lot more than what we’ve had in the past which is cool. It’s a very different driving style which is something we’re just trying to get our head around and it’ll take overnight to have a think about it and come back again tomorrow.”