BJR to take stock ahead of Race 2 in Newcastle

he Brad Jones Racing team will take stock overnight ahead of the second race in Newcastle after a tough race for the squad.

Andre Heimgartner led the Albury-based team home in seventh, while Bryce Fullwood finished 17th, Macaulay Jones came across the line in 21st and Jack Smith was 23rd.

It was a relatively clean race for three of the four drivers, however Fullwood did have a knock from behind in the opening laps which damaged a bit of his rear bar. 

Fullwood was given a mechanical flag and forced to come to the lane to have the damaged panels removed, which cost the Darwin-native critical time. 

Heimgartner and Jones both experienced issues in the pit stops, fuel flow proved to be somewhat tricky and that problem cost them both time in the lane.

Earlier in the day Heimgartner had made his way through to the Top Ten Shootout by being eighth fastest, however  his 1:12.1424 Shootout lap was slower than his earlier mark of 1:11.7057, but he was still eighth by the end of the session.

Fullwood (#14 Middy’s Electrical) started from 18th while Jones (#96 Pizza Hut) claimed 23rd on the grid, followed by Smith (#4 SCT Logistics) in 25th. 

Supercars are back on track tomorrow for qualifying at 11:15 AEDT.

Super2

Lochie Dalton’s first race on the streets of Newcastle was a learning experience for the Tasmanian, he came home 12th in the Super2 field. 

However Dalton is looking to take lessons from today’s qualifying into tomorrow to set them up with better track position for the second race.

Super2 will be out for their qualifying session at 1025 AEDT. 

What the drivers had to say…

Andre Heimgartner
Supercars Driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro

"Well much like an airplane takes off and goes high and then comes back down we had a good start to the race and then had a bit of a slow pit stop. But had some positive speed throughout the race, finished nice and safely on the ground which is good. Positive, good solid start with seventh, good way to start the year but there's definitely some stuff we can do better tomorrow with a few other things."

Bryce Fullwood
Supercars Driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro

"In Qualifying I unfortunately didn't quite put it together, I feel like we had more potential in the car than what we showed, which made it a little bit harder for us in the race and then got a really good start in the race. And I felt like was in a fairly good position and copped a pretty decent hit from someone in the back at turn two. And then I had to pit quite early because the rear bar was hanging off. And then that meant that my middle stint was really, really long. And so it's a bit unfortunate, because I felt like the last stint we had was actually fairly speedy, but we sort of got forced into pitting really early and so anyway, we learned a lot."

Jack Smith
Supercars Driver, #14 SCT Logistics Camaro

“We’ve had better days on track, it was a difficult race and really wasn’t what we had hoped for. We’ll look at the data tonight and come back with a plan for the second race.”

Macauley Jones
Supercars Driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro

“It was a pretty tough race for the Pizza Hut crew, we had a few issues during both pit stops which cost us a bit of time and hurt our race quite a bit. A bit disappointed at the end of day but we’ll have a look into those pit stop issues overnight and reset for tomorrow.”

Lochie Dalton

Super2 driver

“Qualifying was pretty good the car felt really quick on the roted set of tyres. So they weren't green, and set a banker. And then we put a green set on hoping to improve was looking that way. And then unfortunately it's just a street circuit, big field, caught traffic. So it was pretty frustrating. So we ended up finishing up p13.  We had a pretty strong car throughout the race, and we just couldn't really do too much with it because we just got stuck behind the car in front. I tried to get by him a few times. But we picked up one car because they went in the fence and that was about it.

“I think yeah, we're pretty confident the changes we'll make for quali tomorrow should see us up the field. We just need to be smart for that track position and hopefully we can just get a clean run and and just set ourselves up for this race tomorrow.”